UNC and NC State begin a ‘college school year like no other,’ because of COVID-19
Monday marked the first day of classes at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University, but the fall semester has never looked quite like this.
The Chapel Hill campus was like a ghost town just before 8 a.m. Monday, when students would typically be buzzing through campus to get to their first class.
The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t halted campus operations, but the fall semester started about a week earlier than originally planned in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 and to get students off campus before a potential second wave.
There wasn’t a long line of students waiting to take their traditional lucky first sip at UNC’s Old Well, but a group of students wearing face masks walked up and took their picture to mark the tradition. There weren’t large groups of freshman walking to breakfast with their new friends and roommates, but some students were outside the student union eating breakfast or coming out of a dining hall with to-go bags of food.
Chris Suggs, senior class president at UNC, lives in Durham but drove to campus around 5 a.m. Monday because he couldn’t sleep Sunday night. He walked around Chapel Hill and by the Bell Tower praying for the university community, including students, housekeepers and dining workers, professors and administrators, as they embark on this “college school year like no other.”
“It’s going to be filled with so much uncertainty, it already is,” Suggs said. “So I pray that we can make the best out of what is such a bleak and dark situation.”
Suggs said it’s not necessarily safe to be in such condensed settings on campus with cases continuing to spread in Chapel Hill. But incoming students and graduating seniors deserve to have as great of a college experience as possible, he said.
“As senior class president you’re expected to lead and supposed to be this strong space and strong voice for the senior class,” Suggs said. “But at the same time, I’m not quite sure how I really feel about this year, the fact that we’re really just walking into what feels like a burning building.”
UNC reported 11 new coronavirus cases on campus in the past week, since students officially started moving into residence halls. The university is tracking cases on campus among students and employees and will update its dashboard weekly.
Mandated masks and online classes
On Monday morning, people were strolling through McCorkle Place, but only a few students were going into academic buildings. There were university ambassadors at every building entrance and other workers in brightly colored polo shirts facilitating those coming in and out and making sure everyone had a mask on.
Around lunchtime, there was a line to get into Lenoir Dining Hall on campus, and dozens of students ate lunch and chatted outside around The Pit. Groups of friends sat on the quad together, and a few cornhole boards set up.
University employees wiped down the door handles of the dining hall, and there were hand-washing stations set up around campus.
While UNC is offering some face-to-face courses this fall, those classrooms will be mostly empty, with only a third of the students actually attending in person. Many students will be taking courses online, even if they’re living in a campus dorm, which also have reduced capacity.
Kiana Suggs, a freshman at UNC, is staying with her older brother Chris and taking her online classes at a desk in the living room of his apartment. She said she canceled her housing contract the day before she was supposed to move in because of the coronavirus cases on campus.
Their family is from Kinston, and she wanted to be near UNC to get the freshman experience while social distancing.
“I figured it would just be better for my health and the safety of my family if I stayed off campus,” Kiana Suggs said.
She’s also familiar with remote learning because she’s been taking virtual classes since her sophomore year of high school through a dual enrollment program at a local community college near her home.
“The transition from that to taking online classes here at Carolina really isn’t too much of a bad transition for me, it was smooth,” she said.
Suggs logged onto her Zoom call Monday morning at 10:40 a.m., as the professor walked the class of a few dozen students through the syllabus.
Her professor started the classes leveling with the students and telling them she understands these circumstances aren’t ideal and that it’s a tough way to start the fall semester. She then introduced her dog and went over the Zoom ground rules, like muting your microphone and using the chat function to ask questions. She also told students how to do virtual office hours if they have questions about classwork or concerns about grades.
UNC has been planning its fall reopening for months, and the university has made adjustments to everything from seating arrangements in classrooms to reserving residence halls for COVID-19 isolation and quarantine.
‘It is weird’
N.C. State also has a mix of virtual and online classes. The Raleigh campus changed seating arrangements and spread out desks or tables in classrooms and labs. In some classrooms, they installed barriers to maintain physical distancing, and faculty might be teaching from behind a Plexiglas shield.
Kiran Soma, a freshman and Park Scholar at NCSU, set up in a student lounge to take his first college class. The math class allows students to access the materials online, and they don’t meet in a Zoom call at a specific time.
“It is weird to not be able to see my professor and classmates in person,” Soma said. “But I’m enjoying the experience on campus nonetheless.”
Amber Silver, a freshman at N.C State, took her English class in person on Monday. She and her new classmate Paige Wheeler said the desks were spaced six feet apart, everyone wore their masks and there was hand sanitizer for students to use.
Savannah Sobha, also a freshman at N.C. State, took her first two college classes from her dorm room Monday morning. She’s hoping she can meet up with some friends later in the day.
“I’m stuck in my room all day, all my classes are online,” Sobha said. “I’m just trying to get out and about as much as I can.”
Concern as schools reopen and case counts rise
N.C. State is also tracking and releasing COVID-19 data on a online dashboard. The university has reported 15 cases since March, including in its athletic department, but no new cases have been reported since Aug. 1.
UNC has reported more than 40 new cases among students and employees over the past three weeks. There was also an outbreak of 37 cases reported in the football program and athletic department earlier this summer. That brings the total number to 189 positive cases reported on campus since February.
Given the threat of the pandemic, Orange County health officials advised UNC to delay in-person classes for five weeks or to offer fully online instruction for the fall. They also asked UNC to limit campus housing to only students who need it.
Orange County officials are concerned that bringing tens of thousands of students back amid the rising coronavirus cases, particularly among young people, will make the area a hotspot. They’re also worried about the behavior they’ve seen of some students who have been seen socializing around town at bars and restaurants, hanging out in big groups at off campus houses and not wearing masks or social distancing.
Wake and Durham County health officials have also been working with local universities about their reopening plans, but haven’t taken as strong of a stance on advising against starting in-person classes this week.
For weeks, there have been protests and petitions from university students, faculty and staff across the state arguing that it’s too soon for campus to re-open. But UNC and other schools say they’ve made their campuses safe enough for students to return as long as the community standards and testing protocols are followed.
“The amount of cases now with so many students returning to campus now is probably going to skyrocket,” Chris Suggs said. “And that’s disheartening … that we might be putting a whole lot of people at risk. It’s really scary.”
Staff photographer Julia Wall contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 10:30 AM with the headline "UNC and NC State begin a ‘college school year like no other,’ because of COVID-19."
