Parents, students scramble to clear out dorms
As midterms came to an end at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, freshman psychology major Eleanor Johnston stood between the double doors of Sandburg Hall scanning the street for her mother’s car.
A large, pink suitcase stood beside her, stuffed with essentials. “It definitely feels a little bit — frazzled, is the word I’d use,” Johnston said.
At the time, Johnston was heading out on spring break. It was March 13.
Today, “frazzled” would be an understatement.
In less than a week — as coronavirus cases kept rising in Wisconsin and Gov. Tony Evers effectively closed all college campuses until further notice — schools came to the conclusion that the only realistic choice was to put all classes online through the end of the school year.
The entire UW System moved classes online as of Friday. Private colleges, including Beloit College, Lawrence University, Carthage College, Cardinal Stritch University and Carroll University, have done the same.
That means parents and students from across the region and around the country are trekking back to dorms and apartments, some for the second time in two weeks. The schools want them to clear out, in part because the space might be needed for other uses, such as hospital overflow. And in some cases, leases will be up and there’s no point in putting off the inevitable.
The questions are urgent: When do I need to move out? Can I have someone nearby pick up things? What if I’m out of state or can’t come immediately to retrieve my belongings? Will I get my money back for housing and food? (For students in the UW System, the answer to that last question is yes, with details to be determined on a campus-by-campus level.)
Schools are scrambling to set the process while the ground keeps shifting. Some schools have released sign-up sheets and specific instructions. Others are still working out how to allow people back while protecting the health of other students and staff.
At UW-Madison, residence hall students can sign up for move-out slots a few weeks at a time. If people are having trouble getting back, the housing office will deal with it case-by-case.
Jeff Novak, director of university housing, apologized and thanked students and parents for their patience.
“It certainly is not how any of you envisioned how the semester would go ... for many of you that lived with us as freshman, how your first year should have been, and we are sorry,” Novak said.
At UW-Platteville, spokesman Paul Erickson said a move-out process is still being worked out.
“All Residence Hall ID access has been removed for students not currently on campus,” the university’s website said Thursday. “Students who have left campus for other locations will not be able to return and access their residence halls.”
UW-Stout students got an email telling them to sign up for a move-out time online — and the school wants most of the campus’ 2,797 students out this weekend.
UW-Milwaukee plans to have students move out in waves by building, with students currently living in two halls, Cambridge Commons and RiverView, first up. They are expected to move out by Friday.
Students who are out of town will get later opportunities. The final deadline to apply for an exception if a student wants to continue living in the dorms and has nowhere else to go is Tuesday. Residents in Illinois, who are under a “shelter in place” order until April 7, and others who cannot move themselves out can fill out a form to have staff temporarily store items for them. Students who miss the deadline to move out could have their items packed for them by staff and placed in storage.
Universities are maintaining social distancing by capping how many people can enter the buildings during the move-out process. UW-Stout is limiting move-out slots to two hours and allowing students to bring one other person with them to help move. UW-Milwaukee also has a two-hour limit and will allow up to two helpers per student.
At UW-Madison, only 20 people are allowed into a residence hall at a time, with each person allowed a two-hour time slot and one helper. The university is asking that people who are living in areas with documented community spread of the coronavirus stay home.
The campus is partnering with the moving and storage company Lazybones to move people who cannot make it to Madison.
But even the best plans face enormous uncertainty under the new normal. Everything is day-to-day, Novak
said in a Facebook Live video session Wednesday.
“We all need to be cognizant we might get the directive that Madison and greater Wisconsin is under a notravel restriction and we might have to cease our move-out immediately,” he said.
In Phoenix, more than a thousand miles from UW-Madison, Lisa Levine, 47, has had a long week.
Before the coronavirus pandemic had taken hold in the U.S., the Levine family was planning a spring break in France. Instead, they scrambled to get their son, Ethan, a freshman studying political science, on a flight home. He packed a duffel bag and a small suitcase with the essentials: clothes, important documents, valuables.
This week, when the UW-Madison move-out email went out to students, the message sparked confusion among parents, the mother told the Journal Sentinel. The email wasn’t clear that the slots offered were only the first round.
“For us, here, we went into full panic mode,” Levine said. “We started to look at flights, we started to make sure there was a hotel, and then at the same time, it was, ‘Do we really want to get on an airplane right now?’ “
After getting clarification from the university, she considered options like Lazybones and even flying out to Madison for a day with Ethan to move the items themselves. But for now, she said, “seriously, we are in limbo.”
It’s the hard part of having a student so far out of state, Levine admitted. But at the end of the day, she said, “Stuff is just stuff.”