{"id":23731,"date":"2020-06-05T17:20:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T21:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=23731"},"modified":"2020-06-05T17:20:53","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T21:20:53","slug":"colleges-setting-aside-quarantine-housing-for-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2020\/06\/05\/colleges-setting-aside-quarantine-housing-for-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleges Setting Aside Quarantine Housing for Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/834884770&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>Colleges Setting Aside Quarantine Housing for Fall<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by Grace Ferguson<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boston University is setting aside 500 of its 10,000 beds for student quarantine housing this fall. BU President Robert Brown released this information at a virtual higher education panel on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The panel, which was hosted by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, also included President Laurie Leshin of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and President Paula Johnson of Wellesley College. Leshin said her school is also setting aside about 5 percent of its beds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brown said BU is working with local hotels to expand its housing capacity. All of the quarantine housing will be on campus, but that means the university needs to vacate 500 beds. An extra complication is that the quarantine rooms have to be singles with private bathrooms. Brown said many of those are usually occupied by students with medical accommodations, so BU needs to find a way to fit those needs in a different room.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Add on testing, contact tracing, social distancing, and everything else it will take to reopen campus, and you\u2019ve got a tall order.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019ve kind of come to believe that this is our version of the Manhattan Project,\u201d Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The hope, of course, is that this Manhattan Project won\u2019t end in death and destruction. BU is already setting up its own COVID-19 testing facility, but Brown said the university might need the help of outside labs. BU has more than 35,000 students and 10,000 employees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, the much smaller Wellesley College is looking for local labs to do its tests. Wellesley\u2019s President Johnson said testing is vital for colleges, which are full of young people who are less likely to develop symptoms of COVID-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe know the largest risk is going to be an asymptomatic carrier, and therefore spreader to others in the community,\u201d Johnson said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All three presidents agreed that campus life will have to look different. Leshin said it will depend on students.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe\u2019re messaging very strongly already to our community that I can make all the decisions I want, but the success of this isn\u2019t about anything I\u2019m gonna decide,\u201d Leshin said. \u201cIt\u2019s about our community coming together and understanding that they each have a role to play, and accepting that role as a part of the condition for being able to return.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brown mentioned that BU will put students in groups called called \u201chouseholds.\u201d The president has mentioned the term in previous appearances, but he has never offered any details. The clearest definition has come from BU Spokesman Colin Riley, who wrote in an email that households are \u201csmaller cohorts of students who regularly interact.\u201d At the panel, Brown said the households will provide a sense of community. The university is not ready to announce more information at this time, Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As for sports, BU will not allow spectators in the stands this fall. Brown said that athletes likely will not be commuting across state lines.\u00a0 One in five students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute are varsity athletes, and Leshin said her college is looking for ways to make sports safe.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colleges Setting Aside Quarantine Housing for Fall by Grace Ferguson Boston University is setting aside 500 of its 10,000 beds for student quarantine housing this fall. BU President Robert Brown released this information at a virtual higher education panel on Thursday. The panel, which was hosted by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, also included President [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17683,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1597,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23732,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23731\/revisions\/23732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}