UD STUDENTS BACK IN CLASSROOMS
About 40% of classes back; cases far down from August peak.
The University of Dayton held in-person classes for the first time on Wednesday since the spring, when COVID-19 became a pandemic and Gov. Mike DeWine ordered all schools to shut down face-to-face instruction.
About 40 percent of classes — some 820 classes, primarily labs, studio and clinical programs — held face-to-face instructions, Associate Provost for Faculty and Administrative Affairs Carolyn Roecker Phelps said. The institution’s leaders continue to discuss when to bring the remaining 60% of classes back on campus for in-person instructions, she said.
“We are definitely happy to have the students back,” Phelps said.
The university had planned to return to in-person learning in August. Then a sudden outbreak of coronavirus cases days before classes were to begin led UD President Eric Spina to suspend face-to-face learning for two weeks. Instead, all classes were held remotely until this week.
The outbreak likely happened because some students violated the university’s safety protocol by having large gatherings, not wearing masks and failing to practice physical distancing, officials have said. About a dozen students who violated the safety protocols
were banned from campus — not suspended — and will complete all of the courses remotely for the remainder of the semester.
Severalhundredmore students have been sanctioned or face sanctions, depending on the outcome of their cases. Those sanctions will vary and could include suspension, the university said.
Schoolofficials also implemented a system in which they said they’d randomly test up to 1,000 students per week. Daily cases peaked at 167 in late August.
The outbreak at the institution elevated Montgomery County to having one of the highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita among all Ohio counties. That prompted Jeffrey A. Cooper, who heads Public Health-Dayton and Montgomery County, to write an open letter to students on Sept. 4. Inthe letter, he called the university’s coronavirus outbreak “amajor threat to the public’s health and the well-being of our citizens.”
The number of cases on campus then plunged and remained mostly in single digits since. OnWednesday, the university reported six newcases, up fromthree the previous day. Phelps credits the students for the turnaround.
“I’ve got to say, our students have done a great job, saying, ‘OK, we need to really take this seriously, wear themask, six feet apart,
no large gatherings,’” she said. “They’ve done a great job, and it shows (because) the number of caseswe now have are much fewer.”
StudentsHaydenDiPalma, a senior in entrepreneurship, and Caroline Gosswein, a junior in finance, said they were excited to be having in-person classes. The cousins, who are from NewYork and Chicago, respectively, said they’ve been itching to be in the classroom with their friends and professors, andwalking aroundcampus.
“It feels awesome to be back,” Gosswein said. “It’s a lot better to learn from our professors and ask questions in person than it is over Zoom.”
Joel Pruce, an assistant professor of human rights studies, is a member of the group UD Solidarity, which
has been pushing the university to put moremeasures in place before resumingin-person instruction. Face-to-face instruction nowis unacceptable, particularly since UD isn’t testing employees and that the number of students being randomly tested has dropped, he said.
“The virus has so far spread through over 10% of our students, and senior leadership has proven incapable of protecting the health oftheUDcommunity,” Pruce said. “Reopeningclasses risks further spikes and community spread just at the time whenweseemtohave gotten thisproblem under control.”
The university has frequentlycommunicated with employees that they can be tested at a site of their choosing with a referral fromtheir physician, or they can obtain
a test at the Premier Health testing site located across from Miami Valley Hospital with an order from a health care provider or visit local urgent care locations, school officials said. UDhas focused on identifying and mitigating the spike among undergraduates, school officials said.
At its peak, UD tested several hundred students per week who had symptoms, requested tests or were part of the random sample, officials said in a statement. This week, the school plans to test up to 225 randomly selected students, in addition to targeted and on-demand testing.