Residential Life prepares for fall 2020
June 26, 2020
In this video, Chris Beyer, director of Residential Life, explains changes students will see this fall in response to COVID-19 precautions.
Transcript
Hi, my name is Chris Beyer. I'm the director of residential life and I'm talking to you today from Andreen Hall.
We are very busy this summer getting ready for your arrival on campus or your return to campus. We've gotten lots of questions about what we are doing to get ready for having students return to the residence halls given the pain that we don't have all the answers yet but there are six things I'd like to list.
No. 1, we are planning to significantly increase cleaning in the residence halls, particularly in the bathrooms, in the common areas on high-touch surfaces, like doorknobs and elevator buttons.
No. 2, we're going to require that students wear masks while in the building. Of course, they can take them off in their rooms, but when they're in the
hallways and the lounges we're going to want to see everybody wearing masks.
No. 3, we are planning to be de-densify the buildings. So what that means is, where we have smaller bedrooms we're not going to fill them to max capacity the way we have in the past. What we're really looking to do is make sure that if people are sharing the room, they're been having these 12 feet of distance between their heads for sleeping. So when that's not possible we're not going to fill that room.
No. 4, we're planning to limit guests and visitors in the building, so we're taking a good look at our visitation policy and we're planning to make some adjustments. Because bringing outside people family or friends into the halls just increases the risk of contamination.
No. 5, we have a plan in place to isolate any students who are suspected of having COVID-19. We have a plan to quarantine people who might have been in contact with someone. The good news is, we had an opportunity to practice this plan over the summer because we had a student who was symptomatic and turned out not to have COVID-19, the test results were negative, but it was an opportunity for us to practice a plan and it worked and I know we can do this for everybody in the fall.
Finally, No. 6, we've made some adjustments to the move-in day. So normally, move-in day is a big festival when everybody arrives at the same time like a big party (and) we've got lots of volunteers. It's gonna feel different this year. We're going to spread moving over a longer period of time to allow people to come to campus gradually so we never have crowds. I hope this was helpful. Please keep watching for more information.