CLEVELAND, Ohio — Kent State University’s third round of summer courses kicked off on July 9. Almost all instructions remain remote due to COVID-19 and the campus is practically empty. But the university’s interim associate provost for academic affairs Manfred Van Dulmen says as of now, students, staff and faculty will be returning in August — but only if they choose to.
“We want to give students an option of how they want to participate. So, those students will feel more comfortable participating from home, we have the options and opportunities for students to do that. For students who want to participate in person, we have that as well, so we don’t want any student who does not feel comfortable to feel they have to come to campus,” said Van Dulmen.
Van Dulmen says the on-campus and student life experience is a major component of students’ education. The school is working to transition student support activities and student life groups to online platforms, but one thing that can’t go remote is housing. As of now, Kent State residence halls will also open this fall.
“So, as part of how we’re doing this safely is reducing density in the residence halls and not having rooms with triples, reducing the capacity in the residence hall so how many students in total are there,” he said.
Over 20,000 undergraduates are currently enrolled at Kent State. Van Dulmen says that he and the school’s pandemic response, and reopening committees realize that even with diligent adherence to public health guidance, cases of COVID-19 will likely occur within the Kent State community. The school has taken advantage of CARES Act funds to designate testing and isolation spaces on campus.
“So working on determining that space and what is a good location has been a great effort of our division of student affairs and health center to identify that because we want a space that is not linked to the residence halls for isolation space,” he said.
He says campus safety doesn’t only depend on how the school prepares, but how well the students adhere to the safety guidelines the university set, which include required face coverings, hand hygiene and cough etiquette, physical distancing, and self-monitoring daily for symptoms of COVID-19 before coming to campus, and being courteous to one another.
“Even if you’re not at risk, even if you don’t feel sick, if you don’t think you have a high chance of getting really sick, you’re still protecting the people around you, and that is so important that we wear the face coverings, not just for ourselves, but for all our other Flashes and keeping everybody safe on campus, and that’s really what we mean by we Flashes take care of Flashes.”
