Here’s how some Kansas City area colleges plan to bring students back amid COVID-19
Kansas City area colleges are starting to reveal plans for how they will reopen their campuses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
They describe one-step-at-a-time phases, starting with workers who will get the buildings and grounds ready, researchers and those who work in student services. Students will be the last to return to campus.
University of Missouri-Kansas City and University of Central Missouri on Thursday released the most detailed plans, down to dorm life and who returns when. The University of Kansas put out more of a guide for its campuses to build on as each develops plans specific to individual communities. And Johnson County Community College unveiled a four-step plan without specifying when those steps take effect.
All the schools said their plans, which stress hand washing and social distancing, follow guidance from health and government officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And all said their plans could be updated as the COVID-19 situation continues to change.
“The time has come for us to prepare in earnest to return to campus,” UMKC Chancellor Mauli Agrawal said in a news release. “We will do so carefully and flexibly, because the health and safety of our community is our highest priority.”
UMKC’s plan
UMKC announced a three-phase plan to have campus fully opened by Aug. 24.
The first phase runs June 1 to July 5 and brings back “a small group of employees engaged in critical operations” that can only be effectively done in person at both the main campus and Hospital Hill. That group includes workers in such areas as facilities, information services, health and safety and campus police, as well as researchers and their support staff.
Phase 2, July 6 through Aug. 2, brings back senior administration and department leaders who work in student services and academic roles to prepare for the fall semester.
“All remaining faculty, staff and students will return to campus,” unless exempted for medical reasons, beginning Aug. 3, the plan says. But workers won’t be allowed to go back to work on campus “until they have been approved by the appropriate vice chancellor or provost.”
“We also understand that we may need to move in and out of these strategies based upon our regional disease patterns; therefore, the approaches and timelines included in this plan are preliminary and may be modified as new information is available and/or be replaced with better ideas as they are identified and verified by the healthcare community,” the UMKC plan says.
University of Central Missouri
UCM, in an email to students on Thursday, listed a variety of “preliminary steps” being taken on the Warrensburg campus in the academic, residence and food service areas..
In addition to recommending masks, enhancing cleaning and maintaining social distance, UCM said campus events “will be capacity controlled,” but did not say what those limits would be. And working with health care providers and the university health center, UCM also plans to increase its ability to test for COVID-19 and do contact tracing.
UCM classrooms and lab times are being adjusted to allow more space for social distancing. Students living on campus will have their own dorm rooms. And students can agree on who they share a suite with. In suites, students have their own rooms but share a bathroom.
Freshmen and sophomores who live as far as 65 miles from campus can be exempted from campus housing to live with family.
University of Kansas
KU’s plan for reopening has five steps. Each of its five campuses will use those as a guide to put together more detailed plans
Research operations will open first, followed by increasing staff who work in student services. The third step allows students to return to campus, with classes offered in various formats still being determined.
Step 4 resumes extracurricular activities while considering the size of the gatherings and how to mitigate health risk factors. Finally the university expects to be in full operation and all employees who had been working from home will be allowed to return to work.
Each step will emphasize hand washing, using hand sanitizer, social distancing, wearing a mask, and regular cleaning of high touch environments.
The KU plan says that on campus housing presents a risk because there a so many students in close quarters. But the housing allows for a more controlled environment than off campus housing because of “the presence of resident advisors, the use of dining services, control of the cleaning protocols for common areas and the relative ease of contact tracing. … Thus, it makes sense to accommodate as many students into student housing as is manageable.”
Johnson County Community College
JCCC put out a four-step plan that allows staff members working remotely to begin transitioning back to campus Monday. But the plan does not set a date for when the college will fully resume on-campus operations.
Workers will be given face masks and encouraged to wear them. Protective shields will be installed in certain places, cleaning supplies will be handed out and sanitizer stands will be placed at the entrances to buildings. JCCC is also installing signs reminding people to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
JCCC will determine whether to move from one phase to the next depending on reports from health officials about the spread of the virus.
Other schools planning to return to in-person classes in the fall, including University of Missouri and Kansas State University, have not announced their reopening plans.
