Over the past several days, various River Campus departments have come together to devise and implement needed space plans aimed at further de-densifying the residential campus spaces where students are living to help protect them from COVID-19, while freeing up appropriate living areas that could be used for quarantine and isolation areas.
The first phase of this planning was aimed at identifying available and not fully occupied residential buildings that can be re-suited for future River Campus and Eastman School of Music quarantine and isolation needs. In some cases, this involved helping students who currently reside in such buildings to move into a different location. For example, on March 23, 32 students moved from Wilder Tower on River Campus to nearby Anderson Tower. These moves are a large undertaking by the students who need to pack up their belongings and relocate, but are beneficial in that their new living space adheres to the social distancing guidelines aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. It is additionally a substantial undertaking for the University’s Residential Life and Facilities teams, which plan for all the different room movements and properly clean all the spaces that students are both moving into and vacating.
In addition to looking at specific buildings, University officials are also relocating all students currently residing in on-campus double rooms and moving them into single units to reduce the amount of contact between individuals and the likelihood of COVID-19 illness. This is the second phase and is also in progress.
According to Residential Life, there are about 900 undergraduate students living on campus who were allowed to continue residing in residence halls for the remainder of the spring semester due to extenuating circumstances, including students who had a difficult time returning to a home country, or who have other serious challenges that would prohibit them to leave. Dining Services and many other campus services have been kept in place to meet the needs of these students, although everyone has now moved to online coursework and there are no in-person classes.
In the coming days, additional campus areas will be identified that could possibly be refitted, as needed, to accommodate not only quarantined and isolated students, but also Strong Memorial Hospital health care workers.
To date, this planning has resulted in the University having available 50 beds ready for isolation, and nearly 124 units available for individuals who need to quarantine.