Community Conversations with Provost Joseph Helble: December 9 Show

welcome everyone to our 18th community conversation addressing planning response and operations in the time of covid19 i'm joe helbley the provost of dartmouth college joining you from the star instructional studio in berry library on what's turned into a snowy wednesday afternoon in hanover december 9th i'm joined as always by justin anderson our vice president for communications from another studio on campus this will be our last scheduled community conversation for calendar year 2020 and it seems fitting in that context that today we are joined by the three individuals who've been with us most often over the course of these conversations the past eight months my guest today will be lisa adams md a professor in the geisel school of medicine the co-chair of dartmouth's covert 19 task force and a specialist in the care and treatment of infectious disease josh keniston the vp of campus services the vp for institutional projects and the co-chair of dartmouth's campus-wide covet-19 task force and professor catherine lively the dean of the college and a long-standing professor of sociology here at dartmouth today we'll follow our regular format with a campus update including today many announcements related to winter term live q a moderated by justin a conversation with lisa josh and catherine about plans in their areas and then ending with an opportunity for them to answer your questions directly now before we consider winter term i'd like to spend a few minutes reflecting on fall term operations back in june when president hanlon and i announced dartmouth's plan for this academic year we stressed two overarching objectives doing all that we could to support and protect the health and safety of the community the dartmouth community and the local community alike and prioritizing educational continuity for our students undergraduate and graduate alike this plan meant asking a great deal of our community as it implemented reduced density operations strict limits on group size masking at all times and constant testing all in an effort to control the spread of the disease sitting here today in december and looking back on the steep hill we all had to climb i'd like to simply repeat what i have said in my email message to the campus on monday of this week and on many other occasions by following these simple but critical measures our campus the dartmouth campus has been able to keep the number of covid19 infections very low and protect the health of the local community and enable dartmouth to keep our campus facilities open without interruption all term long to all who made this possible and particularly to our students who rose to the challenge thank you to date dartmouth has conducted more than 57 500 tests with more than 42 thousand administered to students and nearly 15 000 to faculty and staff in the course of that testing which has been underway since july there have been a total of 44 positives for a positive test level of 0.0 percent reflect on this for a minute this is an extraordinarily low level given the record case counts that have been seen since early november everywhere you look nationally regionally and even locally in new hampshire and in grafton county what do i mean by extraordinarily low well our value is well within the 0.02 to 0.26 percent range reported for nescaf liberal arts colleges and among our peers among national research universities this is one of the lowest levels in the country within the ivy league based on information reported on college and university dashboards only cornell has a comparably low level nationally within the aau the association of the 65 most prestigious and active research universities in this country for the nearly 50 institutions who report comparable cumulative data and extensive testing programs only one other university stanford today has a positive reported test rate of less than 0.1 percent so to to emphasize that point there are a total of three universities nationally including dartmouth that have reported positive test rates over the entire course of the fall term of less than 0.1 percent most are in the 0.1 to 1 range but there are also many that are well above 1 to provide some local context in mid to late october the active case count in grafton county where hanover resides was less than 40 cases per 100 000 population today as of december 8th it is more than nine times that at 375 active cases per 100 000 population now for me what this makes clear is the absolute importance of frequent surveillance testing for all members of the dartmouth community students as well as faculty and staff who are accessing the campus now as i've announced previously starting in january and continuing through winter term we will move to a twice per week surveillance testing protocol we will also be conducting pre-arrival testing at home for all undergraduates who will be living on campus for undergraduates living off campus who are approved for winter term campus access and for all graduate students who are either new students or who are returning to the upper valley after travel away twice per week testing will be provided in leverone and for those on the dartmouth-hitchcock campus we will also offer testing at williamson twice per week beginning in january now one note for those of you who are currently living or working on campus testing is going to move to thompson arena next week to enable us to do some work on the facility within leverone testing will therefore be in thompson beginning monday december 14th and will remain there through thursday december 31st so for anyone who has a test scheduled next week please report to thompson arena not to leverone and don't worry if you make a mistake there will be signs outside of leverone directing you across the street to thompson we will be back in leverone starting sunday january 3rd now i recognize that as the temperatures drop and the snow begins to fall the prospect of heading to leverone might be slightly less appealing than it is on a 60 degree sunny fall day but i cannot stress enough how important it is that everyone continue to comply with the testing protocol frequent surveillance testing was critical to avoiding outbreaks through the fall term and that becomes even more essential as we move into winter and spend even more time indoors now looking ahead to winter and spring there are several changes mostly small but all important that we will be making i'll be highlighting many of them here and will be following up with more information over the course of the next several days including through postings to our covet 19 website now first before discussing winter term i do have some spring term news regarding undergraduate off-campus programs we had previously announced the cancellation of all international off-campus programs we have now concluded that we will also not be able to offer any domestic programs this spring this is unfortunate but most of the locations that house our programs are expected to see covid case numbers rising significantly in the coming weeks and based on modeling they are expected to remain at elevated levels into march given this and given the likelihood of continuing travel restrictions in the spring months the projected strain on health care systems that we're beginning to see now throughout the country and the need to make decisions on planning and programming now we unfortunately no longer see a plausible path forward for these off-campus programs this spring now turning to winter term one of the things our task force and its focused working groups have done this past month is review everything about our fall term asking openly what we learned what worked well and what we might consider changing as part of that we also reflected on the input from many of the student groups that dean lively and her colleagues in student affairs have worked with input from individual students who have written in comments from parents suggestions from alumni and observations and thoughts from our employees faculty and staff alike we've heard many positive comments on the positives including on our testing protocol and the extraordinary success in keeping the campus open and keeping students faculty and staff and the surrounding local community largely free of infection and we've heard other comments on the challenges associated with living and working on a campus with social interactions highly limited and with many students and particularly first-year students the members of the class of 24 feeling as if they did not fully understand some of the restrictions on social gatherings or the actions that might result in their losing campus privileges for the year now i have said many times on these broadcasts that we were committed throughout to open dialogue to receiving your feedback and i want you to know that we heard you and on several of these points emphatically we agree so therefore first and foremost we are adjusting our approach so that anyone who loses campus privileges for a violation of our community expectations agreement related to covid will be asked to leave for two terms not four essentially we are cutting the length of the removal period in half we will also apply this retroactively among other things what this means is that those members of the class of 24 those first-year students who lost campus privileges in the fall will be allowed to return to campus this spring and rejoin their classmates other students who lost campus privileges in the fall will also be allowed back for their next approved residential term dean lively will be in touch to provide details to all those students later in the week second we've heard concerns that the process by which students lost campus access was so fast that some felt they had little opportunity to explain to address those concerns there will be for all students an informal review process where students will be able to ask questions and to share their side of the story before final decisions are made in the case that the student is able to demonstrate that they were not where they were reported to be or not doing what they were reported to have done which actually happened in several instances this fall they of course would not face any further action now related to this it's worth commenting on the outcomes of fall term in this context as on all campuses there were many reports of potential violations of our community expectations agreement it's a pandemic people are rightly looking out for one another rightly concerned and rightly phoning in when they see something that they feel may be jeopardizing community health i suspect that's the case on many campuses and as i suspect is the case on all campuses many of these in fact the majority of reports were looked into and did not require any action but i also recognize in the absence of data not surprisingly there was speculation about the numbers at the start of the term we indicated that we would not release this information because we knew that campus life with restrictions needed to protect community health would be challenging for many students and certainly for the 24s who were living independently for the first time we expected that there would be some missteps and we did not want any individual student to be identified and to be criticized or blamed but now that we have reached the end of the term and most undergraduate students have gone home for break we will in fact release the numbers to help answer some of the questions that have arisen and to help provide some additional context over the course of fall term we received just over 600 reports of possible violations of the community health protocols outlined in our agreement all of these were looked into and over the course of the term resulted in 86 students living losing campus privileges 124 students being given warnings without removal and 397 instances in which there was no action taken none again these constituted the majority of reports now this was hard for everyone and there is no question that winter is going to be a challenge but if we look out for one another and remind our friends and colleagues that we all need to stay distanced stay masked avoid large groups get tested and otherwise follow the health and safety protocols that enabled us to navigate fall with one of the lowest case counts in the country on our campus perhaps we can make it through winter with even smaller numbers and smaller numbers of students losing campus privileges to help in this regard we are also making adjustments to allow for greater social interaction and greater use of the campus to provide more outlets for our students to engage with one another and do so in ways where they don't feel as if they're running in danger of violating our community expectations agreements limits on group size of course need to be maintained i can't stress enough how important this and the other measures are to support community health but there will be additional opportunities specifically number one after arrival quarantine has ended students will be permitted in residence halls other than their own given the challenging state of the pandemic and the importance of keeping facilities occupied at low density access at least initially needs to be limited to students who were given access to a residence hall by a resident of that facility but basically the bottom line is that students who are permitted to be on campus will now have the opportunity to visit friends in different residential facilities two we will be expanding access to larger indoor spaces both by opening additional spaces and by extending hours where possible these spaces will be available to students for informal use and in some cases for programming for example the top of the hop will be accessible in the evenings and we are looking to expand the use of collis and other buildings including academic buildings that is presently being explored more details to follow in the coming weeks to make this work however we will need student partnership there will be paid student opportunities to help us manage these spaces with details forthcoming again as we approach the start of winter term number three we will be simplifying the process for using bakerberry library bakerberry will reopen on the 4th of january for employees and for graduate students and be open at that time from 10 a.m to 6 p.m monday to friday starting monday january 25th as a rival quarantine for undergraduates concludes the opening hours will become 10 am to 10 pm sunday to thursday and 10 to 6 on friday and saturday biomedical libraries will be open with shorter opening hours and rauner special collections library will be open by appointment monday to friday in addition the occupancy monitoring system that's currently being installed in bakerberry library will be in place for the start of winter term this means that there will no longer be any requirement for students to make reservations in advance to access the collections or study in the library all details are available on the library website and as always online library resources remain available to you 24 7 through the dartmouth library home page number four we'll be providing expanded opportunity for outdoor activity look winter is one of the seasons we all know that makes dartmouth different this winter will be unlike any other but that doesn't mean that it cannot have some of those special moments that make winter winter those moments that truly make dartmouth dartmouth as i've said to colleagues at other universities here we don't just tolerate winter at dartmouth we embrace it so number five the dartmouth ski way will be open and we will have bus transportation on the weekends it will be different it may be cold we may need to keep the windows open but the ski way will be open and there will be transportation six we will be grooming the golf course for cross country skiing and it will be accessible for skiing for sledding and for snowshoeing and we will have additional equipment available number seven we will be expanding winter carnival with details to be provided by the office of student life as the dates approach number eight we are working hard to expand ice skating which has long been a part of winter in hanover this year we hope to provide an additional rink either on the green or near the golf course personally i'm rooting for the green if we can make it happen details forthcoming within the next few weeks number nine we are working to expand access to college center outdoors through the winter we are exploring whether we might also be able to host things like fire pits around campus with details to follow as we get closer to winter term start and finally number 10 this is not an exhaustive list this is an initial list we are interested in your suggestions and creative ideas from everyone students faculty staff alumni employees community members parents on what else we might consider things we could do within the confines of the public health rules we need to follow to make winner more social and more engaging we are therefore establishing a dedicated email address it is winter term suggestions2021 that's all one word at dartmouth.edu and don't worry that will be in written follow-up you'll receive later this week we have a group that will be meeting at least weekly to review ideas and suggestions and determine and announce what else might be possible this winter will be different there are restrictions we cannot ignore that we are months from vaccines helping to bring this under control but we can still embrace the winter we can still look for ways to make dartmouth dartmouth now let me end before turning to your questions with just a few final comments first to our student community you endured a great deal this year you endured a great deal this fall whether learning with us here in hanover or studying far from campus and far from the upper valley and once again you showed us and you showed me so much and yet nothing in it surprised us you looked out for one another you took seriously the rules to keep the community healthy and you engage deeply in your studies on that point i've heard from many faculty how impressed they were by the level of engagement and discussion in their classes this term whether fully remote or partially and fully in person we look forward to having those of you who will be able to join us back in the upper valley in january i appreciate your patience with the delayed move-in date that we announced two days ago and i wish the progress of the pandemic were otherwise but in the interest of your health and community health we needed to take this step to delay return to january 16th and 17th rest assured and i cannot say this clearly and emphatically enough that this is not a first step on the path to a fully remote term now none of us anywhere in this country can offer guarantees because we don't know what conditions nationally will be like a month from now but if things are as they are today i assure you that we will be welcoming you welcoming you back in mid-january and second and finally to our employees our faculty and staff i cannot say often enough how your commitment to our students and to this campus and to the community is beyond extraordinary and i also know through your incredible effort these past nine to ten months many of us perhaps most of us are running on fumes and really need a break so let me end with a simple request as we think about the next few weeks and the balance of the month first i'd like to ask everyone to try to take an email pause on the weekends for the rest of this month if it isn't absolutely essential or time sensitive from the time you leave work friday afternoon until early sunday evening don't hit send don't tee it up in your colleague's inbox over the weekend it can wait until sunday night or monday morning use your judgment of course this isn't a prohibition and there will be urgent issues that need to be attended to but if we could all cut the weekend volume by 75 percent it would be meaningful to so many second i truly hope that you will all be able to step back and rest during the winter break president hanlon has generously extended the break by three days this year to give most of us a full two weeks away two full weeks starting monday december 21st for everyone who doesn't have year-end or project reporting and deadlines please take this time to step away relax be with family where possible and if possible and above all come back recharged and energized we need you you have done extraordinary work this year and we look forward to working with you again winter term thank you everyone for all that you do justin happy to turn to you now for a few questions and then we'll turn to lisa catherine and josh uh thank you very much joe and and nice to be back with you uh on community conversations after uh a bit of a break um i i can tell you that uh the the theme uh today on the questions um is mental health uh and how we are balancing the physical health uh uh imperative um as we think about protecting our community with the uh um emotional or mental health of our community um and uh there's a lot of questions that are along this line uh i'll i'll just read one i'm glad that dartmouth has been successful in keeping covet at bay but physical health is only one aspect of health what are the college's plans to preserve the mental health of their students and before you answer joe i will say that a lot of the questions are sort of premised on there there there has been a lack of opportunity or options of things to do outside of the classroom and as you went through the list uh i started to get a lot of commentary from people who are watching saying thank you thank you thank you so i think to some extent you you've addressed that with with your list or you've begun to address it but still this notion of balancing uh physical health with with mental health is some is a is a kind of question that i that i've seen a lot today and frankly in past uh webcasts yeah thank you justin and thanks to all who raised that and it's hugely important and it is absolutely the reason we are putting in place many of the measures that i outlined just a few moments ago in fact just a few hours ago as i was going through my email before walking over to the studio i got an email from a local parent who said he grew up spending a lot of time on the dartmouth campus loves the dartmouth campus loves dartmouth and what it offers but as he looked at the campus through the eyes of his child he was concerned about the impact of the restrictions on the social well-being and the mental health of his child and also those around his child in the community as a whole and this is something we've heard we acknowledge and we are taking very seriously fall term i i i will say honestly was a journey for all of us together we were focused first and foremost on protecting the physical health of our community and hoping that with good weather it was more than hope we had a plan but with opportunity for students to get outside utilize the tents maybe go for a run or a walk around campus that would provide some balance in the fall and it did work well and it did work well for many but it certainly didn't work well for everyone and so we're being very intentional in designing these additional activities providing more access to students in one another's residence halls giving them clarity on the things they can and can't do in terms of gathering in in small groups so that they can just have time interacting with another human with another classmate and also opening up things like the ski way the skating rink snowshoeing and so on the suggestion box is very deliberate and intentional this isn't one and done this isn't a situation where you've got our list and this is what we're going to do in the winter and that's the end of it these are things we are committed to doing and we are committed to examining ideas that come in as they come in and i know they'll be creative ideas and finding ways and finding the resources to support them we encourage students to write in with ideas throughout the course of the term even if it's three days before a snowfall and you have an idea for something creative you might do with some friends let us know and we'll see if we can find a way to support that we're also looking for activities that aren't necessarily athletically oriented just things to get people together things to get people outside involving the arts involving as i said an expanded winter carnival it might be worth actually my asking catherine a bit about that in the q a to give her a chance to to expand all of this is meant to address the mental health issues that we've heard about from so many uh well joe a question that sort of echoes the one that uh that you referenced that a friend of yours asked uh asked you uh the friend who was an alum and looking at uh his his child's experience uh looking at the experience through his child's eyes um this person asks could it be that the restrictions that have been in place are too strict with case counts so low and without severe illness should there be an opening toward in-class instruction and so this is taking this is sort of different than asking whether or not we're going to provide more outdoor opportunity and more social interaction but whether or not we would consider uh expanding the the in classroom experience and maybe with bigger classes yeah so in winter term justin uh implicit in that question is a true statement implicit in that question is the observation that the curriculum as it's being presented winter term looks very much as it did falter most classes are online or remote with some in-person elements which could be walk around occam pond or walk around the green office hours or an occasional meeting or some access to a lab or a studio we have as one of our guiding principles from the beginning wanted our faculty to be in a position where they can make the decision in this restricted environment to deliver the content and engage with the students in the ways that they felt was best having said that we are encouraging more small in-person elements between faculty and students winter term and we are working hard on expanding in-person access in the spring term i think and i've heard this from some faculty colleagues the extraordinary success that we were privileged and fortunate to experience in the fall term has made more individuals comfortable with in-person engagement with students in the winter still many are concerned about winter it being an indoor season it being cold being cold in flu season and given the surge in case counts nationally and regionally there is understandable i wouldn't say apprehension but people are watching closely as we move through winter term if vaccines are initially deployed if case counts begin to come down as we move towards spring where the weather will be warmer and there'll be more outdoor opportunity again we will be pushing hard to significantly expand the in-person educational opportunities available to our students now so much of this justin the last thing i'll say is there is a light at the end of the tunnel but we have to get through the tunnel and the next two three four months are going to be challenging but i'm asking all of us to keep our eyes on that goal that is now within reach help us navigate winners successfully and help us turn spring term into one that looks much more like the dartmouth experience that all of us value um joe we have time for just one more question before we we go to our guests um and uh you know we we have a uh several uh well we have at least several uh savvy listeners or or viewers who picked up on your reference to cornell uh and and and mentioned the fact that uh they were successful cornell was successful with low rates of covid uh yet they had far more students back on campus um you know why is that and what can we learn uh what can we learn from uh the experience of a place like cornell yeah that uh i mean i think what we learn at a high level justin is that frequent surveillance testing matters and matters a lot i think being in a rural area matters and matters a lot to cornell as well as to dartmouth it is true that cornell was slightly lower than we are in terms of positivity rate i will also point out that there are many many many institutions who had fewer students on campus than we did and had much higher positivity rates and so we are looking to them talking to them i'm meeting with the ivy league provost weekly to talk about lessons learned from one another and that's a relevant and important data point and that's one of the reasons why we're increasing our testing frequency to twice per term in the winter term and it's also given us confidence in loosening some of the restrictions we had placed on student gatherings in the winter term so this is what we've learned from them we've also learned to be cautious from institutions as i said that had fewer students on campus than we did then yet had much higher positivity rates so thank you justin thanks all for the questions and i am of course happy to continue to address these as they come in either through you or by email or to the covid task force over the course of the coming weeks let's turn now for a few minutes to discussion with lisa josh and catherine about some of the really important things i've alluded to in their areas and then open it up to the the general audience lisa catherine josh welcome back you are our three most frequent visitors and it seems entirely fitting to end the year where we began it with the three of you thanks for all the work you've done to enable us to reach this point and reach this point as well as we did lisa i want to start with you and note that not today but earlier this week in the email announcement i sent out to campus i indicated not just a change in winter term on campus arrival dates for undergraduate students but i also announced a change in our arrival quarantine plan which is something that you and the task force and the health epi working group have strongly recommended can you tell us a little bit about the details and the reasons why you were comfortable compressing the quarantine period for returning students certainly i was so pleased to see that both the cdc and then the state of new hampshire responded to the emerging data on the length of effective quarantine now let me be clear that uh while the incubation period of the virus hasn't changed and still can last up to 14 days the vast majority of individuals who have contact with someone who has coveted or potential exposure through travel will develop symptoms by day 10 and the risk beyond that is quite low so an approved option now exists for reducing the quarantine period from 14 days to 10 days individuals should of course still monitor themselves for symptoms for the full 14 days but they no longer need to restrict their movements in the community and now because of increased test availability and our understanding of just how sensitive our pcr tests are both the cdc and new hampshire health department have endorsed ending travel related quarantine even earlier if a negative test result is obtained on or after day seven now keep in mind you do have to wait for the uh to receive that test result and that may not be until day eight or even possibly day nine but our students can really expect to end their arrival quarantine on or around day eight now both the cdc and state offer this option to shorten travel quarantine but only the cdc allows us option for quarantine known to uh for um quarantine related to contact to someone with covid so we're following the state guidance here and in that situation our closed contacts will have to quarantine for 14 days without this early test out uh option but that's still certainly better than the 14 days so improvements being made there thank you lisa and that's you know just to the the question that justin asked me it strikes me as also directly relevant this is a small step and an important step and so in the interest of student mental health to know that travel related quarantine has now gotten shorter by five six potentially seven days i i i think is huge so thank you so so josh let me turn to you but continuing on the theme of quarantine and isolation i know that you're making some changes to the management and operation of quarantine and isolation space in winter based on what you learned in the fall can you tell us a little bit about that what are we going to be doing differently yeah i mean so quarantine and isolation as lisa pointed out it it's one of our key tools that we have to you know limit the spread on on campus and so um it's something that's going to continue to be around we also know it's really challenging for folks particularly after that arrival quarantine when maybe you're quarantining and uh your your friends or your peers are not so a couple of things and i think lisa will talk more about this a little later on testing but there are some things we're doing that will hopefully reduce the number of people that we have to put into isolation while we wait for test results so hopefully there will be fewer people so that's that's the first piece and then for those that do go into quarantine oftentimes the timing can be off cycle it can be later at night um so we're trying to make it a little bit more of a welcoming experience making sure there are snacks and drinks and that the the room is stocked for you and ready to go so it's it's not it's it's still probably not going to be the most fun experience but hopefully it will feel a little bit more welcoming and and help with that transition thank you josh i appreciate that and that's good to hear and there too i think these just these small improvements can make a huge difference in terms of how the students initially interact with quarantine and that plus potentially enabling it to be of shorter duration i i thank you both for the the effort and the work to move us in this direction uh catherine i'd like to turn to you now and slightly different subject but i know you've been cons we're often asked how are students providing input into the process and i know you and your colleagues in student affairs have been consulting with students in many areas throughout the course of the fall term and getting their input on policy recommendations and decisions you needed to make could you give us a few examples where you sought student input or whether input helped shape some of the outcomes even the ones that we're talking about today oh yes we've we receive input from all vectors including one one-on-one conversations with students who come to my office hours paleopithes student assembly uh the dean of the college student advisory board we meet with student leaders across campus and we're of course we're always we're constantly reading emails from students and parents even if we aren't able to respond to them all immediately i think some of the things that we've gotten in terms of the changes is that student assembly and a group of ugas were actually the ones that really lobbied for the change in the guest visitor access policy um they they explained why it was challenging in ways that when we were looking at it from a public health perspective about making sure that uh like a planet outbreak in one residence hall we'd want to keep it from getting to another one and we were just thinking about it through the lens of uh public health they were thinking about it more of a mental health perspective and a well-being which is what their role is frankly and so they were the ones who asked asked ask you requested that we explore the guest changes to the guest booster policy um we took three options for the guest visitor policy and we gave them to the student advisory board which is a group of students who were selected not because they're members of any particular organization but just that they could give us sort of the student gut check response so they recommended the one that we actually landed on um and they had thought through had very thoughtful reasons um for for why they selected and why they felt the one was the best they were the ones that felt like in order to protect the safety of the people living in the security of the people living in the residence halls to be able to be able to control the number of space people in the building and to be able to do better contact tracing it would be actually better to not give people card access to other people's buildings that actually have friends be required to let that person in that way we could keep track of who's going and coming better and that would also would contribute to mental health and well-being but it was also helped protect the public safety of the community we've also worked with various groups of students to find out which types of spaces that they would like to have open um and one of the things that really surprised us is we were thinking they really wanted access to big social spaces what we found is that students really wanted places to study and so one of the things we've been working with facilities and with students is to figure out how can we open up buildings in rooms and classrooms classroom spaces for students to be able to study or perhaps for a couple of students to sit together and take their remote class like with another person so they can then talk about the ideas immediately once the class is over and so we'll be working out those details um and finally we also talked about one that's relatively important based on what you just said about how important testing is is that last term we had there are a lot of students who are not complying with their tsa daily screening and we found out from students that it was because we had set the deadline at 9 00 a.m and that 9 a.m from the student perspective is like 2 a.m the middle of the night right and so what we did is we just moved it to a 24-hour period and compliance went through the roof and we've also worked with the student advisory board to try to set what is fair in terms of trying to to set guidelines around to encourage students to comply with the twice a week testing because we and they recognize that it's going to be more challenging to walk across campus and to go to the run when it's minus 12 degrees right well that's so those are just a couple of things that we talked to about them but there are definitely others that's great so so thank you catherine so i'm going to i think we have time i'm going to turn to each of you for one last quick question before we open it up outside and lisa i want to go back to you and just come back to the question of testing that we touched on briefly we're changing our testing protocol both on arrival and through the term in different ways but there's actually some interesting and exciting developments that you've talked to me about over the course of the past week where we are pushing into new territory to try and have much more rapid diagnostic capability to help us manage and coordinate student movement on the course of the camp on the campus over the course of the term could you tell us a little bit about what's going on sure happy too so you already uh mentioned too that we will be continuing with our pre-arrival testing for domestic undergraduates students approved to be on campus and now incorporating our graduate professional students who will be away for winter break so they'll receive instructions to receive a mail-in test at their home or wherever they are about a week before they return to campus and that timing will allow them to receive the test perform the test send it off to the lab and get their result before they start their travel back to campus now when arriving back at dartmouth we are saying to everyone that your first stop should be leverone right the dartmouth coach will help accommodate that on the main days that the undergraduates are arriving just as it did in the fall and that that will allow everyone to be tested really right when they um arrive and and we're encouraging the uh advising the graduate professional students to also uh come to leverone as soon as they arrive in the upper valley but one potential difference to arrival testing that i'm excited about is that we're looking at incorporating a rapid antigen test to be performed in addition to the standard pcr test when students arrive now the advantage to this additional test being that if we can receive a screening result in 15 to 30 minutes that will allow us to quickly identify someone who may have coveted and arrange for them to begin isolating immediately whether that's on or off campus then we would do the more sensitive pcr test um that will also be done on arrival as sort of our second line of defense to arrive anyone who may have uh to identify anyone who may have coveted on arrival but really this corporation of the rapid antigen test is is i think a a nice innovation that allows us to be able to do what we want to do which is identify uh potential cases uh quickly so that is that is one of the um new innovations that will be part we hope will be part of our uh arrival testing and then as i already mentioned we will have students tested uh twice a week so that will be on day three and then of course on day seven so that they could uh potentially test out of uh their travel quarantine earlier and then we'll move to as you mentioned the twice weekly testing for for students and for employees who are going to be regularly on campus and i will just emphasize that testing really remains a critical part of our response for a successful winter term so we need everyone to consistently adhere to this new schedule and then i will just mention very briefly we also at dick's house have a new cepheid rapid antigen machine that we have in our possession that where we can that we can use to test students who present with cold and flu-like symptoms we expect that to happen quite a bit in the months of january and february and this is very exciting because it will test for covid for two different strains of of the flu and for another respiratory virus so we really are excited because we think we can about that because we can have a diagnosis within about an hour and avoid perhaps having to move someone to isolation while they wait for their covid test results so again a much uh improved option for providing care and we're similarly looking at setting up a simpler option for our employees who may have symptoms with a drive-through option somewhere on campus that would be a saliva based test that they could actually collect in their cars right there on the spot it would get sent to a lab and we'd have results from that quickly so some some exciting new improvements that we think will will improve the the testing schedule and uh care of our um symptomatic students and employees that's greatly saying it's just your comment about flu diagnostics reminds me i should use this opportunity to say to anyone who's watching if you've not yet gotten your flu shot please do so a reminder that we are expecting everyone who will be living or resident on campus unless there are health reasons that prevent you from doing so we are expecting you to get a flu shot to help protect your own health and the broader health of the community through winter term this year it truly matters we're very short on time before we open it up to questions so catherine i'm going to ask you a question and then josh i'm going to ask you to try and give me a 30 second answer if you can catherine i wanted to ask you about winter carnival i mentioned we're expanding it but didn't say anything about what it might be can you just give a little bit of a teaser of the kind of things you're considering you and your colleagues in student life for those who are already ready to embrace the winter it could look like ice sculptures it could look like snow showing it could look like sledding on the green it could look we might not end up doing the human dog sleddings there's a lot of that's a lot of close contact for people uh and obviously ice skating like throughout the term but we're also thinking about for those who aren't quite ready to embrace the winter to think about various months of wellness or months of the arts and i think the most important thing that i can say is that send your suggestions in we have a team of people who will be reviewing this weekly um our students know what the experience is that they want to have we can come up with ideas until we're blue in the face and invariably their ideas are going to be better than ours and so um send them to us and we will help you we will try to remove as much of the barriers to programming as possible whether this is through the office of student life or through the housing communities we are here to help you co-create your experience thank you catherine and that email address is winter term suggestions 2021 at dartmouth.edu and it will be released in writing josh i'm going to give you the last question and every time you join us for one of these conversations i have to ask you about return of possessions that are in controlled storage student belongings it's the end of the year but it seems we must continue the streak so i know we have some students who've not been on campus since march and they will be coming back in the middle of winter how are we going to manage that process yeah so we've been spending a lot of time thinking about how we can improve this process we heard in the fall it took long the students were hoping in terms of being able to get access to those so um we listened we've we've tightened up our process and we're going to shorten that window of time and so essentially students who are living on campus as soon as you get your first negative pcr test so for most students that should be within about 24 hours or so you'll be able to start scheduling um appointments to go get your your belongings so for most students that means you'll be able to start scheduling those slots on on the 18th uh to start getting your belongings and and those that have something critical for the first couple days if you need uh bedding or linens or something like that we're available to help so really trying to tighten that process up and get people back with their belongings as soon as possible great that is wonderful and welcome news josh one of my advisees has been asking me about that he will be thrilled to hear that outcome so thank you for making that happen justin back to you we have a little over 10 minutes left and i'm sure there are questions for our guests um there there are and um in fact i'd like to stay with with josh because um if there's anything that's more popular than questions about storage um it's food uh it's probably the only thing that's more popular than questions about storage and there are some questions about food and uh a questioner um wondering whether or not the options will be increased and the hours uh more flexible um and also and this is a good question um will students be able to eat together um and and if you know for instance they registered as a group they left their names which would enable uh uh contact tracing to be done more easily in the event that their that that was necessary yeah so a couple questions there justin i the the dining team is always looking for ways to improve the variety of you know quality healthy options um and so you know i've continued to get updates from them on the the menu i think that a lot of students will find that there are some new and exciting things for the the term to to keep things um interesting and uh delicious um in terms of flexibility around timing and being able to eat together a lot that's gonna depend on on how the the pandemic progresses and what we're seeing in in terms of rates um at the end of the last term we actually had to switch back to all grab and go and and no in person dining because we had started to see a spike of positive tests so we're gonna watch that really close um we've it improved the the system for the quarantine period in terms of how students will be able to get access to food during their quarantine um and so you know we'll we'll pay attention to this and and our hope is that we'll be able to provide more spaces for students to eat together and more locations on campus but at this point we really are going to have to watch the the data and see what it tells us um lisa if if i could go to you in that last question uh uh someone referenced uh contact tracing another questionnaire um references the fact that the state of new hampshire has said that they are giving up on contact tracing due to the due to the numbers and the volume and their inability to to to contact trace for all of the cases uh the questionnaire then goes on is dartmouth still engaging in contact tracing on campus if a staff member or a community member tests positive will that person's co-workers or social network uh will they be contacted and notified of possible exposure so how are we handling that under the the circumstances that face the state of new hampshire being so taxed great question and the answer is absolutely we are proceeding with contact tracing within our community we're fortunate to have the ability to do so so our college health services which have already been working in close collaboration with the state and oftentimes being the first ones to be able to identify roommates and notify roommates uh or other con social contacts of our students about their need to quarantine and assessing who is a contact uh in the first place they will continue uh to play that role in a more active manner and then you may know we have contracted with a third party vendor axia medical which is helping provide our occupational medicine services and we have a contract as part of their contract they are also performing the contact tracing again in collaboration with the state as much as possible but they are really the ones uh overseeing the contact facing activities for our employees um catherine if i could go to you next um a questioner writes in about uh the class of 24 and um since the class of 24 actually before the class of 24 even arrived we talked about how this was not necessarily how they or any of us uh expected that their dartmouth experience would begin and this questioner asks once the pandemic is over how are we thinking about promoting class cohesion and bonding for the class of 24 and this person has an idea you know what about some sort of mini trips that might take place in the beginning in the beginning of the fall so how how are are you um as dean of the college thinking about about uh class cohesion for for the 24s given this most extraordinary of first years that they are having well we're thinking about you know a lot of different things um an estimate i think we're waiting a little bit for them again more for the data and um the direction of the pandemic before we start to make plans about um you know late spring or summer so um but that's that's a good idea and we can hold on to that i think there's plenty of opportunities the the one thing that actually has really surprised me in my conversations with 24's in fact i was speaking with one one a young woman today about an hour or so ago and it's just how well they were able to connect under um not the best of situations frankly and the fact that they turned were able to turn their new connections uh probably that did start out on the green you know playing spike ball or or on those solo walks i'm into real friendships and i've been so impressed by uh by the resilience and the connectivity of our 24s and i mean they have really leaned in they've leaned into one another um and they they're con they continue to stay in contact even now at their home and so i think that's really been wonderful but you know we'll work with them and we'll work with some of our upper class students in order to try to find out a way to continue to keep them together um i think them being able to be back as a class in the spring will be very helpful um uh josh i'm gonna go back to you and i have to say it's uh it's a treat to have you here because um so many of the questions that we get week after week are questions that that i think you probably have the most insight um on and this is definitely a question we get every week and hopefully we won't get it the next time you're here um and that question is when will the gym be open for who depends so at the the gym is is certainly going to be open in in winter um we're planning to have it ready to go for for winter term um again all you know we're watching the the latest guidelines and the course of the pandemic um you know as the as things improve um our hope is to open it up more to other members of the community but you know our first priority is is making the the spaces that are available um and as a reminder we've deployed a lot of coded specific precautions in terms of spacing things out so it's not kind of as free-flowing as it used to be um but as soon as we can i mean we're certainly itching to open it up to more members of the community but for for now for winter term it will be open for for students um once they are off their quarantine uh lisa um a questioner asks and i guess first you can tell me if the premise of this question is right and then if it is you can answer the question um can you speak to what appear to be a spike in positive cases since most of the students have departed sure we we did see an uptick in cases uh in the last few weeks but keep in mind too that we do have graduate and professional students uh in our community we have some students who are living off campus who are still in the upper valley area so anyone you know those students um all of those students are still getting tested so we are still able to uh and and we'll still uh receive those results and include those in our our um testing numbers um and and of course the the employee um community has has stayed consistent we we all know and expect and i know this was in included in in joe's community message that we're still sort of bracing to see what the impact of of thanksgiving gatherings may bring but even right before thanksgiving we started to see some some upticks and i think that's just an indication of the community transmission that we know is is happening in in hanover in the upper valley in grafton county and throughout the state of new hampshire and of course beyond catherine um i'm gonna go to you uh for uh the the last question um uh given the time uh we have left and i think i'm gonna i'm gonna end sort of where we started uh the questions with joe and that's with a question about mental health because as i said those are that's the theme that i've i've seen uh most today uh uh from from the questions that are being submitted um this questioner asks um will there be uh any programming or increased opportunities to interact with mental health counselors for students during winter term um and then you know it makes the the person makes a suggestion that you know will there be heat lamps made available like any sort of extra efforts that are being made to sort of deal with the mental health pressures that students and all of us are facing right now that's actually a really good point i think one of the things that our wellness team is making sure that we get information out to students on the resources that we already have available um i think one of the concerns and this is also a place where parents can help frankly is that we all tend to not think we need support until it's too late until we really need support and so i i would encourage people to be really proactive and those can be things as my terms of my managing your physiology taking your vitamin d3 it's not that we just all love ice skating and wanting to be outside but it's absolutely critical in northern new hampshire that you get out during the winter and you experience the sunshine and it's available um there are happy lights and uh light and so not really heat lamps or light but they're happy lights that help reset your circadian rhythms and we have a stock of those available at dick's house we have recently hired two new counselors in in our mental health services and we're going to be working with our directors our student affairs directors and all of our staff just to be doing additional training on suicide prevention and mental health we're working with wellness to continue to roll out a number of practices and available resources that students will be able to access throughout their time here so we're really committed to continue our efforts to make our mental health efforts to be integrated into the fabric of the campus uh uh thanks catherine um experience the sunshine when it's available that is a fine message to to close on so thank you for that and thank you josh and lisa uh for visiting us yet again on community conversations um as we head into the to the new year i think we can guarantee that we will see you here again uh and we very much look forward to that um so i'll thank you once again and i'll go back to joe joe great so thank you justin and josh lisa and catherine thanks again for joining us let me echo justin's comments it's been a pleasure to work with you and have you here this afternoon and also in this forum many times i think your comments have been illuminating and extraordinarily helpful for the community and you can count on us asking you back again early in the new year this will be as i said our last community conversation for calendar year 2020 we will be back in early january our current plan in fact is to be back on wednesday january 6 with the first community conversation of the new year until then let me say again as openly and sincerely as i can thank you to our staff our faculty to the local hanover community and to our students for your extraordinary efforts in helping us navigate in unprecedented and challenging situation and deliver an educational program research and teaching for all of our students this past year whether remote or resident in hanover it was not easy and you rose to the challenge in ways that are inspiring so thank you have a well-deserved holiday break everyone stay healthy be well and i look forward to being back with you in early january take care

Channel: Dartmouth

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Length: 63min 20sec (3800 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020