CC’s plan for spring, explained. Sort of.
Spoiler: We still have questions, and you probably do, too.
Some days, we love being student journalists. Other days, we groan and chug another pot of coffee.
Today’s newsletter is more a result of the latter. We had a beautiful newsletter all ready for you — and then we got an email from the college announcing its plan for the spring semester, and we scrapped everything.
We’ll break down that announcement in a minute. But first, here are some other major email updates you might’ve missed this week.
✉️In Your Inbox:
Two CC staff members tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. One person was last in Armstrong Hall on Oct. 8, and the other person was last in Spencer Center on Oct. 14.
Five construction workers on the Robson Arena project tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. They are all employed by private companies, and CC COVID-19 Emergency Manager Maggie Santos wrote that the CC community is not at risk.
An employee at La’au’s Taco Shop near the CC campus tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. The person was at work on Oct. 15, and the restaurant closed for cleaning.
Yesterday, an employee of Bon Appétit, CC’s food service provider, tested positive for COVID-19. The person has not been in the food service area since Oct. 12, and the two employees they had contact with are now in quarantine.
The National Collegiate Hockey Conference, the conference CC men’s hockey team belongs to, will begin the season in a “pod” in Omaha, Nebraska on Dec. 1. A second portion of the season will take place January through March, and teams will travel to their opponents.
CC Mutual Aid plans on having a second round of redistribution completed around Dec. 11. Applications will reopen around Fall Break to accommodate any new applicants.
If you’re voting in Colorado, Oct. 26 is the last day to register online to receive a mail-in ballot. If you miss the deadline, you will have to register and vote in person. From Oct. 26 to Nov. 3, CC Votes and CCSGA will partner to offer a ballot drop spot in Worner Campus Center and coordinate shuttle services to the polls.
Okay fine, this isn’t a major email update, but The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project is hiring! CC students, if you’re interested in joining our team, email us at ccreportingproject@gmail.com for application information. Applications are due Friday at 5 p.m. MT.
Photo courtesy of CC student Cam Mongoven ’21.
Time to Spring Forward? Colorado College releases plans for J Block through Block 8
This is the email we’ve been expecting — maybe not yesterday afternoon, but expecting nonetheless. Colorado College has a plan for spring 2021. COVID-19 might have other ideas, but here’s what CC administrators are prepping for students. If you just couldn’t make it to the end of the email and/or the YouTube video, you’ve come to the right place. Here are the highlights and some of the questions we still have.
🏃♀️Who’s coming back for Pandemic Spring
Colorado College already approved over 500 students to remain on campus for the fall semester. They can also remain on campus for spring, and the college is inviting students in the following categories to join them starting in January:
Seniors with housing assignments
First-year students who were sent home at the end of Block 1
First-year and new transfer students who chose to take classes remotely this fall
New winter-start students
New transfer students
New Fall Semester-away students
Any remaining NCAA student-athletes not already on or near campus
Beginning Block 5, international students can also return to campus.
Students not in the approved categories are allowed to live off-campus in the Springs. To retain Gold Card access to buildings on campus, they will need to complete an online module on virus protocols and a spring living survey. Next, the college will need to decide whether it will eliminate its three-year residency requirement for good, or just for the 2020-21 academic year.
🚦First-years and seniors? Welcome back. Juniors and sophomores? Better luck next time
Colorado College joins other liberal arts institutions, such as Swarthmore College and Wellesley College, in prioritizing the senior class’s return to campus for their last semester. However, CC differs in one key way: Swarthmore and Wellesley both announced in June they would bring first-year and sophomore students back for the fall semester, and switch them out for junior and senior students in the spring, if coronavirus conditions forced them to continue maintaining a de-densified campus. But because CC’s attempt to bring first-year students back to campus ended in three dorm-wide quarantines and an even more de-densified campus, it looks like the first-years will get another shot at an in-person college experience.
👩👩👧👦Here come the pods: Quick, grab your nine closest friends
In a video announcing the college’s plans for spring, Rochelle Dickey, acting dean of students and acting vice president for student life, said the “Big Three” dorms on campus will only hold 50% capacity, but some students may still have roommates.
Dickey also announced CC is exploring a pod-living model for next semester, with groups of no more than 10 students. CC isn’t alone in its pod pride. At Reed College, first-year students are assigned to “residential pods” of 10–26 students based on their classes. Students at the University of California at Irvine waited for their COVID-19 test results in “Zot Pods” of 6-10 students.
“This is a model that we know is successful at other institutions,” Dickey said. “Rather than having random housing assignments this coming spring, we’re going to be working with students so that you as students can be able to group yourselves into those living and social networks,” she added.
But here’s where it gets complicated:
Earlier this month, we reported on some behind-the-scenes work to develop a pod-living model for CC. Sociology professor Kathy Giuffre told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project that students would be able to choose if they wanted to be part of a pod at all. However, CC’s FAQ page states that “all students will be grouped into ‘pods.’”
For its next steps, CC will likely have to answer some of the following questions:
Is being in a pod optional or required?
How will the college coordinate students’ desired pods with housing assignments?
Will students living off-campus also participate in the pod system?
What are the protocols if a student wants to switch into a different pod because of extenuating circumstances?
Dickey said students can expect to hear from the Residential Experience team in the week of Nov. 9. Final housing assignments will be in Banner by Nov. 17.
✈️Bye, bye, break: Spring Break is now just a regular old Block Break
CC joined Middlebury College in canceling a Spring Break. Instead, CC will replace Spring Break with a regular Block Break. Because of this change, the college adjusted the academic calendar to expand J Block to a full 18 days, and move up the start dates for Blocks 5 and 6 to Feb. 1 and March 1, respectively. The dates of Blocks 7 and 8 remain unchanged.
“Students going off-campus for an extended time period increases the risk of a major virus outbreak when they all return,” said acting co-president Robert Moore in the announcement video.
Students living on campus should prepare to remain in-state during Block Breaks, or else continue their courses remotely, according to the FAQ page. (But currently, even the conditions in-state are not looking good.)
Because of the unpredictability of the pandemic, it is still unclear what percentage of classes will be offered in person this spring. And for seniors or recent grads wondering about the state of their commencement ceremonies, the co-presidents wrote that the likelihood of holding traditional, in-person ceremonies is “slim.” An official decision about the ceremonies will come in March.
🧪Testing time: CC is set to deploy an arsenal of testing tools
When students return to campus in the spring, the college expects them to have already self-quarantined for 14 days. Then, the college will test them for the coronavirus upon arrival as they did in the fall and will continue to randomly select around one-third of the student population each week for additional testing. For J Block, students taking in-person or hybrid courses will have priority for move-in and testing.
CC expanded their testing infrastructure last month with the news that the college acquired rapid Abbott ID Now tests that have results back in “hours,” according to Vice President for Information Technology Brian Young.
In the announcement video, Young said the school will be using a combination of rapid tests and the nasal swab tests already in use to test the student body going forward. CC also recently introduced wastewater testing for the coronavirus, which can detect the virus around four days before an infected individual becomes contagious. The Catalyst reported that the program is expected to continue for a year at least, if not more.
Andrea Bruder, a CC professor who is also heading the coronavirus Scientific Advisory Group, said in the video that if the school sees an increase in positive test results on campus, they will increase the percentage of the student body randomly tested each week — currently set around 33%. She also said the CC alerts community members receive will ramp up to keep everyone informed about the risk of the virus.
A couple of questions we still have:
Will the college include faculty and staff in the random testing pool?
Will CC allocate or prioritize the rapid tests and the nasal swab tests differently?
👀WHAT’S NEXT: This is just the start of preparations for Pandemic Spring. The college will release some pre-recorded virtual information sessions in the next few weeks. As usual, we’ll recap the information here.
About the CC COVID-19 Reporting Project
The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project is created by Colorado College student journalists Miriam Brown, Arielle Gordon, and Isabel Hicks, in partnership with The Catalyst, Colorado College’s student newspaper. Work by Phoebe Lostroh, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at CC and National Science Foundation Program Director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, will appear from time to time, as will infographics by Colorado College students Rana Abdu, Aleesa Chua, Sara Dixon, Jia Mei, and Lindsey Smith.
The project seeks to provide frequent updates about CC and other higher education institutions during the pandemic by providing original reporting, analysis, interviews with campus leaders, and context about what state and national headlines mean for the CC community.
📬 Enter your email address to subscribe and get the newsletter in your inbox each time it comes out. You can reach us with questions, feedback, or news tips by emailing ccreportingproject@gmail.com.