California State University, Chico students living on campus must move out within a week after in-person classes were suspended Monday because of rising coronavirus cases, according to a campus update.
Those living on campus will need to vacate their dorms by this Sunday.
“We learned we had cases both in the classrooms and in the residence halls,” CSU Chico President Gayle Hutchinson said in a news conference Tuesday. “When we look at exposure . . . we knew that exponential growth would require us to do something to protect public health, and that was to make everything go virtual and vacate our residence halls.”
On Aug. 26, Butte County identified over 15 new COVID-19 cases among people between the ages of 18-24 in an apartment complex in Chico near the university campus, worrying campus administrators enough to cause the shift in instruction mode.
Aidan Murphree, a mechatronic engineering sophomore at CSU Chico, said the dorms acted as a “petri dish” and the spread of the virus was inevitable.
“It might be too late,” Murphree said over the phone.
The university plans to vacate the 500 students living on-campus to bring the number of students living in University Village to 250.
“We’re feeling really confident that we’re going to be able to help these students find the places that they need for those that want to stay here,” said Connie Huyck, executive director of university housing at CSU Chico, at a press conference.
Huyck mentioned students could move into many of the vacant apartments surrounding the campus area.
Alex Smith, a philosophy and political science legal studies senior at CSU Chico, commended faculty in all of his classes for offering help to students who may need housing or other assistance.
However, Smith said he is disappointed in the lack of transparency from the university.
“It was a poor decision of the university to invite students back,” Smith said.
Hutchinson said the university took precautions in anticipation of students arriving for the Fall semester such as offering 91% of courses in an online format, cutting students that live on-campus housing by two-thirds and placing dorm and classroom safeguards, such as limiting the number of students in a class at one time.
“It's irresponsible that they’re blaming it on students and students' behavior,” Smith said.
He said it was only natural that students were going to socialize.
Moreover, Smith said the university is wrong for using shame as a tool, such as language in campuswide emails to remind students to think about their future selves.
San Jose State University has enacted similar campus pledges, such as the Spartan Community Promise, that encourages students to avoid large gatherings and wear face coverings or masks at all times.
Murphree also commented on the allegations that students partying have been a main cause of the COVID-19 spread.
“Chico had a strong party culture,” said Murphree. “It had that catalyst to start [the COVID-19 spread] immediately.”
Hutchinson said that tuition and fees will remain the same because the university is still offering all of its services virtually.
“We’re still operating, and operating at full force,” said Hutchinson.
Similarly, SJSU’s tuition costs and fees remain the same even though about 90% of Fall semester classes are online with similar precautions in place such as limited housing occupancy and most services only available remotely.
In response to if work-study students will be supported, Sandy Parsons-Ellis, acting vice president for student affairs and dean of students at CSU Chico, said administrators are looking into ways they can help students.
“Because all of our services are still virtual, we did still hire a large number of students to help us navigate providing those services in a virtual environment,” Parsons-Ellis said.
With news that another CSU campus is closing its doors to students, questions arose about if something similar would happen atSJSU.
“It would be much less likely in my opinion that San Jose [State] would suffer the same fate,” Smith said.
