IT FIGURES
by Justin Reynolds
Since COVID-19 initially shuttered campus residence halls across the world, a number of decisions have had to be made in the midst of rapidly changing conditions. While public health guidance is more or less a blanket prescription for campuses (wear masks, minimize contact, lower residential density, etc.), the specifics of how and why to manage housing in the face of a pandemic has been particular to each campus. And, as there are more reports of large campuses adjusting their initial decisions to re-open their housing, it is clear that a full understanding of a campus’s characteristics is crucial for an effective response to any future pandemic.
To better understand what was occurring on the ground in campus housing throughout the pandemic, ACUHO-I fielded six different straw polls and released a campus housing planning tracker. One of the earliest polls focused on the rapid departure of students, the logistical implications of relocating belongings, and retaining those students unable to return to their permanent homes. Later, the polls explored the financial impact of refunds and, more recently, proposed testing protocols and plans for how to re-open campuses. In each case, the information captured provided a snapshot in time even while decisions to re-open changed within weeks and remained fluid.
In the April straw poll, 76.8% of senior housing officers indicated that decision-makers had not concluded whether to open or close for the fall term. Only 23 percent said they would fully open for the fall semester. Just two campuses (0.6%) indicated that they would only partially open or keep residences closed. At the time of writing, though, the housing tracker shows that just 13% of campus residences are fully re-opening. In addition, 79% shared that residences would open at between 50 and 90% capacity.
The factors that play into a campus’s decision to – and ability to – re-open are numerous and varied. Consider Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, a regional university serving a metropolitan area but geographically insulated from the metro area where it sits. David Berland, director of university housing, explains their decision to re-open. “The decision to open NKU residence halls at a reduced capacity was driven by the need to provide housing to our students while also providing a safe living environment in the context of COVID-19. As a regional serving institution, we have less demand from students who come from great distances, so the decision to re-open was focused on serving the students who have nowhere else to go and would not be able to attend the institution unless campus housing was available.”
At American University in Washington, D.C., on the other hand, a relatively transient population exists both among its students and district residents. Decision-makers recently closed campus residences after reporting in June that they were at 70% of their typical capacity for the upcoming semester. “Our decision was significantly impacted by the resurgence of cases in D.C., which led to the D.C. government implementing a mandatory 14-day quarantine to students coming from specific states,” says Chris Silva, American’s director of housing. “At the moment, it impacts students from nearly 30 states.”
Other data sources, such as the Campus Crisis Initiative at Davidson College in North Carolina, appear to show that the urbanization of a campus correlates with its decision to go online. More than one-third (35.6%) of city campuses are partially or fully online, while just 19.6% of their town or rural counterparts are partially or fully online.
Justin Reynolds is the ACUHO-I Director of Research Initiatives. More information about ACUHO-I research and resources related to COVID-19 is available online.
