Barnard’s COVID-19 Testing Program

Barnard has established a robust and independent COVID-19 surveillance testing program to help monitor and manage the health of our campus.

Currently, enrolled students and employed faculty and staff who access the campuses and facilities of Barnard are required to participate in Barnard’s COVID-19 surveillance testing program. 

Surveillance testing is only for asymptomatic (no symptoms and not sick) community members. Students with symptoms of COVID-19 should consult Barnard’s Primary Care Health Service (PCHS) for evaluation and possible testing. If indicated, faculty and staff should be seen and tested off-campus and can consider non-Barnard locations for COVID-19 testing. 

Accessing Columbia's Campus: All those accessing Columbia’s campus (faculty, students and staff) will need to complete the Columbia screening app ReopenCU, which is different from Barnard’s app.

Columbia University members accessing Barnard’s campus: Barnard recognizes the ReopenCU app as the screening tool for Columbia University, permitting Columbia University constituents with a green pass to access the Barnard campus and prohibiting those with a red pass from accessing the Barnard campus.

Testing Program Requirements for Students, Faculty and Staff

Only PCR tests may be used to fulfill Barnard testing requirements

• Residential students must test every 2 weeks (within 14 days) 
• Faculty, staff, and non-residential students must test monthly (every 4 weeks)
• Testing requirements can be satisfied through either use of Color (Barnard’s drop-off testing platform) OR through a non-Barnard location
• Non-Barnard PCR tests must be uploaded into CoVerified to be accepted for Barnard’s testing requirements; instructions on uploading non-Barnard tests are here.
• These linked non-Barnard resources may have an associated cost. Please verify this information with your third-party testing provider before scheduling your test.

**The on-campus Color testing option may only be used for asymptomatic testing**
 
More information about testing requirements, Color testing platform, and FAQs are available in the Barnard On-Campus COVID-19 Testing Information document. 

Contact phrt@barnard.edu if you have any questions.

Members of the Barnard community must complete the following steps to access the CoVerified App, Barnard's daily screening tool:

Faculty & Staff

• Sign the 2022-2023 Barnard Community Pledge.
• Faculty: Faculty members complete Columbia's RASCAL training and provide their completion certificate to Human Resources. Please send a copy of your completed RASCAL certificate to the Office of Human Resources (hr@barnard.edu).
• Staff: Review the safety training: COVID-19 Training: Working Safely at Barnard College and Columbia University

Students

• Sign the 2022-2023 Barnard Community Pledge.
• Complete any required health and safety training

• Barnard provides all on-campus, required surveillance testing at no cost to faculty, staff or students.
• Barnard’s testing protocols are built around polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which have been referred to as the “gold standard” of testing. On-campus tests use an anterior nasal collection, which uses a short, Q-tip-like swab to collect a sample just above the nostrils. Tests will be processed by the Clinical Research Sequencing Platform in partnership with the Broad Institute. The estimated turnaround time is approximately 48 hours from collection. 
• Those participating in the testing program must get tested on a regular schedule basis as a means of monitoring the health of the immediate community. Adjustments to the frequency of our testing will be based on considerations such as the infection rate both at Barnard and in New York City.
• Individuals will be able to view their personal test results on CoVerified as soon as they are posted by the lab.
• Accessing Columbia’s campus: Those students planning to access Columbia’s facilities at any point:
  • Are required to participate in Barnard’s testing program. 
  • Tests are for asymptomatic students only; students with symptoms of COVID-19 or who otherwise feel sick should consult Barnard’s Primary Care Health Services (PCHS) for evaluation and possible testing.
• Regular testing is required; students cannot have a single standalone test or elect to test only during select weeks.
• The results of our community testing as aggregate information are available on the College’s COVID-19 Dashboard, including the number of tests weekly and the percentage of positive test results
• Additionally, all faculty, staff and students should update the College if they have experienced symptoms of COVID-19, possibly been exposed to COVID-19, or test positive for COVID-19 via a non-Barnard test at any point by uploading their test to CoVerified.