By Alison Grillo
THE KEENE SENTINEL
Prof. Jeanelle Boyer plans to wear a mask this fall when she teaches her courses in health sciences at Keene State College. And if you’re one of her students, you, too, might have to wear one.
Or you might not.
“I’m going to have an anonymous vote to see what they prefer,” said Boyer, co-chair of the college’s COVID Leadership Team. The vote’s outcome will determine her policy on whether everyone must mask, she said.
The planned plebiscite is a sign that the college — along with Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, and many other institutions in New Hampshire and the nation — has turned a corner in the fight against the virus, and will be imposing fewer restrictions on its students and staff during the 2022-23 academic year.
“Our protocols are fairly similar to other schools,” Boyer said. “Most schools are encouraging masks but not requiring them, and most schools are no longer doing surveillance testing.”
Testing at Keene State this fall, she added, will instead be the “symptomatic” kind. People with high fevers, coughs, runny noses and such will be encouraged to take advantage of the college’s rapid antigen tests.
Boyer was interviewed less than a week after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 guidelines to reflect, as Boyer put it, “more herd immunity.” According to CDC figures updated on Aug. 11, 95 percent of the U.S. population has some degree of immunity against the virus, due to vaccinations and to the antibodies that result from getting the disease. That’s good news for institutions of higher learning, widely reported to have suffered enrollment declines during the past two years.
“I think this fall is going to look as close to normal as possible,” said Kathryn Grosso Gann, director of communications at Franklin Pierce. “We’re in a good place, and we’re not anticipating the need to lay out any additional protocols.
“The spring had a different cadence to it, because we were in the spike of the Omicron variant,” Gann continued. During the second half of the semester, however, when infection rates dropped, the university “was able to roll back the more severe protocols.”
Something similar happened at Keene State; the college “significantly scaled back risk mitigation measures in March 2022, by making surveillance testing optional for employees, increasing capacities at events, and making masks required in classrooms only,” as stated in a Leadership Team report.
As of May 10, there was a single active case of COVID-19 at Franklin Pierce, according to its website. This followed a semester in which cases dropped after the national Omicron outbreak early in 2022 had abated, Gann said. Nonetheless, the school is keeping its vaccine mandate heading into the new academic year.
“[T]he University requires proof of full COVID-19 vaccination, or proof of medical or religious exemption, for all students, faculty, and staff who will attend classes, live on campus, work, or access campus during the 2022-2023 academic year,” reads the Ravens Return page on Franklin Pierce’s website. Those who are exempted will be subject to testing.
Students arriving for the new semester at Keene State, however, will not be required to show any COVID-19 documentation. As for vaccine mandates, Keene State is prohibited from having one by New Hampshire’s “medical freedom” bill, which became law in June 2021. There will be no arrival testing this fall, and pre-arrival testing will be “strongly encouraged” only.
Both Gann and Boyer praised students for their willingness to comply with COVID-19 rules. “I couldn’t be prouder of them,” Gann said. And Boyer predicted her students, since they’ve signed up to study public health, will show significant support for mask-wearing when the matter is put to vote.
Boyer also noted that not just professors, but event organizers at Keene State as well, will have the discretion to require face coverings. Masks will be required at the Wellness Center.
At the end of last semester, Keene State’s student newspaper, The Equinox, weighed in on masking and testing protocols at the college. In an editorial, the paper proposed a testing policy for the fall somewhat stronger than the one that eventually prevailed. “There should be an arrival test for all students, residential and off-campus, like previous semesters. This way we can safely begin the semester without having to worry about spreading the virus,” the paper wrote.
Regarding masks, the editorial supported the prerogative of professors to require face coverings, but also asserted, “Outside of the classroom, we think continuing at discretion masking is the best way to approach the coming semester. For students who wish to continue wearing masks, they should have the freedom to do so and vice versa. There is an opportunity to take back what life used to be like pre-pandemic.”
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