Students aim for
traditional campus life while navigating heightened precautions.
By Kevin Reynolds and Corbett
Smith 8:51 PM on Aug 24, 2020 — Updated at 6:22 AM on Aug 25, 2020
Correction: This
story has been updated to reflect that Matt Moustakas works at Texas Woman’s
University.
As a freshman orientation leader, Southern Methodist
University sophomore John Morgan did his best to lay out concerns about the
coronavirus to his group of incoming students.
SMU and a handful of other colleges and universities in
North Texas kicked off the fall semester on Monday, and already schools are
seeing cases of COVID-19 on campuses.
The number of cases varied from none at Dallas Baptist
University to 111 at Texas Christian University.
And while the numbers of COVID-19 positive case counts at
Dallas-Fort Worth area colleges are relatively small, they aren’t
insignificant. Properly managing that risk can mean the difference between
being able to keep in-person instruction and dorm living possible, or sending
students home to study online.
The message that Morgan had to share with his new classmates
recently was salient: If the students didn’t heed the warnings and protocols
that leaders were sharing about COVID-19, the student experience of taking
classes in person at a college campus — however altered — might not stick
around for long
After all, Morgan already had a sense of just how tenuous
the claim to an in-person experience could be. Days into orientation, SMU
transitioned the event from a hybrid model to fully virtual after a handful of
students tested positive for the virus.
“I kind of understand where people are coming from, where
they want a state of normalcy,” Morgan said. “I understand the desire and need
to be in large groups. I would love for that to be the case. But if we want any
college experience whatsoever, we need to take all these protocols into
consideration.”
Area college students vary widely on how worried they are
about the pandemic — much like that of the general public. Some see high
infection rates in the surrounding communities and colleges’ struggles in other
parts of the country as reason for increased concern. Others do not seem
threatened at all.
The Dallas Morning News contacted nine of the
largest colleges and universities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Monday,
asking each school for their current COVID-19 case count.
Five of those schools — SMU, the University of North Texas,
Texas A&M University at Commerce, Dallas Baptist University and Texas
Woman’s University — started fall semester classes Monday.
The University of Texas at Arlington starts Wednesday, while
the University of Texas at Dallas, TCU and the University of Dallas started
last week.
None of the eight schools who responded to The News reported more than 20 current cases. SMU,
for example, reported 19 active cases. The University of Dallas reported three
current cases.
TCU, which did not respond by deadline, listed 111 active
cases among students on its own case tracker on Monday, with 37 of those living
on campus. The school has about 10,000 undergraduate students enrolled.
The News also asked how
their university’s decisions might be influenced by what’s happening at other
institutions across the country.
Both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the
University of Notre Dame — who opened dorms and classes earlier this month,
only to run into problems — are being seen by many as harbingers of what might
happen when bringing students back to campus goes awry.
Last week, UNC administrators cancelled in-person
instruction and closed dorms for undergraduates, while Notre Dame moved to
online-only classes for two weeks in an effort to control any outbreak.
The local universities, however, appeared more inclined to look
at their peers nearby.
UT-Arlington and UNT officials said their decisions would be
based on local conditions, as well as guidance from federal, state and regional
public health agencies as well as their system leadership.
An SMU spokesperson said the university would “continuously
look to see what other colleges and universities are doing to meet the ongoing
challenges.”
Area university officials said watching what happens across
the country is important for benchmarking purposes.
But because the prevalence of COVID-19 varies so much from
state to state, Matt Moustakas, executive director of risk management for Texas
Woman’s University, said that his school would be closely tracking how the
virus is spreading locally. And each university has taken its own approach as
the schools have reopened.
The University of Dallas, for example, required a negative
COVID-19 test dated within seven days of returning to campus. Clare Venegas,
assistant vice president for marketing and communications at the University of
Dallas, said schools are trying to “adapt in this ever-changing landscape.”
Some students weren’t ready for in-person classes just yet.
Most area colleges are offering a mix of in-person and online options.
Zack Malik, a senior at UT-Dallas, said he chose to remain
virtual in the fall semester because of the risk of positive cases and the lack
of mandatory testing. Recent activity at the university, where Malik said there
were larger gatherings of students, also factored into that choice.
At UT-Dallas, there have been 23 cases since June, involving
11 students, eight staff members and four contractors. Ten of those cases have
occurred since Aug. 1.
“I really don’t feel that safe going to campus, and I don’t
plan on going to campus for the rest of the fall semester,” Malik said.
“Probably there are a lot of these undetected cases (too) that make the case
count artificially low.”
Others, though, remained resolved to live as close to a
normal college experience as possible.
Hannah Harrison, a TCU junior, said she wasn’t concerned
about the university’s current number of cases. She said friends who have had
the virus are fine now. Still, she tries to be cautious.
“I know it affects everyone differently but, also, I don’t
want to live fully in fear,” she said. “But I want to be safe, so I wear my
mask anytime I am outside of the apartment for my safety and other people’s
safety.”
Katie Solomons, a TCU freshman, said she worries about the
campus shutting down suddenly, which is what happened in the spring when the new
coronavirus began spreading across the country.
“I really don’t want to be sent home,” she said. “I don’t
think we will unless it gets really bad since most of our classes are online.”
SMU’s Morgan said he understands that freshmen want to “get
on campus and meet people.” As an orientation leader, it is normally his job to
help students do just that by finding connections with other students, clubs or
anything else.
“I know there are many people at higher risk,” Morgan said
of himself. “I know there is the idea out there that it is safer for (younger
people), but it is a global pandemic for all of us. We need to follow the
protocols and keep them in consideration.”
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