By Jim Sabataso
jim.sabataso @rutlandherald.com
As cases of COVID-19 continue to spread across the country, Vermont colleges are taking steps to ensure the health and safety of campus communities.
On Tuesday, Middlebury College announced it would move its scheduled spring recess up from March 20 to this Friday. Classes will resume, albeit remotely, on March 30.
Middlebury is the first higher-education institution in Vermont to suspend classes because of COVID-19.
In a statement, President Laurie Patton said, “The aim in all our deliberations has been to move quickly and thoughtfully to minimize, as best as we can, the risk of exposure for members of our community, while continuing to fulfill our educational mission.”
To that end, Patton said students who can remain home after March 30 are expected to do so “until further notice.” She said policy will be reevaluated in the first two weeks of April.
Students who cannot return home, such as international students who would be at greater risk in their home country, may apply to remain on campus. Their classes would be delivered remotely.
“All students will be able to fulfill their academic requirements remotely,” Patton said, explaining that the Department of Education has relaxed regulations so schools may meet academic standards more flexibly.
Patton said the closure of the college’s various schools abroad would be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In recent weeks, Middlebury has suspended programs in China and Italy as a result of widespread outbreaks of the virus in those countries.
While Patton said there are currently no known cases of COVID-19 on campus, the college did receive a report of a visitor at a campus sporting event who was recently diagnosed with it.
“The Vermont Department of Health confirms that the person was not a risk to the community at the time of their visit here,” Patton said.
For the rest of this week, Patton said on-campus gatherings would be limited to 120 people. In addition, all spring athletic activities and campus-sponsored travel have been suspended, visitors will not be permitted on campus and dining service operations are being altered to limit the number of students gathering in dining halls.
While Middlebury might be the first college in Vermont to suspend classes, others are watching the situation closely and following the guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Vermont Department of Health.
Bennington College also has enacted a number of social-distancing measures to slow the spread of the virus.
During the weekend, an adult in Bennington County was reported to have tested presumptive positive for COVID-19. Another 226 people around the state are currently being monitored by the health department.
“As the situation around COVID-19 continues to unfold, our top priority remains the health and well-being of our campus community,” President Isabel Roche said in a statement Tuesday.
Roche detailed a number precautions the college will be taking, including limiting attendance to any speakers series to 30 people, restricting campus visits, closing Crossett Library to the public and requiring any college-sponsored travel plans to be reviewed and approved by the provost.
“Our goals are to protect health and safety and to allow our students to make progress on or complete their degrees with minimal interruption,” said Alex Dery Snider, director of communications.
Students have been “strongly encouraged” to remain on campus during the college’s approaching long weekend April 4-8. They have been asked to limit trips into Bennington as well.
“In the event that there is a confirmed case of coronavirus on campus, we will shift to remote delivery of all courses,” Roche said.
Vermont State Colleges Chancellor Jeb Spaulding said Monday that VSC staff is working on a continuity of operations plan for system’s 16 sites around the state.
“The facts are changing continuously,” he said, adding that VSC staff is “working as hard as they can to be prepared.”
Spaulding said that preparation includes making sure the system’s IT capacity can support online instruction should it become necessary.
At Castleton University — one of the schools in the VSC system — James Lambert, associate dean of advancement, said the mood on campus is calm.
“There is not a lot of anxiety on campus,” he said.
“We’ve been watching the situation,” he said, adding that school officials are planning in case of a disruption in classes that would require a shift to online classes and asking faculty to plan accordingly.
“The infrastructure is in place,” he said.
On Monday, Castleton launched a dedicated coronavirus page on its website, www.castleton.edu/covid19
At the University of Vermont in Burlington, students, who are currently on spring recess, were instructed to take course materials home with them in case classes are suspended after break. Classes are scheduled to resume March 16.
“Our current planning calls for the university switching to remote methods of instruction, maintaining limited campus services and operations and implementing social distancing strategies if and when we have a confirmed COVID-19 case in the UVM community,” said Gary Derr, vice president for operations and public safety.
“We are aware that this is a rapidly evolving situation and circumstances may warrant taking a different approach,” he said.
In a March 8 statement, UVM President Suresh V. Garimella said, “As a university, we are committed to safeguarding the health of our community while maintaining the continuity of our operations and delivering on our educational mission.”
Middlebury’s closure follows a number of other schools, including Harvard University and Amherst College, which have decided to suspend on-campus classes following spring breaks rather than risk students bringing the virus back with them.
Around the country, dozens of other higher-education institutions have canceled classes either out of precaution or after members of the community have tested positive for COVID-19. Some of those schools include: Columbia University, Stanford University, Princeton University, Fordham University, University of Washington, UC Berkeley, Rice University and Hofstra University.
As of Tuesday, the CDC had reported 647 confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 in 36 states, including Washington, D.C.
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