So far, Vermont has been a national leader in controlling the spread of Covid-19. Now, it faces a major test — the arrival of tens of thousands of students, many from places with high Covid infection rates, moving into dormitories and off-campus apartments.
Can Vermont hold the line against the virus?
Normally, more than 40,000 students attend Vermont colleges and universities. The percentage of out-of-staters varies by school. For instance, a year ago, 74 percent of undergraduates were from other states. But in the Vermont State Colleges System — Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, Community College of Vermont, and Vermont Technical College — Vermonters are generally more than 80 percent of the student body.
State Health Commissioner Mark Levine said many students are not coming from “green” areas of the country, meaning they pose a potential risk during their first weeks in Vermont.
Once they’ve been here a while, he said, they shouldn’t contribute more to cases than the rest of the population, “except for their ability to adhere to general guidelines” on social distancing and mask-wearing, he said.
Because of the pandemic, it’s not clear yet how many students will arrive in Vermont this fall. But however many they are, colleges are prepared to test students and require on-campus quarantining.
Beyond health, it will be critical for schools, students and parents to assess whether students can complete their studies despite hurdles presented by the pandemic.
For state officials, there could be another measure: Data on student scofflaws who attend large off-campus parties, and violate quarantine protocols, travel restrictions and mask-wearing rules.
Former Norwich University president Rich Schneider, who is leading the state’s higher ed task force for college reopening rules, said he wants to develop a mechanism for reporting student safety infractions to the governor’s office.
“There is an interest by citizens about, are students behaving?” Schneider said. “And if they’re not behaving, are you disciplining them? If so, what are you doing to them? Are you expelling them?”
Schneider said the task force will discuss collection of disciplinary data on Monday. The task force also will talk about the spring semester in a few weeks. “We’re still trying to clarify athletics for the fall,” he said. NCAA Division 3 athletics “basically is shut down. There are immediate concerns consuming us.”
[Read more about Covid reopening measures at Middlebury College and Bennington College.]
Colleges crack down on compliance
Many off-campus students moved into their apartments at the beginning of the summer, and on-campus students started arriving at college dorms in waves in early August.
While college campuses have strict Covid rules, administrators are concerned that off-campus parties where students gather in large groups, drink alcohol and abandon social-distancing norms could become virus-spreading events that affect local communities and drive up Covid case rates.
In Burlington, Mayor Miro Weinberger has insisted on strict Covid prevention rules for the 12,000 University of Vermont students who are expected to descend on the city this year. Earlier this month, he reached an agreement with the University of Vermont to allow ticketing of students who violate strict Covid safety regulations, including a 10-person limit on indoor gatherings. The university is testing 10,000 to 12,000 students a week.
Last week, the Burlington City Council approved an emergency order that will limit most indoor residential gatherings to 10 people and ban alcohol sales in bars and restaurants after 11 p.m.
Champlain College in Burlington, which typically has just over 2,000 undergraduates, will have fewer this fall. The first 250 arrived two weeks ago and have been quarantining on campus. None tested positive for Covid-19 in the two rounds of testing during quarantine.
About 500 more students — who are from Vermont or who quarantined at home for the past two weeks — are arriving on campus this weekend. They will be required to follow a weekly testing schedule and strict health and safety guidelines.
In addition, Kerry Sleeper — a Champlain graduate who’s former assistant director of the FBI — is advising Champlain. He’s been working with college President Benjamin Ola. Akande and other Champlain officials on the College’s reopening plans, which include a strict regimen of testing, monitoring, isolating, and tracing, plus a campus-wide commitment to comprehensive public health and safety rules.
Champlain students are required to sign and abide by a comprehensive health pledge — wearing masks at all times, physically distancing, monitoring and reporting their symptoms, keeping informed, and more. Students who fail to follow the pledge will face disciplinary action, which may include being removed from campus.
“We will be conducting weekly Covid-19 testing on campus, organized and paid for by the college,” Akande said. “This testing regimen goes beyond guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and the Vermont Department of Health, and will provide a snapshot in time each week of how we are mitigating Covid-19 on our campus.” All students, faculty and staff will be tested weekly.
Nervous at Norwich
About 500 students moved into dorms at Norwich University in Northfield on Aug. 8 and 1,300 more are expected to join them by the time classes start Monday. The university has reported just one case of Covid-19. A party reported by neighbors turned out to be a gathering of students who had been living in a house together all summer.
Residents of Northfield, population 6,000, called and emailed Norwich University about seeing student athletes running through town.
“The community was concerned about groups of students running down through the neighborhoods,” said Daphne Larkin, director of media relations and community affairs. “Originally we were allowing that, with certain limitations. They couldn’t go inside downtown places. We quickly changed that rule and said, ‘No, you actually can’t run off campus.’
“They really can’t go off campus for the time being,” she said.
Northfield officials are working on a response plan now in case of an outbreak, said Dave Maxwell, chair of the Northfield Selectboard. He said townspeople seemed reassured after the university president met with the selectboard to go over Norwich’s safety measures.
“The leadership of Northfield feels the leadership of Norwich is doing a great job,” Maxwell said. “They give the community updates on almost a daily basis.”
At Castleton University, in southwestern Vermont, the semester got off to a rough start with a party that resulted in a stabbing and an arrest. The school, which normally has about 2,000 students, has had two positive test results so far, said James Lambert, associate dean of advancement. The Castleton Selectboard voted last week to limit gathering sizes in town.
Like other Vermont colleges and universities, Castleton is following Vermont’s college safety requirements, including a “zero day” test that is required within 48 hours of arriving on campus for students who traveled by public transportation, or came from counties with an infection rate of more than 400 cases per million.
“On campus, we have had very good compliance,” said Lambert. “As I look out my window, there are students walking around with masks on. We haven’t had any issues that I know of.”
At Northern Vermont University, a student who wasn’t following social distancing rules was swiftly disciplined, and is no longer allowed on campus, said Sylvia Plumb, director of marketing and communications for NVU. The school normally has about 1,300 students on each of its campuses in Johnson and Lyndon. This fall, about 280 are living in dorms on each. NVU is offering classes online and in person.
NVU has done more than 2,300 tests and has had no positive results, Plumb said.
Student behavior
With about 4,000 University of Vermont students moving into the dorms this month, Burlington residents have been talking to university officials for weeks about UVM’s safety requirements. The school estimates it has a few thousand more students in off-campus apartments.
After closed and public discussions between UVM President Suresh Garimella and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, the university agreed to work with local police to check in on off-campus housing. UVM will punish students for violating the behavior pledge they signed this semester, with the sanctions including a $250 fine or suspension.
Megan Humphrey, a longtime Burlington resident who runs a program for the elderly, said she hadn’t seen an expected influx of students into her neighborhood this summer.
“But I haven’t necessarily seen a difference in behavior either, in terms of students gathering together or partying,” she said. She expects the Covid-19 infection rate to rise no matter how students behave because Vermonters will soon need to move inside as summer ends.
Humphrey, a UVM graduate, said she likes students and thinks it is difficult for them to comply with social distancing rules.
“I work with seniors, and they at some point got tired of being isolated too, so they said, ‘I’m just going to go to the grocery store because I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going to gather with friends,’” she said. “I think it’s a universal human longing to be more connected again.”
Schneider said it’s too early to know what kind of data on behavior the Scott administration would find useful. With populations so small, it would have to be aggregated to prevent anyone from being identified, he said.
He added that his work this summer has him convinced that very few students will break the rules.
“Parents want the kids out of the basement, and kids want to be with other students,” he said. “If you want to stay in school, you’ve got to behave properly, or schools will get shut down. If you don’t believe us, look at the rest of the country.”
How housing will work
Like many Vermont institutions, Castleton has been providing housing for some students since the pandemic arrived. It will continue to do so this semester, even though all of its classes are online.
About 300 people are living in dorms now, Lambert said, with 55 more in off-campus housing it owns in Rutland and about 25 at a hospitality management program it operates near the Killington resort. The school usually houses around 1,100 on campus.
Vermont Technical College, which is holding nearly all of its instruction online, is housing 116 students at its dorms in Randolph. About half are Vermonters; the rest are from out of state, said Dean of Students Jason Enser. Two students tested positive for Covid-19 in August — one living on campus, the other studying remotely and quarantining at home. Many of the residential students don’t have other options for housing that would allow them to continue their studies, Enser said.
Students can also live on Vermont Tech’s campus for three lab weeks that the college is holding during the semester. Enser estimated another 50 or so students would do that.
Within the state’s guidelines, there is also room for flexibility and interpretation. While Vermont Tech is housing students only in single rooms, Larkin said Norwich would house students only in pairs.
“We want everybody to have a roommate,” she said. It’s for “their mental health, their mental wellness. It’s a hard time, and we also added more counselors to our counseling and wellness center just for that reason.”
Vermont Technical College has retained an empty dormitory as an isolation space if needed in the event of an outbreak, Enser said.
“There’s a large population of students who don’t have a home; VTC is their home, and they stayed with us through the summer,” he said. “If there was a major outbreak, we’d have to make a determination of are we going to remain open or not.”
Vermont’s Covid-19 infection rate has been very low for months now, often the lowest in the nation per capita. Tests on early student arrivals have also shown a very low infection rate compared to those at schools in other states, Schneider noted. Positive test results at Vermont schools — even UVM, the largest — have been in the single digits.
“We have issues of faculty and staff we’re dealing with. Some don’t feel safe. And yet, when we are looking at the numbers, we’re very safe,” Schneider said. “It’s probably safer to be in college than to go to the grocery store because those students are being tested so frequently and being monitored daily.”
Correction
While two students at Vermont Technical College tested positive for Covid-19, only one lived on campus. The other is studying remotely and is quarantining at home. The article originally said incorrectly that both students lived on campus.
