Colleges prepare for more challenges in spring semester

While college students enjoyed their winter break the past month and a half, administrators were busy planning for the spring 2021 semester. Now, with many students back on campus and some classes already underway, staff members are hoping to replicate much of last semester’s success, with more challenges on the horizon.

Planning

All sources interviewed for this story — including Cornell University, Tompkins Cortland Community College and Ithaca College — reported plenty of challenges trying to prepare for the new semester.

At Cornell, administrators have overhauled their plans from the fall semester to adapt to the evolving pandemic situation. As the Cornell Chronicle reported late last month, staff used input from Cayuga Health Systems and the Tompkins County Health Department to reshape campus protocols.

One of the biggest changes includes adjustments to the university’s testing strategy based on updated models that account for new, more contagious virus variants. In the fall, the college’s testing lab processed the majority of samples within 24 hours, and while that speed was a significant factor in Cornell’s prevention efforts, staff aim to cut that time in half for the spring.

On top of that, the campus will increase adaptive testing among students, which involves testing everyone in the social circles of people infected with the virus, in addition to those who meet the definition of close contacts.

Last in the testing changes, all undergraduate, graduate and professional students must take one of their three weekly required COVID-19 tests on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Joel Malina, vice president for university relations, explained administrators’ reasoning behind the decision.

“Based on the analysis we did and do on all positive cases, we learned that a lot of the cases [in the fall] were individuals who, despite our very strict travel policy, left the community and came back with the virus,” he said. “So, by having a requirement of a Friday, Saturday, Sunday test, … students are not going to be able to necessarily travel as much because adherence to those testing schedules are required as part of our behavioral compact.”

In addition to ramped-up testing efforts, Cornell has applied to the state to become a vaccine distributor and has begun steps to build a vaccine delivery clinic on campus, according to the Chronicle. This would allow the college to vaccinate its community members, lessening the burden on Tompkins County Health Department personnel.

TC3, being under the SUNY umbrella, spent much of its winter break working to implement new, stricter SUNY requirements into its spring plans. These include modifying the academic calendar to cut out spring break, staying remote until Feb. 1 and COVID-19 testing anybody who comes to campus weekly.

Deborah Mohlenhoff, associate vice president of college relations at TC3, said the spring break decision was mostly motivated by the risk of students traveling off campus for break and bringing coronavirus back with them. For the in-person requirement, she said SUNY’s decision was likely based on larger campuses, allowing for more move-in time.

TC3 began online classes Jan. 27, with in-person offerings starting Feb. 1. Interestingly, Mohlenhoff said, while many TC3 students voiced they learn better in person, the students haven’t shown much of an interest in the classes with in-person components for the spring.

“Partly it could be because of what happened to a lot of the in-person classes last semester,” she said. “We’d have one person test positive or somebody end up in quarantine, and then all of a sudden, the whole entire class is disrupted, and you ended up being remote for a week and then in person the next week and then remote the next week. It was very challenging.”

For the testing piece, TC3 was also particularly challenged due to its high commuter student population. Mohlenhoff explained that the college opted to switch to self-testing saliva kits for students to allow for more flexibility.

IC, unlike Cornell and TC3, had a mostly remote semester in the fall, with only a few classes having in-person components. Dean of Students Bonnie Prunty said this ended up being a beneficial move for staff to best plan for the spring and bringing students back to campus.

“We were really able to try out a lot of our COVID plans and protocols with a much smaller number of students to see what worked and what didn’t work and to be able to think about how we were going to scale those up as we were having more students join us for the spring,” she said. “That was a very helpful kind of trial and testing period for us.”

Prunty explained that every aspect of the college’s operation is centered around health and safety requirements, with one of the changes being switching dining halls to takeout. A much larger undertaking — still ongoing — surrounds quarantining students after arrival testing, which involves coordination between buses, hotels and campus staff.

Community feedback

Staff, parents and students at these county colleges mostly voiced both support for administrators’ planning efforts as well as concern toward any challenges the pandemic may create. As Malina explained, parents appreciated the campus’s efforts to be transparent in its practices, while staff expressed some hesitancy for what lies ahead.

“There’s this ongoing question around the progress of the vaccinations and when we as a community can get back to whatever semblance of normalcy we’re able to,” he said. “I’m confident that we will be able to, but it’s still going to be a number of months. So, I think staff mindset is both the confidence in our approach, but also anxious about, ‘when we can get back to in-person work?’”

While students voiced similar sentiments, some also voiced various hardships they’ve faced due to the pandemic. Prunty, for example, explained that she’s seen much more demand for IC’s Emergency Relief Fund.

“In the pandemic, there have been hundreds of students who have come forward who have [said], ‘I’m unemployed. I can’t pay my rent. I have utilities. I need textbooks,’” she said. “So, I’ve spent a lot more of my time working with committees and groups around emergency relief of one kind or another for students who need textbooks, who need financial support.”

Mohlenhoff reported something similar at TC3. As she explained, many of TC3’s students are from the populations most economically affected by the pandemic.

“We would love it if everyone that wants to get an associate degree gets an associate degree,” she said. “But is there a whole other subset of people that we could help right now? … [There’s] this notion that community colleges are probably the best at meeting students where they are. And we will be seriously evaluating that this semester and seeing what we can do to play a role in the economic recovery.”

Looking ahead

With the planning stage over, administrators discussed their expectations and hopes for the semester ahead. At Cornell, Malina said he’s hoping to see the campus’s success from fall 2020 continue in the new year.

“My hope for the semester is that when the spring semester ends in May, … [we can] say, ‘The students did a great job in following guidelines. We learned a lot. We made and solidified great friendships. We helped contribute to groundbreaking research. We helped ensure that the businesses of Tompkins County were able to survive through our collective spending,’” he said.

Prunty expressed her hope for a decrease in the area’s COVID-19 cases to allow for larger face-to-face events.

“I am very much hoping that the numbers in New York state slowly improve and, as a result, that over time, perhaps things can be somewhat less restrictive in terms of gatherings and we might be able to get to a point where we could have not super large gatherings, but gatherings of 50 or 100,” she said. “I think our students are going to really miss those opportunities.”

As far as how the county’s vaccination efforts may impact campuses, sources mostly expressed an eagerness for increased supply.

“When they opened up phase 1B to include in-person faculty, I think there was an excitement about that because our in-person faculty were being included, but the lack of availability of actual vaccine made that really, really challenging for anyone that wanted to be vaccinated to actually be able to be vaccinated,” Mohlenhoff said. “So, we just hope that that gets better in the coming weeks.”

Resident efforts will also greatly impact campuses’ success this semester, sources said. Prunty explained that residents can help the most by following the same health guidance students are expected to follow, like wearing masks and staying 6 feet apart.

“We all live in the same community, and so, if the community sees a big increase in numbers, we’re likely to see it on campus,” she said. “If the campus sees increases in numbers, it’s likely to impact the community. And so, I think we all need to be equally invested in trying to follow the guidance that we’re getting about how to keep each other safe.”

Malina echoed that idea of the entire community helping to support staff and students this spring.

“Our activities in our own homes, as we leave those homes, as we make decisions around critical steps of masking and physical distancing … impact every single person in our community,” he said. “We did a great thing as a community last fall, and it’s time to double down and make sure we continue with that intense focus on public health.”