LEWISTON – While at least one of its peers among New England’s small colleges is shutting down its classrooms to avoid spreading a potentially deadly new virus, Bates College says it anticipates “a smooth finish to our academic year.”

Unlike many colleges that are closing classrooms, Bates President Clayton Spencer told students in a Tuesday message, “We do not have plans at this time to suspend our winter semester on campus.”

But Bates is getting ready in case its officials change their minds as they cope with the threat posed by the fast-spreading COVID-19. The fate of Bates’ short term courses in May is especially uncertain.

Related Read our coverage on how coronavirus is affecting Maine

Bates’ student government president, Ryan Lizanecz, said Tuesday that “students are concerned about the end of the year, particularly seniors who may have to spend their last few weeks in college at home.”

More generally, though, he said Bates students “appear quite concerned about their families and home cities where the virus is currently active. A lot of my friends from larger cities have been talking to their parents daily about the virus.”

Malcolm Hill, the vice president for academic affairs, said in a March 5 message to the faculty that “it is wise to prepare for potential disruptions.”

An emergency response team established last month to consider how best to deal with the new virus has been coordinating the college’s response, which includes asking the faculty “to prepare for the possibility of completing the semester’s coursework in ways that would not require in-person teaching.”

Hill told professors that as they think about the last weeks of the semester, which ends in mid-April, “I ask that you consider how your classes might be affected by changes in our ability to meet in person, to travel off-campus, to deliver the last week or weeks of classes, or to schedule honors thesis defenses.”

He said the college has increased its access to online teaching tools and ensured it has the computer bandwidth to support widespread use of them by professors and students “if this technology becomes a necessary means of delivering course content.”

Faculty were also urged “to consider, if events warrant, being flexible with aspects of their courses” such as attendance and exam policies.

The possibility of students being sent home until the start of the next academic year appears much more real after the announcement late Monday by Amherst College in Massachusetts that its students, who are on spring break, should not return to campus as planned. It intends to try to finish the semester with remote learning.

Amherst’s president, Biddy Martin, said in a message to students and faculty that “the risk of having hundreds of people return from their travels to the campus is too great. The best time to act in ways that slow the spread of the virus is now.”

A number of other colleges and universities, including Harvard and Princeton, are also shifting to online teaching to finish out their semesters. Harvard told students Tuesday they have until March 15 to move out of its dorms.

Bates College has a different academic calendar than most colleges so its spring break occurs after the second semester, in the second half of April. In May, most of its students return for a month-long short term where they each take a single class.

Spencer said in her message Tuesday that Amherst’s timing “is informed by the timing of the college’s spring break, which will involve large numbers of students and others traveling in the next 10 days to many destinations where they may be exposed to the COVID-19 virus.”

That is the same scenario Bates may face if the virus remains a concern when it reaches the end of its winter semester.

In addition to its academic preparations, Bates said it has suspended any college-sponsored travel to countries with the most serious outbreaks — China, South Korea, Iran and Italy for now — in order to minimize the risk of infection.

It is not clear if planned short term classes that included trips to Spain, Japan, England and several U.S. states, including hard-hit Washington, may be disrupted.

The college said administrators “are collaborating with faculty and students participating in off-campus Short Term 2020 courses to anticipate and plan should there be disruptions.” They are also working on what to do about students who plan to study abroad in the fall in countries that may be cited by the Centers for Disease Control as potential hot spots for COVID-19.

Bates is also taking steps on campus to prevent the spread of the virus and other respiratory diseases, including intensified cleaning efforts, especially in “high touch areas.”

It is also posting information on campus about how to avoid the spread of the disease.

Its emergency response team, chaired by Vice President of Finance and Administration Geoffrey Swift, has been meeting regularly to consider what Bates should do. Among its subcommittees are ones looking into off-campus study and “quarantine contingency planning.”

The college is also considering what to do about students who come from hard-hit areas and may not be able to return when the semester ends.

Swift said in a message sent to students that the college “is prepared to work with international students and U.S. citizens who live abroad should their travel back to their home countries at the end of this academic year be affected by public health concerns.”

So far, there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Maine, but little testing has been done. The state only began testing Tuesday for the virus at its Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory in Augusta.

The U.S. government declared COVID-19 a public health emergency Jan. 31 after the World Health Organization issued a warning. The CDC says it expects more cases in the coming days and considers it likely “that at some point, widespread transmission” of the virus will occur in the U.S.

What’s especially worrisome, the CDC says, is that when it spreads “public health and healthcare systems may become overloaded, with elevated rates of hospitalizations and deaths. Other critical infrastructure, such as law enforcement, emergency medical services, and sectors of the transportation industry may also be affected. Healthcare providers and hospitals may be overwhelmed.”

There is no vaccine. No approved medications are available to treat the disease, which appears to hit older, frailer people especially hard.

Related Headlines Coverage of how Maine confronts the coronavirus pandemic

Send questions/comments to the editors.

« Previous

Next »

filed under: