AREA —The UMaine System announced on Friday, July 3, the reopening of its seven university campuses for in-person classes beginning in the fall semester. While there will be system-wide policies to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, measures will vary by campus. 

“We understand the issues that we have lived with over the last number of months,” UMaine System’s Chancellor Dannel Malloy said at a Zoom press conference. “People have learned from this experience and we are blessed to be in a state that has had a very low infection rate, actually now a region experiencing extremely low infection rate, knock on wood. We hope that that continues, but we believe that is one of the reasons we can open successfully, at least that is our belief.”

While some policies such as masks and testing will be followed across all campuses, decisions such as whether sports programming should continue will most likely be determined by university presidents.

“We hope to have an NCAA fall season that is compliant with national guidelines and anticipate competitive schedules to be shorter with more localized competition,” University of Maine at Farmington president Edward Serna said in an email. “Sport by sport guidelines continue to be discussed with a focus on creating quality team experiences.”

There will be mandatory COVID-19 testing of all students and faculty coming from out of state and all resident students which comprises over half of UMF’s 2,930 student population. The UMaine system has partnered with Jackson Laboratories and ConvenientMD to assist with testing which Malloy said would be ongoing throughout the fall semester.

All classes will end in-person instruction on November 25, and transition to online modalities as students travel home for break and prepare for exams. This is to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by not requiring students to return to campus for courses after Thanksgiving. 

“Those last 2 weeks after Thanksgiving from my point of view, from the classes I teach, those last couple weeks can be done more easily online than any other part of the semester,” UMF journalism professor Luann Yetter said in a phone interview. “We all know each other, students know what to expect from me, and it’s just a matter of doing those final assignments and getting feedback on them.”

Students will be spaced out by six feet in classrooms which Malloy did not anticipate as an issue since 77% of UMaine’s courses enroll 15 students or less. The university system is currently investing in more technology for classrooms, remodeling buildings for social distancing and repurposing spaces for additional classrooms, if needed. 

“We’re talking about expenses in the tens of millions dollars to allow us to move forward and that’s on top of lost income in the past year,” Malloy said.

Enrollment has been “surprisingly good” according to Malloy who also expects to see more students register now that universities can proceed with a plan for the fall. Professors are currently submitting their requests as to whether they prefer an in-person taught class, an online course or a hybrid format.

For Yetter, conducting an in-person course was her first instinct despite being in a high-risk category of susceptibility to the coronavirus. 

“I just really miss the energy from the classroom and I know that students want that,” Yetter said. “When we transitioned to online in the spring, it went pretty well considering how rough that was, but all of my students missed the classroom. I want them to have that experience if possible.”

Yetter said that practicing safe social distancing in the classroom will require her to modify some of her teaching methods. Instead of organizing small groups for discussions, she plans on having more open class discussions. She will also have to acclimate herself to teaching with a mask on and gauging her students’ responses while they are also all masked.

“It will be bizarre for sure. I just can’t help to think that seeing these kids in person is going to be better even if we’re all in face masks,” Yetter said, laughing. 

20-year-old former UMF student Erik Flores who contracted COVID-19 last month, ultimately decided not to return to campus for the fall semester. He feared that despite campus policies, his fellow peers would not respect preventive measures.

“The whole virus happened and it made me think about if I should go back because I don’t want to be on campus with people who aren’t wearing masks,” he said.

UMF graphic design major Emma Pierce is relieved to have off-campus housing in the fall because she fears students will become complacent outside of the classroom. 

“I’m comfortable doing the preventative measures to prevent the spread, but I’m not comfortable with other people doing the same. And it’s nothing personal against them,” Pierce said in a phone interview. “It’s just, there are a lot of people with different beliefs and some people think that other things are more effective than others, so they may take some measures more seriously than others.”

Chancellor Malloy is confident that students will follow preventive measures with the support of UMaine campuses.

“I know people are young, but I think they probably know more than I knew when I was their age. They’re more alert and they’re more aware of things that are going around,” he said.