Notice

May 12th, 2021

Dear New York Film Academy-South Beach Students, Faculty, and Staff

I am writing with an update on our plans for the Fall Semester. We are pleased to see that an increasing number of our community have been vaccinated against Covid-19 and with vaccinations increasingly available to all, we are hopeful that life on our campuses this Fall will be much more like before the pandemic. As we previously announced, our plan is to return everyone to in-person, on-campus learning at all NYFA campuses, however, this goal is dependent on a concerted effort on all of us to get vaccinated. We will take advantage of the Zoom platform for many meetings and individual consultations, however, classes and production are being planned to be primarily in-person.

To help make this possible, NYFA strongly urges all students, faculty and staff on the South Beach campus to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible and before Fall Semester classes begin, with exceptions for medical and religious reasons. We believe this is the best way to ensure the health and safety of everyone on campus. If our population is fully vaccinated, we will be able to relax many of the restrictions we currently employ. If our population is not fully vaccinated we will have to maintain current mitigation measures to protect the health, safety, and well-being of our students, faculty and staff. We will work with students traveling from areas where a vaccine is not available to help them get vaccinated locally before classes begin.

As a reminder of the Fall semester calendar, classes commence on August 30th, 2021. New students will receive a schedule of orientation activities which occur the week of August 23rd from their campus and departments. Requirements regarding proof of vaccination and any pre-entry Covid testing requirements will be communicated as well over the coming months.

We will base safety protocols for the Fall on NYFA policy, local, and state guidelines. Masks, physical distancing and other common safety measures to lower risk of infection will be determined as we near the start of the semester and will depend heavily on our rate of vaccination of our students, faculty, and staff. As always, our planning is based on science-driven data and predicated upon local, state and federal public health guidelines which are reviewed by NYFA’s Covid Task Force and medical consultant Dr. Peter Bloland, formerly of the CDC. As such, plans are subject to change depending on the conditions this Fall, for which NYFA is well-prepared.

Throughout the challenges of this past year we have endured, and by working together and caring for each other we have thrived and shown that the NYFA community can overcome the most challenging obstacles. And so we are now thrilled at the prospect of returning to the richness of in-person working and learning, creating and collaborating together as storytellers and artists. We look forward with enthusiasm and optimism to welcoming our new and continuing students back to campus fully in the Fall. As we continue to plan, we will keep you updated on new developments.

Looking Forward,

Michael Young
President
New York Film Academy