This is Perseverentia. Students and faculty were away from campus for six months. In September 2020, the University would return to in-person lectures and classes. What did this look like? How did the university develop a contingency plan in the event of an outbreak? What was quarantine like on campus? This is episode 5: Back to School.
Planning for the return to campus started almost immediately once students were sent away in March 2020. The University needed a way to make sure that students could practice social distancing, conduct regular testing, and, should a student test positive, provide a safe place for students to quarantine and isolate.
Tasked with managing the University’s COVID response, Dr. Laura Bayless had a lot on her plate.
Laura Bayless
56:33
I cannot tell you how many people told me I needed to be taken before the Nuremberg court, which is where they prosecuted Nazi doctors for experimenting on.
Laura Bayless 33: 40* 31:40: So we were trying to figure out, what can we do to help keep campus be as safe as possible? Well, you know, bring people back. We didn't want to delay. Some institutions, like didn't have students come back for a week or two, like, we wanted people back. We delayed for the snowstorm. Thank you, Mother Nature. So in the last second, when there's huge supply chain issues, we had to find 1000s of rapid tests. We didn't have them. And everyone in that timeframe is trying to find rapid tests, individuals, companies where everyone is right. So we found a source. And we paid $28,000 for 1000 rapid tests. Isn't that insane?
The national uncertainty surrounding the pandemic was present at the university. As a Residential Assistant, one of Miranda Gustin’s primary responsibilities was to enforce university policies.
Gustin 2:34
I think that students who wore their masks were like, typically left alone. You know, they, like we didn't yell at those who'd wore the masks. But like, people who didn't wear the mask was not because they didn't believe in it. Sometimes it was an act of rebellion, because they were mad about other things, like the guest policy, you know, they didn't want to adhere to everything. So like, they just a lot of the time, people did it just to just just to get at you, because you know, they were mad that you couldn't you wouldn't leave them alone, because their friends or all of their friends were in the room, and they're not supposed to be you know, like, it was really hard.
Gustin 14:33
I had like we had to distance people during fire alarms and I think that was crazy. You know, and and I think the first time I ever, ever, like I hate saying yelled at because I didn't really go I don't yell, but like reprimanded somebody. It was for like he had one he had his mom over to hell. Open with something. And I had to be like, No, you have to leave. And it's like, how do you tell someone that they can't see their mom? You know? And it was like, hard because it's like, are we gonna allow people to leave campus like the some schools did? No, like they couldn't leave campus at all. You know, they were stuck there, and you can't see your parents. So like, it was like, are we going to do that and yelling at somebody's mom was definitely a low of mine. Like, how do I do that? Like, that's no, I give birth to that kid, like, use it like you have full rights over him. But I'm yelling at you like because you're breaking the rules. I think that was like the hardest moment for me. It's just even starting to yell at people for doing normal things. was so weird.
Where did this all come from? Why were students disgruntled in particular about the university-specific policies? Because of his position as Student Trustee, Steve Olson was able to give some insight into this.
Steve Olson 5:49
But a lot of the decisions that came down from administration came down, very sudden. Pretty much going into effect next week. And it's very similar to the mask mandate. Now understand the politics of that mask mandate being lifted, they don't want students to just go around not wearing masks. But it's things like, Oh, you're gonna have a vaccine mandate. And if you don't get vaccinated, within three weeks, you're gone. Like, you will be disenrolled or unenrolled, from the University gone kind of thing. And you need to give students a little bit more of a heads up on that and say, Hey, we're working on this, Hey, we're doing it like, we might try to do this. It's, they needed to give us more of a heads up, they needed to involve students more than discussions, and that that has been a thorn in my side ever since. They're very here's a finalized thing of a thing we've been doing for three months. Go figure it out. Yeah, yeah. Here's something we've been working on for three months. What do you pay students? This is the thing, by the way, we didn't talk to the Student Government Association about it, but you know, the representative body for the students.
Part of the problem was in the standards students were held to. The standards for student COVID guidelines came from other state schools, or the University’s negotiated collective bargaining agreement with its faculty union. However, the University does not give its student government the power to negotiate, and did not approach Student Government on most decisions regarding the Pandemic. Despite this, Joe Cautela and other student leaders were understanding of the University’s position.
Joe Cautela 3:31: And I would say the school really tried to the best of their abilities to implement COVID policy aligned with other state schools. And they were were of course, being advised by health boards by the government, etc. So I think with how unpredictable COVID was just the pandemic in general, it's really hard to be critical of any efforts that were to keep the students safe, or not just the students but the campus community safe.
Testing was required for resident students. When students tested positive for COVID-19, they had two choices: isolate at home, or move in to a designated residence hall until they produce two negative tests. Miranda Gustin was unfortunate enough to need to move in to that quarantine residence hall.
Gustin 5:17
Mara floor was used as a COVID dorm. And not gonna lie was not the best of conditions. It definitely wasn't a five star hotel, or you leave wasn't even a two star hotel. So it was not fun. It was just bed and some blank, old walls. And that was it, you know, and then egg, we got frozen meals. We had one package, not one package, but like one box care package of frozen meals. And we got no swamped every day. And that was the only connection you had the people. And it was like, Oh, there he goes that go into like, it was fun. wasn't fun. But it was interesting watching people who had moving bins want room from move from one side of the campus to the other kids, you knew exactly why they were there. So it was kind of like a walk of shame. And it wasn't, it wasn't fun. And as an RA, a lot of the time, those who tested positive with COVID would knock on your door and be like, Hey, I have COVID What do I do? And you're like, back up?
The university even today struggles with COVID mitigation. Testing is still available to all members of the campus community. Laura Bayless and President Lapidus are still working with the state to continue to develop strategies as the pandemic moves into the endemic stage.
Richard Lapidus 18:49 So it's it's going to take a while for everything to bounce back or people to feel more normal again comfortable. Part of our job is to do that to try to keep trying to engage populations in different ways.
Perseverentia is a production of Fitchburg State University. I’m your narrator, [NAME]. This podcast was produced as part of Dr. Katherine Jewell’s Honors Seminar in History in the Spring of 2022. Special Thanks to Asher Jackson and the staff at the Amelia V. Gallucci-Ciro Library, Kisha Tracy, and the Fitchburg State University Economics, History, and Political Science Department, and the Fitchburg State University Honors Program.
You can find all episodes of Perserverentia, as well as our bibliographies and our entire archive on our website, sites.google.com/fitchburgstate.edu/fsucovid19.