LOCAL

Colleges plan to end in-person classes before Thanksgiving to dodge next virus wave

Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record

Many students headed to reopened colleges in the Hudson Valley next month will finish in-person classes for the semester and return home before turkeys are on the table.

At least five colleges in the region - SUNY New Paltz, Marist, Mount Saint Mary, Vassar, Pace and Sarah Lawrence - plan to empty classrooms before Thanksgiving and hold remaining classes and final exams online, a step many U.S. schools are taking to avoid spreading the coronavirus when students go home for the holiday and return to campus from scattered locations.

SUNY New Paltz professor Daniel Freedman recently holds up a panel divider that is held together by 3-D printed braces and stand on 3-D printed feet at the Engineering Innovation Hub at SUNY New Paltz. The panels will be used in the computer lab to ensure the safety for students from possible COVID-19 transmissions.

Local colleges also are preparing to hold some classes online even while students are on campus because space is too limited for all to meet the new distancing requirements.

SUNY New Paltz President Donald Christian announced this week that the 7,800-student college will take a varied approach to fall classes, delivering some remotely or online. He said priority for in-person instruction would be given to "select laboratory, studio, clinical and equipment-essential courses," along with some freshman classes.

"Given space constraints, many of our classes cannot be conducted as in-person courses while maintaining the proper social distancing advised by health officials," Christian wrote. "A capacity analysis is currently being finalized."

A survey of more than 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities by the Chronicle for Higher Education found that 61 percent planned to hold all classes in person this fall, and that 22 percent had proposed a "hybrid" of in-person and online instruction - the model that SUNY New Paltz and Mount Saint Mary both say they will follow.

Compressing the fall calendar to finish in-person classes by Thanksgiving also means some colleges - Marist and Vassar among them - will hold classes on Saturdays and eliminate mid-semester breaks. Both SUNY New Paltz and Marist, the 6,400-student college in Poughkeepsie, say they also will hold class on Labor Day.

"There is a clear health rationale for these changes," Marist President Dennis Murray said in an online letter last week. "Many epidemiologists are predicting a surge in COVID-19 cases in early December, which also coincides with the annual flu season."

Holding class on Saturday and canceling fall break discourages travel and limits the risk that students will catch and spread the virus, Murray added.

At 2,500-student Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, students must test negative for COVID-19 within five days of coming to campus in August. After arriving, they must wear masks indoors and will need staff approval to travel, which can be done only for emergencies, President Elizabeth Bradley said in an online message on Wednesday.

Colleges have begun installing protective plexiglass in work areas and other places to prepare for students and staff returning in August. Many are still refining their fall semester plans after the state issued its guidelines on June 19 for the reopening of higher-education institutions, which closed in March in New York.

SUNY New Paltz submitted its draft reopening plan to state officials on June 23 and will release its final plan once the state has approved it, Christian said in his announcement this week.

Some of the plans colleges are crafting include providing online-only classes as an option for students who have health concerns about coming to campus. And for those who do come, Vassar is asking that they sign a "community care pledge" promising to adhere to distancing mandates.

"This should be understood not as curtailing freedom but rather as committing to be responsible to each other," Bradley said of the pledge in her online letter. "Disregard for these expectations endangers the entire community."

SUNY New Paltz is limiting dorm capacity to 2,900 students and allowing no more than two students per room. One residence hall will be kept empty to serve as quarantine space if COVID-19 cases turn up on campus. Dining halls also will serve fewer students at a time and take other precautions.

Christian noted that SUNY New Paltz may "pivot to all remote instruction during the semester if the pandemic resurges," and if told to do so my state and local officials.

Higher education rules

New York issued 14 pages of guidelines for colleges and universities last month that require them to develop plans that explain how they will reopen their campuses, monitor students and staff for COVID-19, contain any virus spread and shut down if necessary.

Their reopening plans must address how they will limit capacity in buildings, obtain and distribute protective equipment, test students and staff for COVID-19 and take other precautions to prevent infections from spreading.

The state recommends colleges test students and staff when they arrive on campus from other states and countries, if not those who live in New York as well. It also suggests installing hand-washing and hand-sanitizing stations around campus, and making hand sanitizer available in common areas.

Barriers should be installed between sinks, toilets and showers that are less than six feet apart.

During the school year, colleges should close off any areas used by someone confirmed or suspected to have COVID-19, and wait 24 hours before disinfecting them.

Students and employees should be kept at least six feet apart, including in classrooms, and should wear masks when coming closer to someone other than a roommate.