Safe reopenings on minds at colleges

Testing, distancing are key concerns

While colleges consider how to safely open their campuses to mostly regular activity this fall, many are bracing for slow summer openings and ordering personal protective equipment now to avoid possible supply shortages.

Task forces at Arkansas institutions of higher learning have countless questions to consider in the coming months to meet their goals of reopening campus to face-toface course delivery this fall.

Few institutions have released official plans, as remote instruction remains the primary way to take classes during the summer.

The Arkansas Department of Health is preparing reopening guidance for campuses but had no information yet, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Compared with the challenges they face with opening in the fall, college administrators said they felt better about the slow opening this summer.

“I think we can do that beautifully,” University of Arkansas at Fort Smith Chancellor Terisa Riley said.

Riley intends to open the recreational center on a lim

ited basis in June, perhaps eventually placing dividers between some equipment. She isn’t sure yet about reopening the library and its study rooms this summer, but she expects library employees soon will begin reporting to work to check in and shelve books returned this spring.

The University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College is looking at how many children it can accommodate in its child care center but plans to open, Chancellor Margaret Ellibee said.

Arkansas State University announced Thursday its first phase to reopen, allowing additional staff members — but still no students or faculty or staff members who can work remotely — to resume working on campus Monday.

Riley and other college administrators in Arkansas remain concerned about what they can do to prevent the spread of the virus, including providing testing on campus.

“The testing piece is really dependent on the resources we gain outside of the system,” Riley said.

At Lyon College, Provost Melissa Taverner hopes to be able to test students even if they aren’t showing symptoms, rather than what is typical now.

Many colleges have requested funding for coronavirus testing sites in the fall. That amount could total about $15 million, according to an estimate Gov. Asa Hutchinson delivered to the state’s CARES Act Steering Committee this week. The committee is helping determine how the state should spend the nearly $1.3 billion its received through the act.

That $15 million estimate comes from what colleges have submitted to the governor, said Alisha Lewis, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Division of Higher Education. A proposal has yet to be formally submitted to the committee, Hutchinson spokeswoman Katie Beck said.

Riley said the ideal scenario at UAFS is that a person can be swabbed at the campus health clinic and the sample taken to a regional testing center for analysis. The lab test could take 15 minutes to yield a result. Factoring the time it takes to drive to the laboratory, a result could be available within an hour or so, with the person waiting in an isolated area during that time.

The university doesn’t have the capability to test the samples on site, she said.

“We’re all kind of limited in our knowledge of how to deploy testing in higher education,” Riley said.

Batesville doesn’t have a testing site, Taverner said. Getting a testing site is a possibility, she said, and if it happens Lyon officials will consider testing students before they arrive on campus.

Campus housing poses another challenge to institutions trying to prevent infection outbreaks. Typically, students share rooms or suites, and dormitory space is limited.

Dormitory design is better nowadays than when Riley was in college, she said. Suitestyle dorms help isolate people. But the traditional dorm — a long hallway with a single community bathroom — is worse for spread, she said, recalling the time in college she contracted chickenpox from a floor mate.

Most Lyon College students live on campus, Taverner said, which will help reduce the risk of people from outside campus carrying in the virus. But some students and employees still live outside the county and they’ll need to be monitored more closely, she said.

She doesn’t want to keep students from leaving campus once they arrive in the fall, so the college will need to communicate the risk of leaving to students and their shared responsibility to protect one another from the virus, she said.

Lyon College may look at grouping students together on campus and having them eat together regularly, Taverner said.

Ellibee said meals served on Pulaski Tech’s campus may need to be boxed up, togo meals because buffet-style dining isn’t allowed. That’s how food is delivered at some campus restaurants.

While colleges strive to offer face-to-face courses this fall, Taverner plans to train faculty members on offering courses in more of a hybrid format. That way, if a student contracts the virus or has contact with an infected person, the student can self-quarantine but still access courses.

Lyon College leaders believe face-to-face is the best method of instruction, but Taverner said faculty membeers have learned the technology associated with remote instructions is useful outside of a pandemic, such as if a professor wanted a flipped class format. In that setting, students watch lectures and then apply what they learned in in-person classroom exercises.

“Good teaching is good teaching. … The technology is secondary,” she said.

Colleges are planning to accommodate for social distancing in classrooms. Larger lecture classes may be broken up or moved online.

Everyone must wear masks in classrooms, administrators said. An influx in students on campus means an increased need for health supplies that have at times been in short supply during the pandemic.

“I think we’ve had challenges with that already this spring,” Ellibee said.

Some colleges have already begun purchasing masks for students, as well as cleaning supplies, gloves and hand sanitizer to keep spaces clean.

Riley and Ellibee are hopeful that being a member of a large university will help as the system purchases the supplies in bulk for each campus.

Lyon College has started buying masks, hoping to get two for each student while encouraging students to have their own. Officials have had discussions about the availability of hand sanitizer and disinfectant in classrooms.

“We’re beginning to figure out what is that going to look like,” Taverner said.