Mask Mandate? Saliva Tests? That’s College

Over the next few weeks, thousands of Quinnipiac University students will return to northern Hamden for a very different college experience defined by the restrictions of the pandemic.

Even with those restrictions, whether or not the university makes it through the year without an outbreak may be up to how cautious students are willing to be.

As campuses begin to reopen all over the country, concerns about students bringing Covid-19 and spreading it throughout universities and nearby communities have begun to surface.

After students returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a few weeks ago, the university has already moved all classes online after 279 students and 45 staff tested positive for the virus.

Some Quinnipiac students have already moved their belongings into dorms, though they themselves have not yet moved in. First-year students will arrive this weekend, and the rest will arrive in the following weeks, staggered so that there is not an influx of students all at once.

This year, about 4,000 students plan to live on campus. The rest of the approximately 8,500 undergraduates and graduate students will either remain home and commute, do classes online, or they will live in houses and apartments off campus.

The relationship between Quinnipiac and Hamden and its residents has been rocky in years past. Town officials have berated the university for a lack of transparency about its building plans, and northern Hamden residents have made countless complaints about students hosting loud parties, driving too fast, parking on lawns, and leaving their rental houses in states of disrepair. If students don’t respect their neighbors in a global pandemic, that could add to the friction.

But in the last year, town-gown relations have improved. The town and university created a taskforce to discuss town-gown issues, and the university created a hotline for residents concerned about student behavior.

After a presentation by Vice President and Chief of Staff Bethany Zemba last year before the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, commissioners said they felt like the town and the university are finally on track to improve their relationship.

The community members who spoke with the Independent said they are not too concerned about students spreading the virus throughout the community.

Right now, Quinnipiac does not seem to be headed the way of UNC Chapel Hill.

As Zemba pointed out, only 3 percent of students come from states from which travel to Connecticut requires a quarantine. A vast majority of the student body comes from northeastern states that currently have low caseloads.

The university also has a set of precautions in place. But they are not foolproof, and much of the responsibility will fall on students to keep themselves and their neighbors safe.

“If We Don’t Get This Right, All The Other Stuff Doesn’t Matter”

When students arrive back at school, campus life will look very different than it did before, as it will at colleges and universities across the country. In an interview with the Independent, Zemba outlined the new procedures the university has in place to try to prevent an outbreak.

The health precautions for students begin before they arrive. Every undergraduate student is supposed to get a negative test before they arrive on campus.

The university partnered with Vault Health to send saliva-based test kits home to every student. Vault mails testing kits to students’ homes, and students administer the tests to themselves supervised over Zoom by a Vault employee.

Once students arrive on campus, they get tested again — this time with a half-inch nasal swab.

Then starts the routine testing. Each week, 15 percent of the student body, both on- and off-campus, will be tested. The group will be selected semi-randomly, based on a model a professor created to try to maximize the likelihood of detecting early spread.

Students who develop symptoms will be tested with a rapid-turnaround test. Two residence halls have been designated for students to quarantine in if they develop symptoms.

Though classes start next week, they will be entirely virtual for the first three weeks. All upper-class students will move into dorms between Aug. 24 and Sept. 5. The university has coordinated a specific move-in time with every student arriving on campus in that period. On Sept. 7, in-person classes begin.

Housing arrangements have been adjusted so that there are no more triples or quads, and students will only be living in singles and doubles. No visitors will be allowed in dorms, not even other students from other dorms. The only people allowed in will be the students living there.

Everyone must wear a mask at all times on campus, even outside, except when eating. The campus has markings to help people maintain six feet of distance. Dining halls will allow only 33 percent capacity in at a time, and the university will set up a large tent to provide more dining space, and space for other uses outside of mealtimes.

“We are all on the same page that if we don’t get this part right, all the other stuff doesn’t matter,” Zemba said of the health precautions.

Students, faculty, and staff are all supposed to do daily symptom checks. The university has assembled a team of contact tracers from among its faculty and staff who will try to find anyone who might have been exposed to the virus and tell them to quarantine.

Ten medical students have also been trained as contact tracers.

Classrooms will be arranged so that everyone in the room can maintain six feet. That means that in any given class period, in many cases, only a portion of the class will actually be present. Other students will tune in on video. Some classes will be fully online.

For faculty and staff, the university is planning to have only 50 percent of the workforce present on any given day. The human resources department will assess each department’s plans to balance them with other departments in their buildings to make sure social distancing will be possible.

The university will allow employees on an individual basis to request an exemption from working on campus if they have been told they must come back to work on site. According to university guidelines, anyone who is 65 or older, or lives with someone over 65, or who is immunocompromised or lives with someone who is, should apply for an exemption. Parents who need flexibility because their kids are home, and primary care givers are also supposed to apply for an exemption.

Read the university’s return to campus guide for students here, and for faculty and staff here.

“Culture Of Respect And Health Consciousness”

While the university can put markings on the floors of its buildings and can mandate masks, it must also rely on the willingness of its students to follow guidelines and take precautions.

Zemba said the university is trying to create a ​“culture of respect and health consciousness.” Students want to be back on campus, she said, but in order for the semester to work, the university is relying on students to follow the rules.

That means that everyone at the university, she said, has to have the mindset that it is their responsibility to protect the community and remind other people to follow health guidelines.

The university has asked students to sign a ​“Quinnipiac Pact”. The ​“pact” is a commitment to take precautions to prevent spread and acknowledge that everyone has a responsibility to do so.

Students are also required to complete an online course on the virus before they arrive on campus.

While the university can control who enters campus buildings, regulating student behavior off campus is much harder, as the town has seen in past years with raucous parties and reckless drivers.

Instead of trying to regulate or ban off-campus gatherings, which could be tough, the university is trying to encourage students to make the gatherings they do host safe. It has sent out a document to students outlining how to host a safe gathering with masks and single-use plates and utensils.

Zemba said student leaders from various campus organizations are completing a bystander training to become ​“student ambassadors.” They are supposed to intervene when they see other students not following health guidelines.

“What we’re asking them to do is hard,” said Zemba. ​“Go up to someone at a party and say ​‘hey, put a mask on.’”

The university also changed its student code of conduct to allow it to hold students who don’t follow health protocols accountable. If a student repeatedly flaunts guidelines, the university could bring them in for a disciplinary process.

The university is also working with the town, including the police and fire departments, to prepare for the semester.

“The town is actively engaged with QU on information sharing and participation on various committees,” Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Gary Merwede wrote to the Independent. ​“Minimizing the risk of spread is mostly a matter of individual attention and adherence to very basic common-sense measures… The University’s messaging to their staff and students has remained consistent and they have taken an appropriately ​‘hard’ stance on what they expect from new and returning students as they return to campus and off-site housing.”

“They Have To Compromise”

The neighbors who spoke with the Independent mostly did not seem too concerned about students returning to campus — or at least, that was not their principal concern.

“I think Quinnipiac has as good a plan as they can,” said Paul Geary, who serves on the Quinnipiac/Hamden Off-Campus Housing Taskforce. He said he’s ​“cautiously optimistic” that students will not end up spreading the virus to the community, but added that ​“college kids are college kids, and as soon as school gets back, we’ll see.”

He, like Zemba, said it would be mostly up to students to follow guidelines. He said neighbors and the university are trying to make sure that students act as ​“community members” in their neighborhoods. This year, that might mean forgoing the usual trappings of the college experience.

“They’re being asked to make a sacrifice, this semester at least,” Geary said. ​“They just need to be smart. No one’s asking them to be monks. But they have to compromise. Find a way to have fun, but also be healthy for themselves and for the rest of the community.”

Cindy Civitello, co-president of the West Woods Association, said she is not overly worried about the return. ​“I think if they’re careful and follow the CDC rules, I think it’s going to be ok.” She there are not a lot of places where she regularly encounters students. Mostly it’s in stores like Krauszer’s.

“It’s a risk, but it’s not something I’m focused on in terms of policy for Hamden,” said Marjorie Bonadies, who represents Hamden’s 9th Legislative Council district, where many Quinnipiac students live. She said she has confidence in the university’s planning, but that everything is still up in the air.

Brad Macdowall, another council member who lives in the 9th district, said he is very worried about sending students back to school, but not just about Quinnipiac. ​“It is a concern to me, but it is not a unique concern to me. It is not college students in particular that concern me. It is anyone coming to Hamden who does not quarantine,” he said. He said he thinks it is reckless for any school, whether it be an elementary school, a high school, or a university, to bring students back.

While welcoming thousands of students back to Hamden may pose a health risk, it may also bring back a lifeline for some of the area’s businesses.

Charlie Hague, owner of the Whitney Avenue restaurant Aunt Chilada’s, said he is hoping students bring back the business they usually provide. He said students are usually an important source of business. When the pandemic hit in March, he had to downsize to a skeleton staff. But as restrictions eased, he was able to hire people back.

This summer wasn’t too bad, he said, because the restaurant gets a lot of customers coming off the nearby golf course or a hike at Sleeping Giant State Park. But once the weather cools off and the summer business comes to a close, he said he is just waiting to see whether students will deliver the service that leisure seekers did over the summer.

“We’re kind of the spot for the seniors on Friday nights,” he said. ​“It would get busy. We’re not going to be able to do that this year.”

In normal times, the restaurant would be able to host big groups on its deck or inside at a buffet or at the bar. Now, he said, he is considering some options for other ways of doing business. He said he hasn’t done much delivery in the past, but may try to start, or he might look into catering small functions for the university.

Only time will tell whether students bring back the business they once did. ​“I think we’re going to start feeling it in the next couple of weeks when they usually come in, but we’re not sure what to expect yet,” Hague said.