Only a small number of students isolating in residence left before it was over, says director of student life Adam Christie.
Although COVID-time makes it feel like a few years, it was actually just over two months ago that 140 Mount Allison residence students started arriving on campus to undergo two weeks of self-isolation before starting their studies.
By all outward accounts, the time appears to have been a success. There were no outbreaks, and just one reported case of COVID-19 in a self-isolating student on campus. (Mount Allison did not confirm the case was in a student, but the only case reported by New Brunswick Public Health at the time was in someone under 19 in the southeast region.)
Mount Allison’s director of student life, Adam Christie, says all things considered, the beginning of the year went well.
“There’s no real template for this,” says Christie. “We were one of the first schools in the region to reopen and one of the first schools in the region to reopen with residences open, so we put a plan in place. Like I said, we had 140 students who arrived early to self isolate with us on campus and I thought and my colleagues agreed that things went very well.”
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard. In fact, the two-week required self-isolation period for students was too much to take for some students. A small number (Christie won’t say how many, except to say it’s under 10), went home before completing their self-isolation. Instead, says Christie, they “decided that they would prefer to go home and do their studies online.”
The group of isolating students included about 75 first year students, and 65 returning students. And things were understandably a bit more challenging for those in first year, says Christie.
“I think for returning students, they had more of a context for life of Mount Allison and life in Sackville, and knew what was waiting for them on the other side of self isolation,” says Christie.
“I think it was probably much more challenging for new students who are arriving and maybe not as familiar with the area and not as familiar with what’s waiting for them on the other end,” he says. “It’s a big transition.”
While the university has a revised code of conduct to reflect new, COVID-related public health guidelines, it wasn’t actually in effect during the initial two week period.
“For the self-isolation period we were working with public health to ensure that students were aware of requirements, and to make sure that they remain compliant with the terms of self isolation,” he says. “So if there were any issues, we dealt with those immediately, but not within the processes of the code of conduct.”
Christie says there were some discipline issues, but they were small.
“We anticipated there’d be a learning curve there for some students, and really, it was mostly around the free movement of students in residences,” says Christie. “We just needed to reiterate to students that they needed to stay in their residence rooms as opposed to traveling freely around the residence buildings. So that’s really where were the issues came up, and they were dealt with quickly and there were very few of them.”
During self-isolation, on campus students were asked to essentially not leave their rooms. There were two opportunities for “fresh air time” every day, says Christie, in supervised, designated spots outside of residence buildings.
Meals were brought to rooms by Mount Allison staff, along with other necessities like prescriptions. Staff and students were kept separate though, with deliveries made in hallways outside of residence rooms.
“That was really one of the reasons why we had to impress upon students the importance of staying in the rooms,” says Christie. “Not only for public health considerations, but also so that the staff who are going to the residences can feel safe and assured that their interactions with students are going to be limited or none at all.”
“When meal staff were going into the residences, for example, they would place the meals outside of the students doors, and then knock and move on. We did our best to provide assurances to staff around the fact that if they’re in the building, they’re not going to be interacting with students.”
Mount Allison is also home to a large number of off campus students, many of whom were required to self isolate if they spent the summer outside of the Atlantic bubble.
Unlike their on campus counterparts, the university did not control when and where they completed their self-isolation, though they did try to take on a supporting role.
The university conducted a survey with about 1000 student responses, and developed a list of students and where they were isolating.
“We worked in tandem with public health,” says Christie. “We supported public health efforts to follow up with those students and to make regular calls and do wellness checks.”
But Christie stresses that those students officially tracked by New Brunswick Public Health, via paperwork and checkpoints at borders. “The province was aware of who they were and where they were,” says Christie, “and so we were working with the province to help support those efforts.”
Christie says the university knew of about 175 off campus students with isolation plans in Sackville at some point over the summer. By mid-August, staff, students and faculty had put together daily online programming for students in self-isolation, to help them connect and stay engaged.
“I’m really pleased with how groups on campus came together––students, staff and faculty––to support the students who are self-isolating. I’m really proud of the students who self-isolated. It’s a hard thing. And I’m really especially pleased with and proud of students for how well they’ve adapted to the the new normal on campus and in Sackville,” says Christie.
“We’ve got excellent buy-in from students around the importance of following public health guidelines,” he says. “And if you’ve been on campus or you’ve been in town, I think that you’ll see that students are doing a great job of wearing masks, for example. That’s one sort of outward, visible, demonstration of their buy-in on this.”
“Everybody understands that this is a new and challenging time,” sys Christie, “but we’ve been getting nothing but support and cooperation from students, which has been great.”
