Helping students cope with life during a pandemic

The Division of Student Affairs facilitates the intellectual, emotional, social and physical well-being of students at Binghamton University, and, in the third quarter of 2020, its initiatives were broad and deep. One main focus was on physical safety: providing safe housing to attract students to campus and keep them safe upon arrival; efficient surveillance testing for COVID-19 once students had arrived; and appropriate quarantine and isolation housing for students who are not able to return home if identified for such housing.

A second focus was to create a Culture of Compliance with COVID-19 guidelines and to provide support to students to allow them to maintain a quality of life as close as possible to what they would experience during a non-pandemic-affected semester.

The following is a snapshot of the decisions made and actions taken to bring students safely to campus and provide them with as normal a college experience as possible in non-normal times.

Residential Life

Limiting density in our residence halls was paramount to enabling us to safely house our students. We eliminated all triple-occupancy rooms and also allowed first-year students to opt out of the residency requirement this year. This allowed us to adjust our maximum occupancy to about 7,100 students, down from over 7,600. Following the week of move-in days that included COVID-19 testing of all on-campus living students prior to their moving into the residence halls, we are housing nearly 5,900 students and are at 81.8% of total occupancy. Of those who opted out of housing, 24% were returning students and 6% were first-year students.

Quarantine/isolation/contact tracing

Residential Life also created two quarantine and isolation halls (Old Digman/Rockland) and restored Old Rafuse to use, for a total of 186 quarantine or isolation spaces. We hired four staff members in the Office of Emergency Management to manage the quarantine/isolation process and support students who are identified for such housing and have no ability to quarantine or isolate elsewhere. Students who can go home to quarantine or isolate are encouraged to do so.

We also needed to provide for students arriving to New York state from states that have a 14-day quarantine requirement as per Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The 38 students from these designated hot-spot states were supported in quarantine at the Quality Inn directly across from the University’s main campus until they were able to move into their on-campus housing when their quarantine period ended.

The Broome County Health Department is the lead agency for contact tracing, and we have supported their efforts with 14 contact tracers trained in their process to add to their program.

Surveillance testing program

The University’s surveillance testing program begins with students and staff completing a daily online health questionnaire to indicate whether they are experiencing any COVID-19 systems. Students who respond yes are contacted by our medical professionals in the Decker Student Health Services Center for follow up. The University is currently testing all students — on- and off-campus, graduate and undergraduate — as well as faculty and staff on a random and targeted basis in a facility set up in Old Union Hall in the University Union. We hired temporary staff (registered nurses) and are also using University volunteers and students from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences to staff the testing center.

If, through the random sampling, we discover an area, neighborhood, residence hall or living community with a number of positive results, we will target that area for a higher number of persons to be tested.

We are using an antigen rapid test that was also used for the move-in testing process. Results are available within about 30 minutes. From Sept. 2 to Sept. 25, 3,263 tests had been administered, resulting in 20 positive tests for a 0.61% positive test percentage.

Additional testing — diagnostic — for students exhibiting symptoms is undertaken by our Decker Student Health Services Center. The University has the option of using SUNY Upstate Medical Center’s saliva test for pooled testing if needed.

Creating a Culture of Compliance with COVID-19 guidelines

As people across the country have been seeing in media reports, many colleges and universities have closed to in-person classes due to high numbers of positive cases of COVID-19 among their student populations. Many of these institutions made their moves to totally online education because of the behavior of students at off-campus locations where they gathered in large groups and spread the virus.

At Binghamton University, we have been working diligently to avoid the same scenario by building a Culture of Compliance. We have an active social norms campaign using signs, social media, videos and more that reminds all students — both on and off campus — of the public health guidelines they agreed to abide by when the acknowledged the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities document. We also adapted the Housing License for on-campus students to include obeying the guidelines as a condition to remain in housing. Other initiatives include establishment of a web-based, anonymous reporting system for non-compliance; working with the city of Binghamton Police Department on outreach and patrols in partnership with our University Police; distribution of reusable face masks, hand sanitizer and cloths to all students; and a safety monitor program through our Dean of Students Office in partnership with University Police.

Additionally, regular messages directly to students from President Harvey Stenger, Student Association President Khaleel James and Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Rose reiterate the importance of compliance for the University to remain in session through the semester, and also remind students of the consequences beyond the possibility of totally remote learning, such as loss of on-campus services for off-campus students and loss of on-campus housing for on-campus students.

Student support

Student support is always a priority at Binghamton University, but even more so during a pandemic. Our efforts to ensure students’ physical and mental health go hand-in-hand with our support of their academic progress. In recent months, for example, our Binghamton University Food Pantry has continued to serve students in need — nearly 450 over the summer, mostly graduate students who had remained local. A typical order is a bag of food worth approximately $40, which also includes perishables. The pantry moved in September to its new, more accessible location in the CIW Dining Hall, where it is also more visible and convenient. It uses an online ordering system and anywhere from 100 to 200 unique users take advantage of its resources each week.

Since the pandemic began, the Student Emergency Fund has also disbursed nearly $140,000 to 82 students in need. Many of these used the assistance to pay rent.

Additional support from the division has come from our Student Success Office, which has coordinated outreach to and programming for fully remote students, and from our CARE Team, which is a valuable resources to all students, but particularly those students who are in quarantine or isolation.

Student life in a pandemic

It can be difficult to oversee student life in normal times, but during a pandemic, and when many students are learning from remote locations, the challenge increases. Even so, our students are taking advantage of what we have to offer. Virtual career advising through our Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development not only continued, but career contacts increased by 45% over the summer.

For the thousands of students who are on campus on any given day, whether living on campus or off, it can also be a challenge to find study space or a place to eat. We have adapted a number of spaces in the University Union and other locations on campus to accommodate some of these needs and we’ve created a website where all possible study/event locations are listed that includes information on the hours the space is available, whether or not a reservation is required and how to reserve a space. The space/event reservation process we created also allows the University to support any contact tracing that might be needed. In the first two weeks of the academic year, 641 events were held, 385 were virtual and 256 were in-person events.

Two other areas have adapted as well: our Campus Recreational Services and our student organizations. Our Campus Recreation programs have been doing tremendously well. As of Sept. 22, 707 FitSpace memberships had been sold to students interested in using its cardio and strength-training facilities; about 1,400 reservations for cardio and almost 5,500 reservations had already been made to use those facilities. In addition, nearly 1,100 students were registered for Club Sports (up from 862 at the same time last year), 38 teams with 83 participants were playing Intramural cornhole contests and there were 55 outdoor soccer intramural teams with a total of 460 participants.

Finally, in a first-ever attempt, the Student Association held its annual organization fair virtually, and had 1,472 unique student participants.