Questions answered about why Mount A decided to reopen and what those darn bracelets mean
Last night the Tantramar COVID 19 task force gathered town, university and student officials to answer questions and concerns posed by Tantramar community members. The panel spoke in a live online webinar, and was broadcast on CHMA and our sister station in Amherst, CFTA.
For those who missed it, CHMA has the full hour-long panel here:
And we’ll be recapping some of the questions and answers from the panel throughout this week on the Tantramar report.
The first question of the night was directed at Mount Allison president Jean-Paul Boudreau: why did Mount Allison decide to open this fall when other Canadian universities are all online?
Boudreau started by explaining the three types of course instruction that will happen at Mount A this fall, strictly online courses, in-person, on campus courses, and some that are a combined version of in-person and online.
Boudreau said that given the size of the campus and the increase in online course delivery, opening is reasonable.
“Many of you may know we have of course a very beautiful campus, but in that beautiful campus is over one million square feet of academic, research, classroom and residence space for 2000 students and 500 employees. We knew that we could meet and exceed all safety guidelines for space and social distancing. And of course, we knew we could reconfigure the campus to make it COVID safe…
Reopening is something that works for smaller universities like Mount Allison. And given the fact that our students have flexibility and our faculty flexibility for how to choose courses and how to deliver courses, we felt we built a very thoughtful plan that makes everyone safe.”
Mayor John Higham addressed the question of the coloured bracelets that some students are wearing and what they mean.
“It’s clear there’s some myths about what these bracelets are and what the colours are and what they signify. And let me make it clear that there is no signal to any of these bracelets about somebody’s health or their duration of isolation or anything whatsoever. They’re all internal mechanisms for Mount Allison’s administrative purposes.”
Higham explained that green bracelets are given to Mount Allison students who have been processed through the Welcome Centre, and they will give students access to on campus services.
While Higham stressed no intended connection between the green bracelets and a student’s self-isolation status, it’s worth noting that Mount Allison’s policy is to screen incoming students at the Welcome Centre.
Students from outside the Atlantic provinces are asked to show time-stamped receipts to prove they have been inside the Atlantic bubble for at least 14 days before they can be processed through the Welcome Centre.
The other coloured bracelets, explained Higham, are given to students living in residence, and are used to help screen who belongs in each residence building on campus.
The green bracelets will be discontinued later in September, while the residence bracelets will be used throughout the year.
Higham stressed that bracelets should not be construed as relevant to people outside the campus community.
“So they don’t have any meaning to us in the town. They aren’t any feature, of, any form of a thermometer of what people are doing. So all those myths should be set aside. The processes we’ve put in place is what’s key and how we’ve reduced risk as best as possible. So that when you see those students, you’re going to feel more comfortable, no matter what colour they have on their bracelet.”
We’ll bring you more questions and answers from the Tantramar COVID-19 task force town hall throughout this week.
