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The colleges that are succeeding, despite COVID

Brian Leiter

After the "bad news" stories about college openings that journalists love, the real story now is the number of schools that seem to be making this work.  Notre Dame, with 12,000 students and a rocky start, imposed a two-week lockdown; now they have a positivity rate of 1.2% and only about five dozen active cases on campus.  As we noted before, Duke University is doing quite well, with aggressive testing and good student compliance with behavioral expectations.  Bates College, with nearly 1,800 students in the boondocks of Maine, has had only 2 cases after several weeks of class.  Amherst College, far less isolated than Bates, has had a total of 3.  No doubt this will be disappointing to those invested in the idea that it was obviously nuts to open a school during a pandemic.  But it is good news for students and their families.

ADDENDUM:   Someone on Twitter points out that Brandeis, near Boston, is also doing quite well.  I'm opening comments for readers to add links to evidence of other schools that are faring well.

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9 responses to “The colleges that are succeeding, despite COVID”

  1. Gregory Pence

    As for colleges succeeding, take a look at this (nicely transparent) Dashboard of COVID cases of the University of Alabama System (UA, UAB, UAH).
    UAB, which has massive capacity for quick testing as a medical center, has really limited the number of cases on campus.

    https://uasystem.edu/covid-19-dashboard/

    Reply
  2. Brian Ogilvie

    UMass Amherst, where I teach, is largely remote, but we have many face to face courses on campus, including one in History, my department, that focuses on undigitized archival material. About 1,100 students are living in dorms, and another 2,500 or so are living off campus. We have been doing asymptomatic testing since August 6, twice a week for students taking courses on campus or living there*, and once a week for faculty and staff who are regularly on campus. We've had 18 positive cases as of yesterday. (https://www.umass.edu/coronavirus/dashboard)

    *There are a handful of students whose courses are all remote but who are living on campus because they did not have an alternative place to live where they could take courses.

    Reply
  3. Joe Henderson

    Our very small school way out in the Adirondacks is doing well too:

    https://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/local-news/2020/09/campuswide-testing-and-no-covid-so-far-at-paul-smiths-college/

    For once I'm glad to be: 1) so small, 2) so isolated, and 3) in New York State (where we now have mostly competent political leadership on this issue).

    Reply
  4. John O.

    Other colleges like Amherst and Bates are also doing remarkably well: Middlebury (https://www.middlebury.edu/office/midd2021/covid-reporting-dashboard), Bowdoin (https://www.bowdoin.edu/covid-19/dashboard/index.html), Colby (https://covid19.colby.edu/health-code-and-testing-data/), and Wesleyan (https://www.wesleyan.edu/healthservices/reactivating/health/dashboard.html) all have exceptionally low positivity rates, and some currently have zero cases. Here's a recent story about some of them: https://www.axios.com/colleges-reopening-coronavirus-cb74be12-8dc1-43fc-9246-aea39760c76b.html.

    All of these small liberal arts colleges are in states that are handling the pandemic well, in small towns, and several of them have campuses that are set apart from the towns in which they're located, so that it's possible to create a true "bubble." They also all have significant resources. They had and continue to have rigorous protocols in place. Middlebury, for example, required all students to quarantine strictly at home for two weeks before arriving on campus, with different cohorts of students arriving over several days; some of these arriving students were transported to campus by Middlebury transportation, to minimize the risk of acquiring COVID en route; students then took a test upon arrival, moved themselves into their dorm rooms (no parents allowed and with no assistance from residential life staff), and then quarantined in their rooms until the initial test came back negative, eating food that was provided to them upon arrival and, if results were lagging, that was brought to them in their dorms. They then took a test at day 7 as well, and after receiving a negative result they were released to "campus quarantine." After several weeks of campus quarantine, they are now permitted to enter the downtown of Middlebury and to leave the town altogether provided they stay within the county. It's pretty strict–too strict?–but it is certainly working.

    Reply
  5. Ralph Gensohn

    Most Boston-area colleges are doing well:

    https://www.bu.edu/healthway/community-dashboard/

    https://coronavirus.tufts.edu/testing-metrics

    https://news.northeastern.edu/coronavirus/reopening/testing-dashboard/

    Reply
  6. Meridith George

    Purchase College— a small liberal arts school in Westchester NY (home to a really small yet great philosophy program)— welcomed back around 1500 students, and currently has 0 confirmed cases!

    Reply
  7. Joseph Zepeda

    Saint Mary's College of California (in the hills east of Berkeley/Oakland) has most instruction online, but about 450 students are on campus. No commuters – in-person instruction is only available for residents. 1 case reported so far.

    Reply
  8. David Y.

    Cornell College in Iowa (about 1000 students, with about 875 in residence this year as students could opt to study remotely) — despite being less than half an hour from the University of Iowa's 1800+ cases — so far has no positive student tests (and two positive employees, one from before students arrived). Dashboard: https://www.cornellcollege.edu/response/covid-19-testing-dashboard.shtml. Cornell has a strict mask mandate, random testing of students and employees and targeted testing of athletes (who aren't competing in intercollegiate matches this fall anyway), many classes operating fully online or hybrid according largely to faculty preferences, and its customary one-course-at-a-time/block plan schedule.

    The local (Mount Vernon) school district is also faring well, with one positive case at the elementary and one at the high school and substantial isolation groups after each. Many of us fear that sports are the potential weak point, since other schools in the conference do not have mask mandates or are not using reduced-occupancy hybrid schedules like Mount Vernon is.

    I still expect the wheels to come off eventually, but I'm pleasantly surprised so far.

    Reply
  9. Edouard Machery

    Pitt is doing well, with a rate of .36% of positive surveillance test since early August, with no sign of increase: https://www.coronavirus.pitt.edu/healthy-community/campus-cases.

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