With the school year fast approaching, and the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of slowing any time soon, higher education institutions were faced with a choice. Should they allow their students to return to campus? If so, then who? What measures will be taken in an attempt to control the spread of the virus? At what point should they accept defeat and move to remote learning? Each institution had their own individual factors to consider, all of which would play a role in determining whether their students had a shot at a “normal” year of college, about as normal as one can get during a global pandemic. When the time came to make a decision, they all made a decision, and began to plan accordingly. For the institutions who chose to remain remote, they had to plan all of the logistics, and ensure that their students would still be able to accomplish and learn. Some chose a middle ground, allowing certain groups of students to come onto campus. This brings a new line of questions, including: Who is allowed to come? Who needs to come back? Which staff members need to come back? How should we still provide a meaningful educational experience for those who are not allowed to return to campus? Those who are not allowed to return to campus are undoubtedly upset, as they hoped to be able to see their friends again and interact in person with their professors and everyone else who they would encounter on campus. One prominent institution that chose this path was Harvard, regarded as one of the best options in the United States and the entire world. The elite university, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, issued an announcement in July which stated their plan to bring up 40% of the undergraduate population back to campus at one time, focusing on the seniors and the freshmen. This decision left half of the student body feeling alienated, relegated to attending class from a computer for another year. Then there were the schools who decided that they could handle the challenge of allowing all of their students to return to campus. Some of these schools dumped massive amounts of money and time into planning extensive restrictions and policies for social distancing, testing, contact tracing, and all other things that come with keeping a very social community safe during a global pandemic. This is the path that we have taken here at Connecticut College, and our administration has developed a well informed and sweeping Covid-19 response. If you would like to learn more about our plan, there is an article highlighting our response below. Other schools planned for attempting to control the spread of Covid-19, but they admitted that they were facing an impossible task with all of the logistics associated with running an institution of 30,000+ people while also trying to keep all of them safe. Each institution made decisions that they thought would work best with their own specific circumstances, and they are currently experiencing varying degrees of success.
