{"id":23932,"date":"2020-08-06T11:39:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T15:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=23932"},"modified":"2020-08-06T11:39:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T15:39:48","slug":"boston-city-councilor-urges-bu-and-northeastern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2020\/08\/06\/boston-city-councilor-urges-bu-and-northeastern\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston City Councilor Urges BU and Northeastern to Switch to Virtual Instruction"},"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\/871245973&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<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\" title=\"wtbu\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wtbu<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\/boston-city-councilor-urges-bu-and-northeastern-to-switch-to-virtual-instruction\" title=\"Boston City Councilor Urges BU and Northeastern to Switch to Virtual Instruction\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boston City Councilor Urges BU and Northeastern to Switch to Virtual Instruction<\/a><\/div>\n<p>By Grace Ferguson<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boston City Councilor Kenzie Bok thinks colleges in Boston should teach fully remotely this fall. On Monday, she sent a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KenzieBok\/status\/1290634506295226374\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">letter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the presidents of Boston University and Northeastern University, explaining her proposal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bok represents Boston residents who live near the two colleges. The councilor said many of her constituents are seniors, people of color, and those with low income\u2014all communities that have been hit hard by the pandemic. In these neighborhoods, students live right nextdoor to long-term residents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe already knew that these universities were totally embedded in our communities, and that all of our fates are mixed up together, but I think this crisis has made that especially clear on a public health front,\u201d Bok said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bok\u2019s ideas don\u2019t stop at online classes. She wants to see colleges offer isolation units for students living off campus who test positive for COVID-19.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTo me, it\u2019s backwards,\u201d Bok said, \u201cthat for a bunch of the schools, the isolation housing is going to be available if you\u2019re on campus and you test positive, but if you live off-campus you\u2019re being asked to self-isolate, when we know our off-campus housing situations are much denser than these de-densified dorms are going to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The councilor also wants colleges to crack down on large gatherings, and put more enforcement behind the governor\u2019s travel quarantine order. Under the order, people arriving from high risk states are supposed to quarantine for 14 days, unless they test negative for COVID-19. Bok isn\u2019t satisfied with the level of monitoring colleges have to make sure students actually comply.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cStudents from out of state are people from out of state, right?\u201d Bok said. \u201cThe governor\u2019s orders should apply to them the same as if they weren\u2019t studying at university.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of Bok\u2019s main concerns is students bringing the virus into the city when they move in. In her letter, she writes that it\u2019s one thing to control the virus once students are already in town, but \u201cthe greatest public health risk to Boston at the moment is the sheer influx of individuals from out of state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bok said she sent the letter this week because she\u2019s seen the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts\u2014as well as the spikes across the country. She sees now as the latest possible time BU and Northeastern could change course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s such a delicate time, and we\u2019re the only city in America that\u2019s proposing to suddenly add 10 percent to our population, drawn from all over the country, in this very dense period,\u201d Bok said. \u201cAnd then, when you add to that the fact that the prospect for effective, isolated quarantine happening across the board seems slim, it just doesn\u2019t strike me as wise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cBoston University is in close contact with Councilor Bok on testing protocols and public health best practices,\u201d a BU spokesperson wrote in an email. \u201cWe will continue to work with the Councilor and her constituents to prioritize their health and safety along with the health and safety of the entire BU community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>wtbu \u00b7 Boston City Councilor Urges BU and Northeastern to Switch to Virtual Instruction By Grace Ferguson &nbsp; Boston City Councilor Kenzie Bok thinks colleges in Boston should teach fully remotely this fall. On Monday, she sent a letter to the presidents of Boston University and Northeastern University, explaining her proposal. Bok represents Boston residents [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18157,"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\/23932"}],"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\/18157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23933,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23932\/revisions\/23933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}