New fall reality takes hold on college campuses
If a student living in Litchfield Towers or a janitor cleaning Posvar Hall tests positive for COVID-19, the University of Pittsburgh has a plan: isolate the individual, trace and quarantine those in close contact and, as always, disinfect vigorously.
As part of a carefully laid strategy, Pitt, like other schools, makes public a running tally of infections, urges students to shun large gatherings and has tweaked its student conduct code to anticipate those unwilling to wear masks in class or keep 6 feet apart.
But as a most unusual fall semester begins this week on campuses across Pittsburgh and tens of thousands of students descend on places like Oakland, will any of those measures keep people safe?
Plexiglas dividers. One-way pedestrian pathways. Curbs on visitors and unnecessary travel away from campus. Such is the new normal from Clarion to Carlow, Slippery Rock to Saint Vincent, as Western Pennsylvania colleges and universities expect to deliver varied portions of their classes online (80% at Slippery Rock, for instance) and keep part of their student bodies at home — all while trying to offer something akin to a normal college experience.
But cutting dorm occupancy
and linking undergraduates and professors by video — even holding some classes in a tent, as Pitt plans to do — does not change what has been true for generations on and near college campuses, some administrators say.
Students are attracted to big crowds. They are drawn to parties. Short of holding everyone in place, there are myriad ways to be exposed to the coronavirus through everyday travels, on campus and off.
At Pitt, where classes began Wednesday, Dean of Students Kenyon Bonner warned the campus that large gatherings and parties reported in recent days at which students were not wearing masks or keeping their distance are jeopardizing the school’s reopening. Though Pitt reported earlier this week testing of new arrivals showed infection rates at less than 1%, the school nonetheless is prepared to suspend offending students or bar them from buildings, including residences.
Chancellor Patrick Gallagher put it more bluntly in a new-student event held virtually Tuesday evening.
“So let me be as honest as I can: If this isn’t for you and you can’t take on this responsibility, then please go home,” he said. “Your actions will only be endangering others, and you are not welcome on our campus.
“You can still take Pitt classes remotely, and we will refund your unused room and board — no judgments,” he said. “If you stay and then act irresponsibly, there will be consequences.”
Shifting course
On Wednesday afternoon, Pitt Provost Ann Cudd informed the campus the university was extending onlineonly instruction through Sept. 14 to allow students arriving in staged move-in to shelter in place before transitioning to in-person classes. Pitt also said it placed five fraternities and sororities on interim suspension for potential violation of health and other rules but did not offer specifics or say if it was tied to the decision.
Pitt enrolled 34,000 students, all but about 5,000 on its Oakland campus.
It and other Pennsylvania campuses are trying to avoid what happened this week at places including the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, that state’s flagship public university.
Leaders shifted undergraduate fall classes to remote learning, effective Wednesday, after infections spiked one week into the semester. A statement Monday said in the past week, the positivity rate rose from 2.8% to 13.6% at Campus Health. After testing 954 students, 177 were in isolation and 349 in quarantine, on and off campus.
Dorms already were at 60% capacity, and in-person classes were under 30%, but clusters of infections developed in dorms, private residences and a fraternity house by last weekend.
“So far, we have been fortunate that most students who have tested positive have demonstrated mild symptoms,” a statement said.
There was little sympathy in an editorial from the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, headlined “We all saw this coming.”
University leadership “should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless. Reports of parties throughout the weekend come as no surprise,” it read. “Though these students are not faultless, it was the university’s responsibility to dis-incentivize such gatherings by reconsidering its plans to operate in-person earlier on.”
Safety procedures
In Pennsylvania, 1,700student Saint Vincent College began the semester Monday with an estimated 15% of classes online, 50% delivered in hybrid form and another 35% in person, the students physically distanced “with cameras for anyone working remotely,” spokesman Michael Hustava said.
Residence hall capacity was reduced by 25%, he said.
Another school, Edinboro University, said of its 4,600 students, only about 175 would be invited to campus, among them international students and others in courses with an experiential component being taught in person and is required for their major. On the eve of its Monday semester start, the school announced its own COVID-19 tracker and reiterated safety procedures.
“While we have significantly reduced the number of students, faculty and staff on campus in order to minimize the health risk to our campus community, it is very likely that we will have positive cases on campus this fall,” Angela Burrows, vice president for communications and marketing, said in a note to campus.
Approaches to vary.
Some, like Allegheny College, planned drive-thru testing for arrivals and asked students to quarantine in their dorms until follow-up testing.
Others, Pitt among them, are relying on randomized systematic testing to create a baseline infection rate or are instead screening students with questions and some daily follow-up.
At Pitt, encouraging news came early in the week, based on the first two days of surveillance testing. Of 450 asymptomatic students
testing
tested Aug. 12-13, two students tested positive — an estimated prevalence of 0.44% in the Pitt student population on the Oakland campus.
Students testing positive were moved into university isolation housing and are being cared for by a dedicated support team.
“We now have thousands of Pitt students on and off campus, and yet the number of positive cases, symptomatic or asymptomatic, is very low,” said Dr. John Williams, division director, infectious diseases, and professor of pediatrics in Pitt’s medical school.
“While this is encouraging, it is early. It is critical that we all maintain our preventive behaviors of wearing face coverings, staying physically distant and hand hygiene to keep the virus low.”
Ready to pivot again
University officials said they will continue surveillance testing on the Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Bradford and Johnstown campuses: randomly testing a percentage of the student population — including undergraduate and graduate students who live on and off campus — who are not experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19.
At Carlow University, where more than 60% of classes will be remote, President Suzanne Mellon said the school and its students, including those on campus, will need to be nimble to shifts in the infection risk.
“It does require an ability to pivot and be resilient, one day at a time.”