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First-year and incoming transfer students have until Thursday at 5 p.m. to sign up to quarantine in Syracuse University dorms, university officials said during a live Q & A session Wednesday.

Students can sign up through the university’s housing portal. Over 200 students have already signed up to quarantine at SU, said Amanda Nicholson, interim deputy senior vice president of enrollment and the student experience.

“You should not consider your two weeks of quarantine as your Syracuse experience,” Haynie said. “It is, by legal public health order, a quarantine.”

Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus travel advisory, students entering New York state from 31 states must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. SU announced this week that first-year and incoming transfer students can quarantine on campus for a $1,000 fee, while returning students must self-quarantine at their own expense before being allowed on campus. 

The university does not have a plan in place if states are added to New York state’s travel advisory after Aug. 2, when students living on campus would need to begin their self-quarantine. 

“I don’t have a good answer for that situation,” Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie said.

Students who have tested positive for COVID-19 and recovered within the past two months are exempt from the self-quarantine mandate, as well as SU’s requirement for a pre-travel COVID-19 test, Haynie said. 

Once quarantined on campus, first-year and incoming transfer students will reside in a quarantining group, or “pod,” and will have limited social interactions with those outside their floor. Nicholson compared the experience to a “minimum-security prison.”

Grab-and-go dining options will be available to students quarantining on campus, and the university is planning to provide a food delivery service to dorms through University Dining. Students will not be allowed to order food to their dorms through delivery services such as GrubHub, Haynie said.

Food delivery services may be permitted on campus when the semester begins, but will not be allowed in residence halls, he said.

SU will not allow delivery services to enter dorms, but the university will have a system that allows students to receive packages. Students can begin shipping items to residence halls Aug. 10. 

Students quarantining on campus will be able to do their laundry with their floor “pods.” Each pod will also have a resident advisor coming from a hotspot state to complete the quarantine with them.  

As long as they are in New York state for only 24 hours, family members do not need to quarantine before helping to move their students into their on-campus residence. Students are only allowed one guest to assist with their move-in and the guest may only spend two hours in the dorm.

Housing all students that Cuomo’s order has affected would be “logistically impossible,” which is why the university has only offered to house quarantining first-year and incoming transfer students, Haynie said. 

The university has partnered with 26 hotels to secure reduced room costs for returning students, Nicholson said. SU plans to release more information on hotels for returning students Thursday.

Returning SU students may choose to stay in an Airbnb or with family or friends for their quarantine, Haynie said. Students who stay with family or friends must provide a note from the individuals they stayed with to prove they complied with the quarantine order.

Students who quarantine alone only have to affirm to the university that they completed the 14-day requirement. Lying about quarantine compliance could result in a code of conduct violation. 

Those who complete their self-quarantine in off-campus housing can begin classes online if they cannot complete the quarantine prior to the start of the semester. SU is also working with landlords to help students begin their leases with enough time to quarantine, Nicholson said.

Students must also submit a negative COVID-19 test result up to seven days before returning to campus. Haynie said he’s going to make an “at-home testing solution” available to students so they can receive COVID-19 test results in a timely fashion, no matter how available testing is in their state. 

Details are scarce, but more information on the at-home testing is coming in the next 24 hours, Haynie said.

SU will consider stopping residential instruction if the number of COVID-19 cases on campus overwhelm both the contact tracing resources and isolation and quarantine housing available to students, Haynie said. 

“If we are all not collectively willing to make that commitment, you know, we’re going to have a real challenge,” Haynie said. “But it will be no one’s fault but our own.”

Published on July 22, 2020 at 5:33 pm

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan