As Students Return, Vassar Preps for a Safe Semester
As Vassar geared up for the start of the Spring Semester on Wednesday, January 19, the College had protocols in place to ensure the safety of everyone on campus.
Health Service Director Margot Schinella ’06 said the College had established new COVID-19 testing policies and procedures for the more than 2,000 returning students. All were required to provide Vassar health officials with results of tests they took just before they left their home when they arrived on campus this weekend.
“Students who are testing positive at home are being encouraged to complete isolation at home,” Schinella said. “If they test positive here, we are sending them to local hotels.”
Students who test positive after they return to the campus may also return to their homes if they can do so safely without using public transportation, she said. They are eligible to leave isolation after five days if they are asymptomatic and have their own bedroom and can mask at all times when around others, Schinella said, but they must have a negative antigen test before they can leave isolation.
All students were issued tight-fitting KN95 masks and home COVID-19 test kits before they checked into their campus housing. In keeping with an ongoing College policy, everyone on campus is required to wear masks indoors, and as students returned to their campus housing, they began preparing to attend their first three days of classes remotely. Health officials will be monitoring test results and other data to assess whether it is safe for them to resume in-person learning next week.
In-person meals were also suspended; the campus dining system is on a “grab-and-go” schedule until at least Saturday, January 22.
Photo credit: Danny Silva
Two students who returned said they were cautiously optimistic that Vassar would be able to return to something approaching normalcy sometime soon.
“I was definitely a little nervous coming back,” said Tessa Charles ’22, a cognitive science major from Rochester, NY, “but hopefully with regular testing, things will go fairly well. I’m just hoping for an in-person graduation.”
Darnell Worley ’24, a biochemistry major from Uxbridge, MA, said he had faith in Vassar’s leadership, noting that College President Elizabeth H. Bradley’s academic field is public health. “PB definitely has her stuff together,” Worley said. “And we all want to be here, and if you want to be here, you’ll definitely follow the rules.”
What happens next? That depends on how many students test positive for COVID-19, and for how long, now that they’re back on campus. But Bradley said she believed that the policies that had been put in place would enable the College to cope with an expected initial surge in active cases.
“I am confident we can get through this semester if we work together,” the President said in a memo to students last week. “Each of us needs to be vigilant and committed. Remind each other of these practices (e.g., testing when symptomatic, masking, avoiding high-risk behaviors), and when you are reminded, please thank the person who reminded you. We need each other.”