Classes do not start until September 9th. Northeastern staggered move ins and this was orientation period. The Westin is being used for student housing.
NUin is a sort of probationary period for mostly full pay kids who don’t get into Northeastern right away but really want to attend; for Northeastern they can fill in the summer melt+early drop outs spots in the Spring without dinging their rankings. In the past, their contract was that they had to pass their special NUin classes AND respect behavior clauses in order to be admitted to the NU community in the spring (ie., having noise complaints reporting you to the gardaì for loud drunken parties in the Dublin complex would jeopardize your ability to enroll in the Spring. Kids being sent home also lost their NUin programming fee in past years.) I assume the same rules apply here. I agree it’s very steep. They could have lost their Spring enrollment though. Some families may decide it’s not worth it though.
No one is letting their guard down or being “premature” by pointing out low numbers. The state still has a mask mandate in place, and social distancing guidelines regarding crowds. Of course, there are always people who break the rules, but I generally see compliance. We know how easily the trend can reverse, and what needs to be done. We just need to keep doing it. I think that’s what you just saw with NEU suspending students, and part of the reason Harvard and MIT are keeping most students home.
After what MA went through in April and May, I don’t think it’s wrong to feel good about getting our transmission rate down. Those of us who lived through the lockdown and knew people who suffered through the virus (some even dying), are appreciative of a bit of positivity.
But, I also realize this thread regularly takes issue with any good news. Silly me for forgetting and posting our low number…
Today is day 12 of universal mandatory quarantine for all Colgate University students living on and off campus (day 14 for D as she moved in early as a CL). Currently the school is at the most restricted level of Gate 0 - set quarantine guidelines, restricted social distancing within family units and extended families following wearing of facial masks and physical distance of at least 6 ft in shared or common rooms, no cross hall or cross residence visitation, supervised, scheduled and structured outdoor activities and individually packaged meal deliveries or grocery deliveries.
The school has a very detailed plan for safely re-opening this fall. Its comprehensive just like I assume most schools of similar standing.
But not all plans are fool proof as this is an ever changing dynamic in our current pandemic reality. It also tests the ability of students to adhere to commitments agreed upon prior to moving in to campus. This is the most challenging aspect to making any plans a success. It’s the behavior of each and everyone that will make or break the most laid plans. Currently the school has 30 students with active infection (1.1% infection rate of 2,707 student pop.), 0.0% infection rate for employees (of 1,194) with a combined 0.8% infection rate. I am curious to see how it will be in the next couple of days as the school end the quarantine on Sept 8 (depending on their 20 metrics).
AMA COVID-19 daily video update: One university’s science-based approach to in-person classes. https://youtu.be/Q4CCF9J2fgU
There are still students (unfortunately mostly freshmen) who continue to violate the guidelines- from not wearing masks when applicable, social distancing, misuse of common rooms in terms of the number of students allowed in one area, cross visits beyond extended families (other floors, same bldg), and unsurprisingly, involving alcohol. The community leaders have been very busy the past few days. The leaders have the added responsibility of making sure to remind students of the commitment they all signed. Those who break the rules are warned and subsequently written up. Some lost their privilege to be be on campus by partying and were sent home the following day. There are two of these situations in just the past week. One would think it will send a signal to others to be mindful of their actions and adhere to set protocols. And yet, there are still noncompliant students and think it’s a joke or laughing matter. This is worrisome. I am hoping that the school will be one of the many colleges who opted to open this fall that will have a positive outcome. Let us see in the next few weeks if they make it or break it.
Fortune magazine today has an article “This Elite College is Building a Covid Bubble” on Amherst College’s ambitious efforts to keep the virus at bay. The article compares the Amherst campus map (linked in the article) with quarantine perimeter marked in red where students are not permitted beyond to something out of a zombie movie like I Am Legend.
That is so disappointing about Colgate. Big plans. Not that much different that Amherst. There should be ZERO cases at Colgate right now. I don’t see how they will get past Gate 0. How can kids just blatantly ignore the rules? I think most kids live on campus so I assume these are kids in dorms? If so, I would think there would be some social pressure to knock it off so they can all leave quarantine. Compare Colgate with 30 cases to Bates and Bowdoin and Amherst with two. (And one of Bowdoin’s cases was discovered en route to the college so they only have one case with a test done at the college.)
Maybe that says something about the party culture at Colgate versus the others?
Kids at Amherst knew what they were signing off on and, after seeing the joke going on at other colleges, their plan looks pretty good to me. No one was forced to go. Students could study from home if they preferred.
I’m not sure of the cause, but it’s definitely noteworthy. Since having students return 3 weeks ago, Hamilton has had zero positive cases on campus. All class years were invited back, and they have students in both singles and doubles. Dining halls are open, and many classes are in-person. They are a mere 20-30 minutes from Colgate, so both are isolated and should be able to create bubbles. I’m hopeful Colgate’s numbers will drop soon.
Wow. Dining is open? By appointment? And classes in person? How are they doing that? Are they distanced in class? Bowdoin is saying they just don’t have enough classrooms to have in person class right now. If they did, they’d have to have class into the evenings and on weekends in order to break up into small enough groups. They don’t have many classrooms for 25-30 kids where they can sit far enough apart.
It’s really interesting to know at what point and where they got infected. Most of the students are asymptomatic. This is also the third round of testing. Prior to move in students did an at home testing, then within 24 hours of move in and last is 7-10 days into quarantine. I think the total positive is a rolling average since last week there were only 23 students plus 4 staff then this week a total of 30 students (meaning 7 new cases, with 0 staff). Majority of students are complying but there is this small group of kids who feels entitled and privileged and is causing one or two of the metrics to shift to the right- student compliance to commitment and quarantine/isolation because of non-compliance.
Like I said I want the school to succeed but it has to be a community effort. As long as there are students who continue to ignore the rules, the herculean effort by the school and village of Hamilton will just go to waste and lead to closing of in person classes and revert back to remote learning shutting down the school for the fall semester.
Have classes begun at Colgate? What you describe as Gate-0 at Colgate is status quo at Wesleyan. Remote classes started last Monday and some mixture of in-person and hybrid will commence next week. Really, the only difference between “regular” life at Wesleyan and quarantine is that the students can leave their rooms and venture as far as downtown (AFAIK, it’s the only NESCAC that permits its students to go off-campus.)
I hope so too as I am local and works at one of the area hospitals. Currently we are down to just 2 covid19 patients at two campuses as of yesterday afternoon.
@homerdog Not all classes are in-person. Some are hybrid or remote. D20 is lucky that 3 out of 4 of her courses are in-person. It may be because they are small classes anyway. I’m not sure what’s happening with some of the larger intro courses. The students in her classes are distanced, and there is an added air filtration unit at the front of the classroom. One of her courses meets 2X/week: one day indoors, and the other in an outdoor tent. This means that they are subject to the weather though. That course moved to Zoom the other day because there were thunderstorms/lightening in the area on the day they were assigned the tent. lol.
They do have some Saturday classes to help spread things out. One of her classes has two Saturday morning meetings this semester, but that’s it. And as I mentioned, one course meets inside one day, and outside the other. There are a few courses that meet a bit later in the day, but her latest ends at 4 pm. Fall break has been eliminated, and they do not get holidays off.
Dining is open, but also arranged for social distancing. This means less tables and chairs. There is plexiglass on the tables so if you are eating with someone not in your “pod” you still have a barrier. It’s first come, first served, so not everyone is able to grab a spot inside. D usually prefers eating with her friends outside on the Adirondack chairs or on the grass anyway, so she never has a problem. She mentioned everyone hit dining at the same time the first week, but then realized it was better to stagger a bit. Hamilton has 20 canopies spread out over campus for dining, classes, and office hours. The gym equipment was in its own large tent so the students could exercise, but it’s been moved back inside since they have 3 weeks with zero transmissions. (D informs me the equipment is also distanced, with increased filtration units in the rooms.) They really did a great job utilizing their outdoor spaces. This is certainly an advantage of being in a rural environment with land.
Of course, this is fall. The season changes quickly in upstate NY. Colder air moves in soon. They anticipate needing to take the canopies down by mid-late October. Not sure what they do then. My guess is she will have one day in-person, and the outdoor day will be moved to Zoom.
ETA: Hamilton “asks students not to leave campus unless it is essential.” It’s an all-residential college anyway, and first years cannot have cars. I have no idea how many are venturing into town. The college has plans to bring local vendors to campus throughout the semester.
Colgate should have tested kids on arrival and then again way sooner than 7-10 days after that. That might explain the difference. Kids likely brought the virus to campus but weren’t showing positive on drop off day. If Colgate tested them after two or three more days, they would maybe have caught some cases and kept them away from everyone else. The number maybe bloomed to 30 because some kids were contagious after their initial negative test and then those kids infected more kids if they were breaking the rules. So, more testing is better for keeping levels low. Some NESCACs are testing three times a week for the first few weeks so that means positive cases are found early and swept into isolation before there are too many days they are contagious.
Oh, that’s so interesting. @ChemAM and I went back and forth several times about where those tents would wind up. Turns out we were both wrong: nothing on the football field or in the wildlife sanctuary. I was surprised by the number of NESCACs that still found it difficult to de-densify classroom space even after years of construction projects.
Also I think over all the majority of residents from the villages, towns and cities within the CNY are complying with mask coverings. I haven’t seen any single person in the mall, groceries, offices, clinics and other public areas were people are not wearing mask ever since Gov. Cuomo required it in spring. Our school district is doing remote until October and will be re-evaluated if safe to proceed to hybrid classes or not.
There are schools that have returned to class successfully. Florida Tech had move in Aug 11, classes started Aug 18. I’m not sure how many kids are on campus this fall but they usually about 3500 on campus. They’ve posted pictures of the lecture rooms with every other seat blocked off, everyone wearing masks, and of course a lot of plexiglass installed in labs, the dining hall, and maker spaces. I think the main dining area is open but that they’ve taken the self serve stations out and now everything is being served. They have a lot of food stations like a grill, a sandwich station, hot entrees, salads, etc.
They had 4 cases in week one, 2 in week two, and 1 this week.
The students aren’t segregated from the town. About half the students live off campus. Almost all students who live on campus have single bedrooms in suite style dorms (not a covid thing, that’s just how the dorms were designed). Even in the Greek Village, everyone has his/her own room (even bathroom) but share cooking space and a lounge area. Greek Village is owned by the university and about 4 miles from campus.
Son’s school still has zero cases. Keeping fingers crossed. He is having a “somewhat” normal experience as his classes are all hybrid so in person at least 1-2x a week. Dining hall is open at reduced capacity. Gym is open. No D1 or intramural but there are club sports. Sounds like a lot of kids are playing outside games and hiking (there’s a mountain across the street). CT case count is low, and I think that is helping. Kids seem to be following rules for the most part/haven’t heard of any that violated them.
RIT, on the other hand, their cases are low but their dashboard is not as detailed (and transparent) as other bigger schools. Based on the dashboard, there are only a total of 4 students, and 1 employee positive for the virus since opening Aug. 19. Over the past two weeks, the school has 3 students and 1 employee designated as new cases. On and off campus information for quarantine is 1 (on), 5 (off), isolation 0 (on), 1 (off) campus.
The school is doing comprehensive randomized surveillance testing. Students are randomly picked, tested at no cost for students and testing goes to Broad Inst. Also just like other schools, they are doing waste water surveillance testing. As a matter of fact, one of the dormitories, the Nathaniel Rochester Hall, the school detected a possible presence of the virus in waste water. All students and employees from the hall are being tested. From what I heard, those who were tested are given bracelets so security can screen residents as they enter the bldg from their classes or coming from dinning halls around campus.
My son who lives on one of the on campus apartments said that security have been checking the apartment complex. His apt was checked two weeks ago. He moved in a week early since we didn’t get the chance to do the tour nor there was an in person orientation. So far moving to campus is working out for him. I hope the school can keep the infection low.
I want the schools to succeed in controlling the spread of virus within their community. It will be a combined effort for everyone. I worry for my two kids but I trust their judgment and hopefully both will stay safe and healthy. Colgate and RIT plan to hold continuous classes until the week before Thanksgiving. Students are not allowed to leave campus except during emergencies.
With regard to the Colgate cases- anyone know if the majority of cases were in the dorms or in the off campus houses or Greek life houses? Seems like at a lot of schools with outbreaks it is the Greek houses where the spread happened.