Updated at 4:46 p.m.
Dartmouth College said it detected at least 192 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, raising its seven-day total to 851 — a new record — as the school struggles to contain the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The single-day tally comes after the college reported 566 cases in the first week of 2022.
Unlike peer institutions such as Yale and Cornell, Dartmouth did not delay the start of its winter quarter at its campus in Hanover, New Hampshire, nor switch to online learning for the first weeks of school. Instead, the college shuttered its special quarantine housing, requesting that Covid-19-positive students isolate themselves in their dorm rooms even if they have roommates.
“We’re not going back to the way we did things last year,” interim Provost David Kotz told The Dartmouth, the college’s student newspaper.
Despite the surge, the college resumed most sit-down dining Monday.
In a Saturday message, the Dartmouth Student Assembly told students that administrators were “allowing a special option for students to withdraw from the term with a full refund for tuition and room & board” if they did so by Monday.
“We recognize that different students have different risk tolerances,” the student assembly wrote following its meeting with Kotz, interim Dean of the College Scott Brown and Associate Deans Eric Ramsey and Marianne Thomson. “If you feel that this risk is untenable, we strongly encourage you to consider all available options.”
An email seeking comment on the policy sent to Dartmouth spokesperson Diana Lawrence on Monday was not returned.
Hybrid learning models will not be widely available, although professors have shifted to remote teaching on a case-by-case basis.
While Dartmouth announced that it would cancel all indoor gatherings for the first two weeks of January, Kotz and Executive Vice President Rick Mills wrote in an email last week that the college “cannot monitor all indoor gatherings, and we do not intend to police enforcement.”
Last weekend, campus security patrol cars drove along Webster Avenue — known to students as “Frat Row” — without walking through the Greek houses, undergraduate students told VTDigger.
Senior Peter Green said officers were patrolling on Friday “without doing anything at all,” whereas last year they would do walkthroughs.
Glennis Murphy, an engineering student, said she is in isolation after coming in close contact with Covid-19-positive students this weekend.
“It’s just very irritating that I’m still very much part of the Dartmouth undergraduate population, but there’s almost no correspondence (from the administration),” she said.
Murphy said she was not informed that she could opt out of winter term and receive a refund. She also said there has been no unified response to the surge. Some classes are online, while others are in person.
“I’m in isolation right now, and I didn’t go to my classes,” Murphy said. “I emailed one of my professors being like, ‘Hey, can’t make it to class today, I’m going to be on Zoom.’ And he said, ‘I’m not doing the Zoom offering anymore.’”
Students who tested positive were informed via an automated private message from Dick’s House, Dartmouth’s health services office.
The message directed infected students to perform their own contact tracing.
“If living on-campus, you will need to isolate in place. You also have the option to return home if you are able to get there via private vehicle,” the note read. “If living off-campus, you should have your own bedroom and ideally your own bathroom.”
Senior Hadley Detrick developed Covid-19 symptoms after his roommate tested positive Sunday morning. That afternoon, he requested an antigen test from the campus health services because the regular PCR testing was closed. After waiting 15 minutes, his rapid test came back positive.
Following the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, if Detrick’s symptoms subside and he tests negative after five days, he can leave quarantine.
Despite Dartmouth pushing for in-person learning, Detrick said his professors have been flexible.
“Although classes are now going to be in person, a lot of the professors have mechanisms in place to allow me to participate (remotely) or didactic materials online, which just means recorded lectures from previous semesters,” he said.
Detrick said that one of his professors plans to host a special Zoom office hour discussion for students who are isolating.
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