OU Students Share Their Experiences With Campus Coronavirus Housing

Nora McKeown

Trey Spencer was not expecting to come to Ohio University's campus this semester after facing several delays in his original plans to move in.

"I was like, 'you know what, I'm not going to expect things to get better,’'' Spencer says. "'I'm just going to expect the absolute worst, because we know what happened last spring.'"

Spencer is a freshman and is affiliated with the army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). Because of this affiliation, he was invited to come for OU's second phase of students moving in on campus.

OU has implemented a plan to house students on the campus to follow social distancing guidelines. According to the university’s website, there are several new policies in place to ensure safety in the residences halls. The rules mandate that students wear masks on campus outside their rooms, don't allow guests to stay in the dorms, and require six feet of distance between individuals in the lobbies or study areas. The university changed all water fountains to fill stations, removed community items from the kitchen, limited access for students to that space, and increased signage for safety reminders.

A email from OU's Director of Communication Services, Carly Leatherwood explained what would happen if a student were to test positive or become exposed to the virus.

"If a student tests positive they will be moved to the isolation hall on campus as soon as possible,” The email stated. “If they have been exposed and determined to be high risk, they are moved to the quarantine residence hall on campus as soon as possible."

As of Oct. 19, there were 1,315 students living on campus, according to the OU’s coronavirus dashboard.

"I remember I didn't even read the email," Spencer says. "My hands were shaking. I just saw the big, bold 'you are authorized to return for phase two.' I was like, 'Oh my God, thank goodness that I get to come back.' Oh my God, I was so excited."

He immediately checked his ROTC group chat and had received many messages from fellow ROTC cadets that they would be moving to campus soon too.

On Sept. 25, Spencer moved into Boyd Hall. He was originally supposed to have roommates, but due to the pandemic he was living alone in a double.

There were some other ROTC friends living in Boyd with Spencer, so he would occasionally hang out with a few people he had met. Sometimes he would go for runs or workout outside, and for the most part, Spencer says he followed social distancing guidelines well.

He was notified on Monday, Oct. 5 that two people living in Boyd with him had tested positive. Spencer says he had been playing cards with the guys who tested positive on Sunday night, so he called the university's coronavirus hotline to ask them what he should do. They told him they would get back to him within 36 hours and that he should quarantine himself until then.

"I was really nervous in my room," Spencer says. "Because I realized I was probably getting sent to 'Dirty South.'"

The next day, he received a call instructing him to pack up his things and prepare to finish out his two-week quarantine in one of the halls that OU has reserved for students who haven't necessarily tested positive but were exposed to the coronavirus, Hoover House. He says he was told that a bus would come to Boyd to pick him up at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday night to transport him to his new residence hall.

When the bus arrived to pick him up, many of the seats were covered in plastic.

"I get off the bus and [the driver] says 'Good luck!'" he says. "And, I am in front of Hoover Hall and there was nobody to guide me."

Photo provided by Trey Spencer

Spencer walked into the lobby, and it was dark. On a big table were two bags of food and a set of keys with his name on them. He got a little lost in the building as he searched for the room number that was on his key but eventually he was able to settle into the room that would be his home for the rest of his quarantine.

The next day, Spencer was tested, and his results came back negative. Still, the university requires students who have been exposed to carry out the 14-day quarantine. Spencer isolated himself in the room until Oct. 17.

He says three meals are delivered to his room a day, but he has no say in determining what food he gets beyond informing dining staff of any dietary preferences or allergies.

“I'll be real with you," Spencer says. "I've pulled better things out of the military rations ... it's not great, but I don't have a choice. I made sure to bring a bunch of extra food with me and I think that's going to come in handy."

Because students are unable to interact with each other or leave their rooms often, Spencer says he has no idea how many people are living in Hoover House with him. However, the ROTC said he is able to go outside once a day to a designated area as long as he practices social distancing and wears a mask. Spencer says the ROTC told him and his peers not to enter any buildings, vehicles or be six feet from anyone else.

Despite having some anxiety about being isolated, among other stressors, Spencer says he has been trying to stay positive throughout this experience.

"I kind of realized that this is the situation," Spencer says. "I can't do anything about it. I'm doing my part to keep my community safe. This is required of me."

This is also part of what Spencer says keeps him in that room. He says that there are no people supervising him in the hall; he hasn't noticed any RAs, guards or staff monitoring the students in quarantine other than the man who drops off his food.

"The only person keeping me here is me," Spencer says. "And my goodwill and trusting the university."

Spencer says he is looking forward to moving out of the quarantine dorm.

"The biggest thing with me is that I didn't violate any guidelines," Spencer says. "I didn't go out, I still got exposed. I didn't break any rules and I still got [exposed]."

TESTING POSITIVE

Patrick Francis, a sophomore studying nursing, was surprised to find out that he wasn't one of the students invited back to campus for Phase One. Because clinical labs are particularly difficult to manage online, he was expecting to be on campus before most other students returned.

Despite these difficulties, Francis says his online classes were actually running pretty smoothly until he received the email inviting him back for Phase Two in early September. Francis was excited to move down to campus. Another friend of his was also moving to Athens, and although it caused some tension among his friends who weren't invited back, he was optimistic going into the rest of this semester.

But he says living on campus now has been very different in comparison to his positive freshman year experience.

"I was happy to move back down to campus," Francis says. "But it was not the same, even when I was healthy."

Francis was assigned to a suite in Bromley, and he is the sole resident of that room. He enjoys having all of that space to himself and not sharing a bathroom, but, it can become lonely at times.

"There are just not a lot of kids [here] in general," Francis says. "Freshman year, everyone kept their doors open, and obviously you can't do that now. So, it's almost like a closed- off atmosphere. It doesn't have that social aspect that it did last year."

Despite a lack of new social interactions, Francis was still able to hang out with the small group of friends he did have on campus until a few of them discovered they tested positive for coronavirus one Monday, October 5. Francis had been in close proximity to them, so on Tuesday October 6, he called the university's coronavirus hotline and went to Scott Quad to get tested.

He isolated in his dorm room until his positive test result came on Thursday morning. At that point, he says he started to receive calls from the Athens County Health Department, Ohio Health, and a university liaison for contact tracing, checking on his symptoms and managing when he would be allowed back on campus for his in-person classes.

"I thought I was going to be able to lockdown in Bromley because I don't have a suitemate or a roommate," Francis says. "And, I'd been there since Monday. I was at least comfortable there.”

For a few days Francis isolated in Bromley with food delivered from the dining hall to his dorm, however, on Thursday evening, he says he received a call from housing and residence life instructing him to pack his bags and prepare to move to another dorm to complete the 10-day quarantine. Francis gathered what he could and waited for another call with his new housing assignment.

It wasn't until Friday afternoon that housing called him again to ask where he was. When he told them that he hadn't left his room since Monday, they asked him to be at Dougan House, a residence hall for students who have tested positive for the coronavirus, in an hour.

"I had to take all my bags and walk across campus," Francis says. "I don't know if there was transportation, but I wasn't offered any."

When he arrived at Dougan House, he called the housing number again and followed their instructions to find his new room key and return his old one. When he went up to the room he was assigned to, he said it was obvious that it hadn't been cleaned since the last person had stayed there.

"The sheets were all used already and the garbage was full," Francis says.

So, he called the number he had spoken with before and asked for a new room that was sanitized. They moved him to the room across the hall, and that is where Francis was set to start his quarantine.

Photo provided by Patrick Francis

Leatherwood described OU’s room cleaning process in an email.

"Housing and Residence Life (HRL) notifies Facilities Management and Safety (FMS) that a room has been vacated,” it stated. “FMS schedules the cleaning of the room to happen between 3-7 days after it is vacated. Resident Custodial Services (RCS) staff will clean the room consisting of trash removal, wiping down all horizontal surfaces with EPA approved disinfectant, sweep and mop the floor, and a clean bed linen packet is left for the next resident. If the room requires a quicker turn around than 72 hours, the RCS staff will take additional PPE precautions and follow the same process as above. FMS then notifies HRL that the room is ready to be reassigned."

Francis says he was told that each day at around 11 a.m., there would be food waiting for him.

"It would come in bags and it would just be on a giant table in the lobby of Dougan," he says. "You would just go down the stairs and your name would be on three bags. You would just grab your three bags and go back upstairs."

Francis says he is not a picky eater, so he didn't mind the food. He felt safe eating what he was given too because the dining staff accommodated his severe peanut allergy well.

However, even before spending two nights in Dougan House, Francis says he planned to quarantine elsewhere.

"We have a relative's house who is not home," Francis says. "So, I'm just finishing out my quarantine there because I'm definitely more comfortable."

He drove himself to the house on the Sunday night and completed his quarantine there.

"There was no guidance or anything," Francis says of his experience in the quarantine hall. "Obviously, I didn't know anyone there. So, the only time I talked to people was over FaceTime and calls. So, it was weird not having that social interaction that you should be having."

Francis says he also wasn't aware of any designated outdoor areas that isolated students could use. The only time he had been outside during his quarantine was to walk to Dougan House from Bromley, and to walk to his car to drive to the place he would finish his quarantine.

"Overall, I understand this is not an ideal situation for anyone," Francis says. "But the whole process of moving my stuff and moving to a dirty room could have been avoided ... and every kid that's positive, especially kids that quarantine the 14 days, everyone is going to be so lonely. There's no way anyone's mental health is thriving in this situation."