Colleges left bare; housing empties
Some students plan to remain
FAYETTEVILLE — Some students cited jobs keeping them in town. Others said they wanted at least some semblance of college life.
But students still living in residence halls on the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville campus as of Monday also said they were among only a few making the choice to stay on campus after in-person classes were suspended Thursday.
“I can probably count on my hands how many people are left on my floor,” said Colin Donart, a freshman from Austin, Texas, describing how maybe 100 students lived on his floor of the Maple Hill residence hall before the coronavirus concerns.
Residence halls, Greek houses and dining services remained open at UA-Fayetteville on Monday, but while the state’s largest public universities have kept campus housing open, several private colleges in the state announced last week that they will quickly be closing dorms as coursework moves to remote instruction done online.
John Brown University President Chip Pollard on Thursday announced the closure of on-campus housing through the end of the spring semester to all but a few students, citing the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We have made this decision because the CDC suggests limiting indoor spaces in which large groups can gather, such as residential facilities and dining halls, because these areas present a greater risk of transmission,” Pollard wrote in a message to the campus.
The private Christian college in Siloam Springs had 826 students in on-campus housing earlier this spring,
including 212 in its largest residence, the women-only dorm, Mayfield Hall, said John Brown spokeswoman Julie Gumm.
Tracey Lorentzen spoke while on the road from North Carolina to pick up her son Andrew, a junior graphic design student at John Brown, describing how she agreed with the reasons laid out for the dorm closures.
“I feel like they made a very reasonable decision,” Lorentzen said while making the 19-hour trip by car. “I feel like they informed the parents and the students as well as they possibly could.”
The university offered to answer questions from parents after announcing the residence hall closures, which at first had been set for Saturday before being moved up to Monday.
“I did submit a question and got an email back within hours, so it’s been a very smooth process for our family,” Lorentzen said.
John Brown University on its website says students from 39 states and more than 50 countries enrolled last year, and Pollard’s message Thursday said the university would consider “extenuating circumstances” for students with difficulty leaving the campus.
Gumm said Monday that the university expects fewer than 50 students to remain on campus.
Hendrix College, a private liberal arts college in Conway, on Friday announced that it was closing its housing Monday but granted an extension until Saturday to all students who formally requested extra time to move out, said Amy Forbus, communications director for the college.
She said about 1,100 students had been living on campus, with about 325 requesting at least some extra time to move out, Forbus said.
The college “wanted to emphasize the urgency of the CDC recommendation to practice social distancing,” Forbus said. “Our primary concern was the proximity of students living in residence halls, sharing bathrooms and dining together.”
When asked if a closure to residence halls is being considered, UA spokesman Mark Rushing said in an email that the university is “continually assessing the situation as we monitor developments nationally and within the state.”
On the UA campus, students still in housing there Monday described some changes to the dining routine. They said food service no longer was self-serve, with dining hall workers handling the serving.
“I don’t know that it necessarily makes me feel any more or less safe. But I think that the university is doing it to try to make it more safe, which I appreciate,” Brock Hatfield, 18, from Fayetteville said.
Rushing described several steps taken by dining services provider Chartwells, including to “continuously” disinfect tables, the removal of “community-serve” items like ketchup packets and a plan to remove some tables “to allow people to distance themselves from others while eating.” In residence halls, hand sanitizer stations have been added while “staff continues to deep clean, sanitize and disinfect all our facilities regularly,” Rushing said.
Another large public university, Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, on Monday announced that its dorms would stay open even as faculty and staff members begin Wednesday working remotely “as much as possible.”
Occupancy in Arkansas Tech dorms was down to nearly 600 students from a “regular occupancy” of about 2,700 students, and a large majority of students staying cited work responsibilities and a need for internet access, Associate Dean for Residence Life Delton Gordon said in a statement.
The university’s Chartwells dining services has temporarily switched to single-use cups, plates and utensils, among other changes, Arkansas Tech stated in its announcement.
On the UA campus, Donart, the freshman from Texas, said he was prepared to drive home but was staying on campus to try to focus on his studies.
“I feel like if I went home right now it’s going to be like some sort of early summer break. I just wouldn’t get anything done,” Donart, 19, said.
Jesus Fernandezdelara, 20, said he needs to work to continue to stay in school.
“I just can’t get up and leave campus and go home when I have a job here,” said Fernandezdelara, a first-year transfer student studying biology. He said his hometown of Green Forest, roughly 60 miles away by car, would make commuting to his retail job off-campus too difficult.
Fernandezdelara said his roommate in Walton Hall has already left, estimating that maybe 10% of people in his residence hall remained.
Data on checkouts provided Monday by UA-Fayetteville, however, showed far fewer students to have formally left UA-operated residences.
“We’ve had 664 checkouts this year after the announcement of online classes. That is roughly 13 percent of the total 4,950 students living with us this semester,” UA spokesman Christopher Spencer said in an email Monday.
Spokeswomen for private universities John Brown and Hendrix College said details had yet to be announced but that student accounts would receive some financial credit because of the housing closures.
Ouachita Baptist University — which has said it hopes to resume on-campus classes this semester — is not, for now, offering any refunds to students who left to return home, a spokeswoman said.
The university in Arkadelphia last week told students to leave campus housing by last Sunday , with some exceptions to be granted. Spokeswoman Brooke Zimny said 1,360 students were in campus housing at the end of February.
“In addition to the university’s ongoing operational costs, new and unplanned expenses will likely arise. As such, no refunds can be made at this time for tuition, fees, room and board,” Zimny said in an email, also noting that while online instruction could be extended, for now April 13 is the planned date to resume on-campus courses.
“At the end of the semester, Ouachita will evaluate if savings exist that can be refunded to student accounts,” Zimny said, but added that “we anticipate costs will exceed savings.”
John Brown University on its website says students from 39 states and more than 50 countries enrolled last year, and Pollard’s message Thursday said the university would consider “extenuating circumstances” for students with difficulty leaving the campus.