What you should know
- Students attending one of New York’s public universities, SUNY, in the spring will first have to self-quarantine at home for a week and get tested for COVID-19.
- The spring semester will start later than usual, February 1 instead of January 22, and there will be no spring break, known as Spring Break.
- Students from all 64 SUNY colleges and universities will be heading off for Thanksgiving break later this month and will finish the fall semester remotely.
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NEW YORK – Students attending one of New York’s public universities in the spring will have to self-quarantine at home for a week first and get tested for COVID-19, authorities announced Sunday.
Spring semester will start later than usual, February 1 instead of January 22, and there will be no spring break, or Spring Break, which is canceled until the end of the academic year to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Graduation plans for the Class of 2021 will be similar to those for the Class of 2020, whose diplomas arrived in the mail after virtual or reduced ceremonies.
“The state guide will not allow large gatherings at this time, so unless something drastically changes, we don’t see that,” State University of New York Chancellor Jim Malatras said in an interview. He encouraged campuses to take the time they didn’t have last spring to be more creative in the next round of ceremonies.
SUNY issued the semester guide during the spring when students from its 64 colleges and universities across the state made plans to head off for Thanksgiving break later this month to finish the rest of the fall semester remotely.
Before returning, after two months of absence, students will first have to be quarantined for seven days. They will also need to show a recent negative test or take a test when they return to campus.
After that, regular surveillance tests that Malatras says have enabled campuses to monitor the virus this fall will continue. SUNY can process up to 200,000 tests a week using a $ 15 FDA-approved saliva test developed by SUNY Upstate Medical University, he said.
“The trials have been the real game changer for us,” said Malatras, who was appointed SUNY Chancellor in August.
Since August, SUNY has conducted more than 360,000 COVID-19 tests with an overall positivity rate of 0.46%.
Two campuses have halted in-person learning after detecting outbreaks. SUNY Oneonta in central New York canceled face-to-face classes and sent students home in early September after off-campus parties led to a spike in cases. SUNY Oswego stopped in-person learning in mid-September before resuming it on October 5.
The spring semester guide, developed with input from public health experts, teachers, students and unions, combines new protocols with some already implemented, such as the mandatory use of masks even when there is physical distancing, the chancellor said.
“The students really want to go back,” he said. “What I want to do is make sure that we are representing what they want also in the safest environment possible,” he said.
New York is struggling to contain a resurgence of COVID-19 that in March disrupted the final spring semester for universities across the country. Hospitalization rates have been slowly increasing in New York, and the state on Wednesday began requiring many travelers to get tested for COVID-19 before and after arriving in the state if they want to avoid a 14-day quarantine.
SUNY is closely monitoring developments, Malatras said, and will change its spring plans if necessary.
Many of SUNY’s more than 400,000 students have continued to attend classes remotely even after the campuses reopened in the fall with classrooms, dining rooms and residential buildings reconfigured to allow for physical distancing.
Under New York State guidance, colleges that report 100 active cases or a campus positivity rate greater than 5% within a two-week period must pause in-person learning for two weeks.
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