A faculty member who is infrequently on campus and teaching completely remotely tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, according to an email sent Thursday morning to the Bowdoin community from COVID-19 Resource Coordinator Mike Ranen. The individual is the first faculty member and the second College employee to test positive since the beginning of the semester.

In yesterday morning’s email, Ranen wrote that, through contact tracing, the College determined that the faculty member had not come into close contact with any students or other employees. In a follow-up email sent hours later on Thursday night, however, Ranen wrote that the College learned that the faculty member had come into close contact with another employee on campus on Tuesday.

The original faculty member is asymptomatic and is isolating at home. The other employee is also asymptomatic and is currently quarantined.

In the second email, Ranen also brought attention to Governor Janet Mills’s recent executive order requiring that masks be worn in all public places, including outdoors and when staying six feet or more from others.

“The governor’s order recognizes that cases of COVID-19 are escalating rapidly in Maine … Maine reported 183 new cases of the disease today, compared with a seven-day daily average of about thirty-two cases a day last month,” wrote Ranen. “With just sixteen days to go before most students on campus depart for the semester, it will be through physical distancing, wearing face coverings and proper hygiene that we give ourselves the best chance of getting safely to November 21.”