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The University of Vermont is planning on returning to in-person instruction this fall, President Suresh Garimella announced Wednesday.
In a video message, Garimella said he was confident that the university would be returning to campus later this year as the state of Vermont appears to have successfully flattened the curve of the spread of the coronavirus.
“Having looked at all the information available to us right now, I’m quite confident we will be able to return to this in-person status,” Garimella said in an interview with VTDigger Wednesday.
Garimella’s announcement comes amid rising concern from students, parents and city leaders about a large number of students and parents returning to Burlington to move in and out of off-campus apartments, as leases switch hands at the end of May and start of June.
City Council President Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, said he was “absolutely” concerned about the safety of students and parents returning to Burlington in order to move.
He said landlords will need to clean units thoroughly to ensure the virus does not spread from individuals leaving the apartments to the new tenants.
“I want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make sure the folks who are living in these units are safe, and that their health is prioritized in all of this,” he said. “We’re going to have to make sure that landlords have good plans for how they are going to safely move one tenant out, sanitize and clean a unit and then get new groups into that unit.”
The university switched to remote-only instruction in March, telling students not to return to campus after spring break to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Earlier this week, the university announced it would be holding an in-person commencement ceremony for this year’s graduate at a later date, an event that will be scheduled in August.
Two students filed a class-action lawsuit against the university, demanding a reimbursement for services not offered by the university during the pandemic. The university is offering a $1,000 housing credit and a prorated credit for unused meal plans.
The fall semester will not be back to normal, Garimella said. He said that the university was planning additional precautions in its residence halls, dining facilities and classrooms, and said resuming in-person instruction may require improved testing and tracing.
“It will require more testing. It will require more contact tracing. We need improved protocols for handling this,” he said. “Certainly all residence halls, dining facilities, will all need to be rethought.”
Garimella said the university established an advisory committee, and that the university would be continuing to work on its planning this spring and summer.
“I feel like the planning and preparation we are doing at this point, and working very hard on, along with the state’s scientific and thoughtful approach and our access to our top scientists and health experts, positions us well to have those answers,” he said.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said that he supported UVM’s decision to be open for in-person classes this fall.
“I am hopeful that we will have the infrastructure we have been talking about… in place and getting more and more robust as the months come, and that we will be able to support in this community a successful suppression strategy that makes it possible for us to, if not fully go back to normal, at least reactive many elements of our economy and our way of life.”
Weinberger said that he was hopeful that the Burlington School District will also be back in operation for in-person classes this fall, and said that reopening schools was the right goal to be working toward.
“I do have real concerns about there being future spikes that require future social distancing orders, but certainly our goal should be to restart the economy and keep virus infections at a low level through these various strategies,” he said.
Weinberger said that the city has reached out to the state for clarification on how they are expected to handle the move-in and move-out date at the end of May.
“We are aware that that represents a situation that represents the possibility of new infections just as we are coming out of this stay home posture,” he said. “We will definitely be paying close attention to it, monitoring it, and playing any materially helpful role we can in making sure the orders are understood and enforced.”
Garimella said he hoped and expected parents and students would follow state guidelines on quarantining. Gov. Phil Scott in March issued an order directing anybody entering the state for nonessential purposes to quarantine for 14 days.
“I don’t believe that the state of affairs today in the different states is amenable for all this active travel, and if there is travel, there are quarantine guidelines and such,” he said “We will certainly expect our community, everyone in our community, to follow those rules.”
Parents are also concerned about students returning to campus.
Dr. Friederike Keating, a cardiology physician at UVMMC and a Professor of Medicine at the UVM Larner College of Medicine, is the parent of a rising University of Vermont junior who will be living off campus next year with three other students.
Keating said that the university does not have until the fall to get prepared as students will be moving in and out of Burlington in a month. She said that it is nearly impossible for out-of-state students from hotspots to follow the governor’s order to quarantine for 14 days after returning to town.
“That’s all well and good, but if you are in an apartment with four other students with shared bathrooms, it’s almost impossible, even if they are all very willing and disciplined,” she said.
Keating said that there was increasing chatter amid parents about concerns around the re-opening of campus and the return of students to town next month.
The return of upperclassmen to off-campus apartments is an opportunity for the university and state to get testing and tracing procedures in place ahead of the return of the full campus this fall, Keating said.
“We can make sure we keep each other safe, that the students keep each other safe, and that the community is kept face,” she said. “That can be kind of a pilot for what has to go down in the fall when the rest of the students come.”
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