ALLENDALE, Mich. — Several colleges and universities have already announced they plan on having students on campus this fall. But, with covid-19 restrictions... what will campus and class look like? Recently I spoke with GVSU president, Dr. Philomena Mantella about their plans.
NICK LAFAVE: "How confident are you that you're going to be able to have in-person classes this Fall?"
DR. PHILOMENA MANTELLA: "I wish I could tell you I was 100% confident. But, my confidence level is really high. We're working hard to be sure that we can build and face-to-face experience that takes into account all the best thinking on public health. So, what we really need to do is oversize the room and undersize the class. So, we've been re-situating our classes with six-foot social distancing. And we're fortunate because we've got the physical facility to spread out and we've got the small class sizes. And then of course we can utilize technology, so we can take one of the three segments of a class and move it more online. Instead of having classes bunch up - kind of - Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 2, we'll be using the whole week. And all of those together brings down the density so we can manage the six-foot distance.
NICK: "Are you planning on full dorm rooms?"
MANTELLA: "Most of our residence halls are suite-style and apartment-style and small living groups, with bathrooms in the living environment. So, we really have a 20% problem. About 20% of our rooms need to be re-configured, probably, into singles."
NICK: "What is going to be your criteria for - potentially - shutting down in-person classes again? One positive case? 10? 100?"
MANTELLA: "We're going to have testing and contact tracing. And we are going to follow what the guidance is. And I don't that the guidance is clear yet on that."
Dr. Mantella talks about much more - including finance, layoffs and sports - in the full interview.
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