Community Conversations with Provost Joseph Helble: September 2 Show

uh welcome everyone to the 12th community conversation addressing planning response and operations in the time of covet 19. i'm joe helbley the provost at dartmouth college and joining you once again from the star instructional studio in barrie library on a cloudy and rainy wednesday afternoon september 2nd i'm joined as always by justin anderson our vp for communications who is with us broadcasting from another studio on campus today justin and i will be joined by dr anne bracken md a member of the geisel school of medicine faculty and the director of clinical medical services at dartmouth's health service known to all as dick's house a position she has held for the past eight years joining anne will be john plodzick director of dartmouth dining services a position he has held here for more than four years after a long career in similar roles at the university of new hampshire both john and ann will be joining me for a conversation focused on student testing and student dining two areas where we were received many questions over the past few weeks today we'll follow our usual format with a campus update live q a moderated by justin and then our conversation with campus leaders today ann and john and a chance for them to respond to your questions directly now before we turn to our usual update and discussion of operational details i'd like to take just a few moments to remind us all of the steps we've taken in our campus planning over the past two weeks just last wednesday president hanlon and i informed the community that we were continuing with our campus plan for full-term undergraduate education with approximately one-half of our student community including the vast majority of first-year students the members of the dartmouth class of 2024 being in residence in hanover this fall undergraduate students will begin coming to campus early next week with arrivals coming during scheduled time windows and spanning the entirety of the week in anticipation of undergraduate classes beginning as planned for all students remote and local alike on monday september 14th graduate and professional school students have already been arriving over the past month or so with the majority of these students presently in town and depending upon their program a few more will also continue to arrive over the next few weeks now we know that there have been a range of views expressed within our community regarding the best path forward for dartmouth this fall for the institution and for the broader community we know that at dartmouth in hanover and quite honestly in every college and university community across this country there are those who would prefer to see a continuation of fully remote operations and those who are excited by the return of students to local campuses as president hanlon and i wrote last week we know well that no decision during this time of pandemic would or possibly could satisfy everyone that of course is the nature of a decision of making a choice but it's also a reflection of how challenging living and working in a pandemic is for every member of this community but with the decision made and the next steps clear we look forward to working together as a community to support the learning and education of all of our students this fall term undergraduate and graduate alike resident and remote learners alike you are all part of the dartmouth family our plan as announced earlier this summer and now underway utilizes extensive testing of our locally resident students starting pre-arrival and continuing through arrival week and then throughout the term dr bracken will provide more details later in today's conversation but briefly our plan starts with pre-arrival testing dartmouth has contracted with a provider to perform pre-arrival coveted tests for all domestic undergraduate students invited to campus for the fall term the unique links for these tests were sent to each eligible student last week with the goal of having results in hand prior to their departing from home and prior to their traveling to campus any positive tests will require the students even if asymptomatic to remain home until the required home isolation period is completed dick's house will be in touch with all individuals receiving any positive results to provide more specific guidance now for those students the vast majority of whom will test negative they will proceed to campus and begin a program of testing upon arrival arrival testing will be conducted for all students arriving in hanover with all undergraduate students being tested on days 0 3 and 7 of their arrival on campus in keeping with the focus on public health for the entire community and as we've announced students previously these tests will be conducted with all undergraduate students who have a local address in hanover as well as those that are invited to live on campus for fall term in addition after we move through the first week of arrival and testing on day zero three and seven for all students we will begin a program of surveillance testing which will continue throughout the entire fall term dartmouth's ongoing surveillance testing will be of all students including those living locally in the defined communities all will be included in this testing protocol for surveillance testing dartmouth intends to conduct as many as 4 500 additional tests each and every week all student testing is currently being conducted in the tent maynard parking lot next to dick's house and students themselves are receiving instructions as to how testing will be addressed and taken care of during their first week on campus and subsequently they will receive instructions on how it will proceed throughout the rest of the fall term period in addition to student testing employee testing will also be conducted as part of our plan for fall term campus reopening as confirmed in an email that was sent to all dartmouth employees late last week dartmouth in partnership with our occupational medicine partner axiom has already begun in fact initial testing of employees approved to work on site and that work will continue throughout the fall term all employees who return to campus to perform their work will be tested further ongoing surveillance testing is also planned for as many as 500 employees per week employee testing will take place in one physical location on the first floor of four courier and if an employee is instructed to self-isolate or quarantine due to the results of occupational medicine screening through this testing program the employee will be directed to contact hr to discuss next steps and of course given our current operational status at the middle condition limited access the condition that's indicated on our reopening level web page under the dartmouth covet 19 site those employees in fact all those employees whose job allows them to work remotely should continue to do so now for those employees who will be returning to campus to work temperature stations have been established as of this past monday august 31st and all employees faculty and staff as well as all students who have been approved to be on campus need to complete a health screening each and every day they access a campus building now this is important we are asking every member of the community every member who will be on campus to complete this screening each and every day they will access the campus now what does that mean for students who are resident on campus well those who live on campus are by definition on campus every day and they are therefore required to complete the health screening application tool daily regardless of whether they plan to leave their dormitory room the screening in the screening and the the form that that students faculty and staff will be filling out entails answering questions through the temperature self assessment or tsa website and taking your temperature for those who don't have immediate access to a thermometer dartmouth has installed non-contact wall mounted infrared thermometers in 32 locations on campus after taking your temperature either in the isolation of your room or at one of these stations we then ask everyone to then complete as i've said the tsa questionnaire online now please note that dartmouth is no longer staffing physical locations where you can answer the tsa questions if accessing the tsa via the website is not possible for you i ask employees or students to contact your dean or advisor or your supervisor or department head if your faculty or staff and more information on next steps and an appropriate way to access the questionnaire on a daily basis will be provided to you now as president hanlon and i noted in our email message to the dartmouth community last week information on our testing program will be made available transparently to the community through a dashboard that dashboard which in fact went live yesterday september 1st is available through the dartmouth covid19 informational website including via the url dart go dot org forward slash covid dash dashboard and it provides information on testing numbers and outcomes and on numbers in quarantine and isolation the dashboard will be updated every monday and thursday throughout the term enabling the community to keep track on our testing rate and infection rate on the campus and it will be expanded over the next few weeks to provide additional information dr bracken can discuss this in more detail later this afternoon but as the dashboard shows we have now tested over 1 one hundred students mostly graduate and professional students and have had zero positive test results to date this is for on-campus testing now i'd like to note that while large universities that have had dozens or more positive test results have commanded the headlines the past two weeks many institutions particularly smaller liberal arts colleges many of them in settings comparable to dartmouth many of them in rural new england are reporting test results comparable to what we at dartmouth have seen to date in our community conversation just two weeks ago i reported that our peers were seeing positive test results in the 0.07 to 0.28 percent range encouraging news for those of us who had not yet begun large-scale student testing more recent data from a larger set of peers particularly those in new england is equally encouraging for example in all of this is publicly reported data amherst college has conducted over 8 600 tests and had a total of three positives two of them being students a positive test rate of 0.03 percent bates one positive in 1745 tests a rate of 0.05 percent conn college 1 in 2737 0.03 percent hamilton zero in 5 308 student tests conducted thus far middlebury one in 2577 or 0.03 percent or wesleyan zero positives out of zero out of one thousand one hundred and eleven students tested thus far and if you look to larger universities our colleagues at unh and uvm are reporting 0.19 and 0.07 respectively with uvm test results being exclusively pre-arrival testing thus far now i point this out to note that there is every reason to expect that dartmouth data will be in line with the reports from these other institutions particularly our nescat colleagues such as middlebury amherst williams and hamilton who draw students from a similar geographic cross-section of the country we will report those data openly updating our dashboard as i said every monday and thursday and i invite the community to keep tabs and understand how we are managing testing and how we are reporting our results openly to the community now beyond testing there are important questions i know that many have around campus moving my competence comments thus far have really focused on the testing plan and the experiences are educational peers but it's important to remember that that is just one part important but just one part of a return to on-campus residential living and residential education this return to campus will begin fairly soon as we have announced previously students will be returning to campus at designated times with approximately 600 students arriving per day in designated time slots with arrival beginning on tuesday september 8th they will arrive first at the testing tent near dick's house and details will follow for each student describing when to arrive how to proceed through testing and key pickup with individual information forthcoming shortly as students then settle in our first year students who arrive first will begin to engage in orientation not of course a typical orientation like years past because of the need not only for testing but for students effectively to remain quarantined for some period after their arrival a team of faculty staff and students have therefore been working all summer to adjust our orientation plans to welcome all of our 24s and introduce them to living and learning at dartmouth no matter their location the orientation schedule will include some elements that sound familiar to those who participated in years past it will also contain some new elements reflective of student arrival in these extraordinary pandemic times and it will be designed to support all first-year students be they in hanover or be they joining us remotely from afar generally the schedule focuses on day one arrival and testing for those in residence and a welcome program for all students days two and three academic programming we'll be introducing students to the curriculum academic departments and learning resources at dartmouth and again conducted for both those who are present in hanover and those who are engaging remotely day four library open house faculty advising will take place and as well course selection and i like so many of my faculty colleagues i'm greatly looking forward to that first conversation even though it will be by zoom with my new first year student advisees day five institutional programming on the community and values of dartmouth community and house community programming will take place in day six our final day of orientation student leadership and involvement a matriculation event involving president hanlon and a twilight ceremony will take place this won't be the full and complete end of orientation we will have increased focus programming both virtual and in residence life during the first few weeks of class to help with the transition to dartmouth this year we're referring to it as weeks of welcome and engaging all first-year students those who are resident as well as those who are joining us from home no matter how far away that may be clearly it's going to be different clearly it's going to be busy and despite the limitations including of geography for those members of the class of 24 who are not able to be with us in hanover it will focus on introducing all of our new students to this extraordinary dartmouth community now let me finish now with just a few updates on the library and undergraduate research before turning to your questions and then to our guests in the area of the library starting this monday august 31st just two days ago the library has extended its opening hours for barrie library and the baker library stacks the library is now open from 10 am to 6 pm monday to friday which means the 4 pm closing time that's interrupted us in a few prior community conversations will not occur today faculty will also be able to access the library by appointment only from 9 a.m to 10 a.m monday to friday to help prepare for classes or address research questions and they can make a reservation by calling or emailing the circulation desk as with every space on campus all members of our community must complete the tsa questionnaire before accessing the library and must adhere to proper social distancing etiquette including but not limited to wearing a face covering adhering to phantom physical distancing guidelines and following signage and staff directions i'd also like to offer a brief note on undergraduate research and point out to our student community resident and remote alike that the policy governing undergraduate on campus laboratory research was finalized by the task force earlier today and will be released shortly as announced previously for the fall term and consistent with the need for de-densification of all indoor spaces including research laboratories limited undergraduate research opportunities will exist within arts and sciences and within the faculty of the thayer school of engineering for this quarter the fall quarter the geisel and tuck schools will have opportunities via remote learning only any undergraduate student interested in performing on campus research during a term where they've been approved for residential education should first approach the proposed faculty research advisor and sponsor for a conversation to assess the feasibility of accommodating the project within institutional constraints and research protocols more detail on this will be provided over the coming days and weeks and is available either through your pi or it will soon and subsequently be posted on our covet 19 website now let me end my remarks with just a few words directly for our students those who will be joining us in hanover as well as those who will be studying from home this fall and joining us in hanover during winter or spring as i think you know even from conversations in your own communities many people in this country are concerned about the spread of this disease particularly with college students returning to campuses particularly with stories that have emerged from the early days of campus life at some institutions across the u.s communities are not apprehensive about you as individuals they are understandably apprehensive about groups of students and what they have read and heard of behavior elsewhere but to our dartmouth students let me say that i and we believe in you not in some abstract way but by what we have seen and what i have seen even over the past month as you've navigated the uncertainty of the fall term and the uncertainty of this pandemic student assembly groups of international students student advisory boards and so many others individually and collectively i have seen you engage thoughtfully i have seen you ask penetrating questions by email and in conversations that i've been part of and i have seen you demonstrate thoughtfulness and understanding of the complexities that our leaders here and on every other campus are trying to navigate that has made me proud when i was dean of the thayer school of engineering the board chair at one particularly important juncture pulled me aside and referred to it as a moment a moment when decisions that we made would have profound impact on the trajectory of the school for years to come to our students and to all members of the dartmouth community i see this now as such a moment not as a student moment but as our moment collectively as a community look this is not the fall that any of us envisioned but what we do and how we traverse these challenging times will define us as a community this is the opportunity for us for dartmouth to show what can be done when we work together and support one another this is our moment so i will say again when someone asks you or me to mask up it's not a criticism it's a reminder to put that mask on and be considerate and be aware because our collective success depends upon our shared individual commitments i look forward to welcoming so many of you back to campus next week and i look forward to engaging with those of you who will be remote this term but returning to campus during winter and spring you are members of this shared community with that let me turn to justin and we have time to take a few questions before we turn to anne bracken and john plodzick for discussion of testing and dining services that i know is on your mind justin thank you joe and nice to see you today um i will say that a vast majority of the questions that we have received so far today are about the logistics of the student drop-off there are a lot of sort of very specific questions um uh but i think that in the aggregate they're they're mostly expressing uh frustration about uh sort of the rigidity of the scheduling and why are there why are times being so limited as to when students can be dropped off and why can there be few family members on campus to see off their students and why can they only bring a certain amount of stuff when they arrive so i wonder rather than addressing any one specific question if you could just talk a little bit about the rationale behind uh the the drop-off and some of the limitations that are being asked of our community as they return yeah i'd be happy to justin in it and i acknowledge and we all know this is an extraordinary request that we're making of our community and i i say this not just as an administrator but as a parent of college students and graduate students uh children of my own and i see how challenging this return to campus is but the decisions we have made and the plan we have put in place has been put in place first and foremost with an eye towards supporting community health first and foremost paramount is de-densification of all of our facilities that means limiting the number of students in the classroom at any one time that means maintaining social distancing that means limiting the number of students who can pass one another in the hallways that means limiting the number of students in the libraries or in the research laboratories and making sure there's adequate space between the only way we can accomplish that effectively is with a plan that looks in some ways almost like a military operation where the team has been working to get individuals in and out according to very specific schedules is it an imposition of course it's an imposition but we're hoping that everyone will understand that the only way we can maximize the chance for a successful return to campus is to keep people separated from one another distance from one another minimize the number of unique individuals who are introduced into the indoor environment and do our best to promote circulation at a distance and protect individual help by health by preventing individuals from coming into close contact with one another is it unusual absolutely is it what we would like to do absolutely not is it what we need to do i think it's essential these first few weeks on campus will go such a long way towards defining the success of the rest of the term and defining the success of subsequent terms these first few weeks will go such a long way towards still instilling confidence in the members of our community who are a little bit apprehensive around the return of half of our undergraduate student body to campus and so we're asking everyone to understand that to be patient with it to recognize it's no one's ideal but to understand how important it is that we execute this successfully um joe the the beginning of the academic year is always a time for great optimism and while this is not as you say the academic year that any any of us were expecting or would even wish for i'm going to give you a question that i think comes from a very optimistic place a viewer writes in what would we need to see in order to bring back more than roughly 50 of the undergraduate student body over the course of the year right so that's a great question justin and there are the factors that are outside of our control and then the factors that are within our control outside of our control the development of a vaccine and the deployment of a vaccine and the development associated with the vaccine of what some refer to as herd immunity would of course go a long way towards enabling us to bring back more students a mild flu season with symptoms that are distinct from those of covet 19 if such a thing is possible and is outside our control would go a long way towards enabling us to increase the number of students we bring back to campus but first and foremost it is our ability to navigate fall terms successfully it is our ability to have very low numbers of infection in our student community and in our employee community is our ability to identify those quickly and get individuals into isolation and have a limited number of contacts were exposed and keep those contacts healthy it is our ability to operate without coming remotely close to tapping this significant quarantine and isolation space that we have built into our system to give us significant capacity to work through the term we have in fact i haven't mentioned this publicly but we have set aside over 550 beds for quarantine and isolation space to give us the maximum ability to keep students who are either testing positive and need to be in isolation or close contacts and need to be in quarantine space space to keep them separated from one another and ensure their healthy return to the campus community without infecting others these things needs to go well and if we make it through the term successfully with minimal numbers of infection if we are among the leaders in the country in managing this successfully i won't promise anything because it's dependent upon these external factors but that certainly increases the chances that we could begin to think about increasing the number of students certainly in spring term if not in winter term uh you know joe uh we have time for one more question before we go to our guests um and this comes from uh a staff member and um i wanna sort of preface it by saying that um during today's uh uh uh webcast i'm seeing a few questions along these lines and i've seen it throughout the course of the show and it's staff members expressing a little bit of anxiety and maybe frustration that they are being asked to do more than faculty and students because they don't have the control over determining whether or not they come to campus in other words some staff members have to come to campus it's not within their within their rights to say you know what i don't feel safe i'm not coming to campus so that's just something that i've that i've seen that that that maybe you can address but the specific question is about um when staff might have to return to campus this fall um will there be an announcement from dartmouth that says specifically when staff or particular groups of staff would be expected to come back to campus to perform their job duties so on that specific question justin yes absolutely and a lot of that is going to come from division leaders and supervisors because the return schedule is going to be very different depending upon the role of the employee and the work of the division so those who are directly student-facing will be returning to campus sooner than those who are working in uh student supporting functions or those who are working in faculty research and campus supporting functions i understand the point and the question that was raised about faculty and staff you say i prefer to think about it a little bit differently we are asking those whose work can be done from home can be done remotely to continue to be done remotely and so for a large number of faculty members teaching can be done remotely for a large number of faculty members research can be done remotely for a large number of staff members members their work can continue to be done remotely and we are in that operational mode of limited access where all of those individuals faculty and staff are being asked by the institution to do their work remotely where it can be done remotely but for those who are in immediate campus support functions immediate students facing support functions yes of course it's important that that work be done on campus for any individuals who have conditions that make this extraordinarily challenging or deeply concerned about their ability to work in that environment as we've said all along we've asked them including on the staff side not just faculty to sit down and have a conversation with their supervisor and see if there are ways to address those concerns that would enable them to continue to perform their function so we are trying hard to take individual preference and individual concerns into account as we move forward to staff the campus and open it for student return so so thank you justin for that question thank you for the person to the person who asked that question these are extraordinarily important issues for us to address openly and honestly and again i i encourage everyone with specific questions have a conversation with your supervisor because institutionally we are trying to do all that we can to make this a workplace that supports individuals abilities to get their work done and individuals preferences and concerns so i i'd like to bring our our guests back to our conversation anne bracken md the director of clinical health services at dick's house and john plodzick the director of dartmouth dining services and john great to have you with us this afternoon so so i'll take about 10 minutes i think you know the format 10 minutes to ask each of you a few questions i'll move back and forth i might ask you a follow-up question these are things that questions that have come to me that i know are on the minds of students and their families and then we'll turn to justin who will ask you questions whatever's coming in from our external audience so i'd like to start with each of you uh given that many members of our community including the dartmouth campus community may not know about your specific roles by just asking you about your job so and i'll start with you would you mind just quickly describing what your role is as director of clinical medical services what what areas do you oversee and what's your personal role going to be in overseeing all of the covent testing we've been describing all righty well as director of clinical medical services i oversee the primary care services at the dartmouth college health service also known as dick's house many students refer to our health services dick's house at the health service we have physicians nurse practitioners pas medical assistants tag we have appointment office and practice manager and we also have nurses so we have an inpatient department and we oversee the um all the the operations of the inpatient department in terms of clinical supervision of the nurses and we work closely with a counseling department at dick's house we offer a variety of services we provide primary care services acute and chronic health care services we do a lot of mental health care we do labs x-ray many of the services we offer most of them are free with their care as an enrolled student we have physical therapy and we work really collaboratively with the state of new hampshire related to public health issues with the dartmouth-hitchcock medical center if we need to refer students to for specialty care or emergency services and um uh have close working relationships with with those organizations so we really feel prepared to address covet 19 and asked how have we been involved with planning well we started really thinking about kobe 19 back in december and january it was emerging in the in the news and the cdc was covering um the outbreak and first in muhan and then in china so we did screening as part of our normal operations starting in january for for travel um and we were paying attention as the pandemic well it was not considered pandemic earlier but as this disease moved across the globe we were screening for travel as you know in march we had our first cases of code 19 on campus and you wisely decided that it was time to shut down operations and contain this illness we had eight cases in march and april we worked really closely with john and his his folks to provide dining we isolated students who were identified as having the virus at that time it was really challenging to get people tested because you may recall back in the day healthcare workers were prioritized in people with specific symptoms so we worked really closely with dhmc in the state to get people tested then those who are identified as having um covet we work closely with the state to do contact tracing and quarantine some students who needed quarantine we actually work with the town of hanover um very closely to help support kids who are in the community with them with code 19 and then dining was super helpful with delivering food to students in isolation so we we have practice how to manage students in quarantine right that's great thank you and and and i will say one of the things you mentioned at the end struck me as a a positive and i like to attribute it to small town upper valley communities the town of hanover and the town of hannover leadership has been extraordinary and being open with us and discussing our plans and helping us think through this collectively as a community health question rather than darkness separate from the town and that that has made our plans come together i think in ways that are so much more positive and productive so thank you ann so john i'd like to turn to you now briefly i think one of you know and i say this as a parent i think we all know it's no surprise that one of the things students are most interested in when they think about returning to campus is food so can you just very briefly describe your your job and your role in planning and managing campus dining and then i'm going to turn and ask you immediately about how it's gone this summer but first tell me about your role sure thanks joe yeah my role is honestly to ensure that every student coming to dartmouth is has access to nutritious food whenever they're really hungry and and honestly for my take uh is i want students to love dining i need them to love dining i want this to be a real positive attribute to their dartmouth experience and so i work with a wonderful group of professionals uh that creates great moments uh throughout the years we serve folks and hopefully memories that students will take with them uh through their lifetime about what it was like to come into the dining hall or see folks and grab a burger and hang out with some friends and such and so uh i have a great role here uh and i uh while it doesn't seem nearly as complicated as ann's i uh truly enjoy the interaction we have and i know all the dining staff members enjoy that interaction with students so much right so so how's it going this summer john have you saw have you served meals this summer yeah i have to tell you it's gone very very well we we've never really had an opportunity to close because we've always had students here on campus and so we certainly have modified our service from what it was back pre-co covered to today to create physical barriers for staff and students so that we can maintain proper physical distance uh we've changed all of our models over to serving food for folks so you won't find a self-service bar any longer and we worked on little things like touchless entry and such because the health and safety of everyone that we have working for us and everyone who steps through outdoors is critical to me and so from my standpoint summer has gone really well it's given us an opportunity to get ready and practice and ensure that the principles that we're applying today are going to work on a larger scale when all the first years in returning students come shortly next week great thanks john so let's i'm going to go back and forth between the two of you a bit just to talk about that integration because with students coming back we have testing that we have to manage we have quarantine where students need to receive food we have surveillance testing that will follow and then we're going to be opening the dining hall so i'm going to try and touch on those pieces quickly before we open it up to the broader audience so and let's start with you could you just quickly describe from the student perspective and it's not just for the students but it's for our community what this process looks like pre-arrival testing arrival testing how does that look how does it work how do the students walk through it okay sounds good i'm going to back up just a teeny bit to talk about the different types of testing too so there's symptomatic testing there's surveillance testing rival testing and then ongoing surveillance so we've actually been testing students with symptoms since um june and we have a different operation where we test people outside uh for coping 19 and worked at ph to send our labs and get results when we we started pre-arrival testing for the undergraduates so you mentioned the domestic undergraduates who are enrolled for the residential experience in the fall we we started pre-arrival testing that where they were invited to um to do this uh link through the vault system that's the the vendor and we have had over 700 students do that pre-arrival testing we learned today that one of the students was positive during uh for the pre-arrival tests so we've contacted that students and we'll make have made recommendations about isolation at home and so the isolation the cdc recommendations are 10 days of isolation fever-free for at least 24 hours and improving symptoms and once that once the student finishes isolation we are welcome into our community we've also learned that a couple other incoming undergraduate students have tested positive they've had symptoms and tested positive at home so we have several students now pre-arrival who we've recognized will stay home in isolation until they they finish that 10-day period then we started our surveillance testing with the graduate students in late july we welcomed the geisel school of medicine students on july 29th for our our first testing of students and have tested talk students and lots of other grad students since that time we've done over 1800 tests and that represents over 1200 graduate students they're primarily graduate students in that group and so far we've been fortunate to have no positive tests without surveillance testing so if i'm understanding you correctly then our our total database so far is zero out of 1800 for the on campus testing and one out of 700 roughly so one out of 2500 total tests has been a positive is that correct yes and you can look at the unique individuals tested and the number because we have a number of graduate students who did zero and seven testing so over eighteen hundred tests with twelve hundred um students in that sample right yeah right that's it no positives in that right yeah right that's great and my reasoning point in combining those numbers is i think it's it compares quite nicely to what our nest colleagues and northern new england colleagues are seeing in terms of that rate great thank you so so john let me ask you briefly i'm just gonna ask you one quick question and then the conscious at the time i want to turn it over to justin um there's so many questions about food service food arrival food delivery but let me just ask a basic one so what kind of food are you going to be serving is it going to be similar to what you've done in the past and how are you going to manage things like food allergies yeah everyone should rest assured the food that we're serving is being prepared every single day here it makes up a regular menu it's featured items that we have had great popularity with students over the years and it features items from vegetarian vegan selections traditional fare and items as sandwiches all over the map it's a very deep menu that we're going to be offering folks so everyone should really rest assured that they uh will not go hungry during this period of time uh those with allergies we are going to be identifying food preferences and allergies in a questionnaire that we just sent out yesterday and so i encourage any student who's uh watching the show to make sure that they have looked in their email and fill out that survey for us so that we can capture that information prior to your arrival but we will be making essentially customized meals for anyone who has any type of food allergies to ensure that they can have complete access to the program their entire time here we have a dietitian on staff beth rosenberger who works closely with myself and the chef and a number of us to ensure that everyone has access to a program here and we have a pretty good track record and i i say it over and over again but i don't think any student or family should worry about uh being hungry we have plenty of food and we'll make sure that you get it that's great so let me just ask you one follow-up question and then i'm going to turn it to justin who will have questions for both ann and for you john once our students are able to move a little bit more freely about the campus and access the facilities where will they be able to eat in foco or in novac can they can they sit with their friends sure yeah once we pass this quarantine period and we're hoping uh and the the best information we have currently is that uh this quarantine period for everyone will end around september 24th uh foco will reopen the main dining hall we'll have us cafe we'll be open right in front of it uh we will have our cafe in the library called novac and a new spot called ramekin an anonymous hall that opened almost at this time the pandemic was breaking so those venues will all be open will be open as early as seven o'clock in the morning till late at night uh students will have the ability to reserve a table in fifty three commons or foco uh using an on table app uh we'll have food to go we have uh meal equivalency so plenty of options for students throughout we'll have about 300 or so seats within foco so it'll be a little bit different experience this fall as you've indicated many times than what we typically do uh but we uh trying to build in a lot of fun and a lot of flexibility into the program because at the end of the day i do i want you to have a great experience in dining and so we're going to do everything we can to make that happen well thank you john and thank you so much and so justin why don't i turn it over to you and and you can share with us the questions that have been coming in over the lines uh thanks a lot joe and um john i think i'm gonna start with you um and i'm i'm really uh i'm gonna put you on the spot because you just said that uh that you have plenty of food uh so one of our one of our viewers today is gonna is gonna i think challenge that in some way they write in our son is a student athlete and consumes five to six thousand calories over six meals a day how will dining services provide for his needs during the term especially during his first two weeks on campus so do you have enough food for even this one person i hope so i hope so that's for sure uh i wish i was young again to consume that many calories but uh i will tell you uh we will identify folks uh you students will be receiving a card in their first meal that we'll be delivering uh and we're providing i would say hearty portions sides and entrees and desserts to everybody during the initial uh period when they while we wait for the arrival test results uh and then after that arrival test result which would probably be about two to two days or so they're going to be visiting six service locations peppered around campus and those locations they'll be able to actually select the amount of meals and the amount of food that they want right at that location and when we get to our regular program on september 25th uh the students with the meal plan we're offering will have really unlimited access to the main dining hall so they can they can come and eat as many times as they want so 6 000 calories a day is probably very possible uh hanging out at 53 commons or foco all day long uh thanks john um and uh uh turning to you uh the the most questions i'm or the most popular question for you is about flu shots um a lot of questions about whether or not dartmouth will be providing flu shots or or students should get flu shots before they come to campus so what is what is your take on on flu shots in this uh during this very uh particular uh season uh that we are facing right now well i'm so excited that students are even thinking about their flu shots and it's fantastic if they get their flu shot before they come fantastic we have a lot of flu shots here and have already given over 100 flu shots to graduate students who are coming to the testing tents and we're thinking about linking flu shots to the surveillance screening but wanted because of the large numbers of the undergrads who are going to come for the surveillance tests we wanted to just see how that operation goes but we will be offering flu shots here and we're excited that students want to get their flu shots so great news we'll have them we've already started giving them good um uh john back back to you uh people have written in about um their access to uh a meal plan if they don't uh if they are not living on campus so uh this one uh viewer writes in if i am on term but living off campus can i have a meal plan yeah and the simple answer that is not currently at this time uh the reason for that is we have worked really hard to make sure that we provide great uh physical distance and speed of service for folks uh within the property and obviously with uh seating requirements that we're working towards to make sure this is a health and safety healthy and safety environment for everyone we are concerned that we don't want to be overwhelmed i want this to be a great experience and our first priority are students who are residing right here on campus and so currently if you're living off campus you unfortunately you're not going to have access to into the dining hall obviously that's something we'll want continue to monitor as the term goes along uh and and hopefully we'll be able to get back to a more inclusive program for everyone in the community as we go forward um and uh back to you um we've talked a lot about uh about testing um a specific kind of testing that hasn't come up yet today um is waste water testing um how exactly does that work and and and how is it significant what is it about it that is that is significant and how is it going to help us so dhoc has a research project where they're um looking at surveilling the the waste water in many communities across the state but in we're partnering with them to surveil wastewater from several different manholes that serve a lot of these different dorms so this is a super cool uh process where they they drop an instrument into a manhole for a 24-hour uh period and sips sewage uh which sounds just really interesting and they do this twice a week and then they're looking for the sars kovi to levels in that sewage if they see an uptick then we're going to respond to that there's a control called the pepper mild model virus which is a plant-based virus that is typical in sewage we we're pretty sure dr seuss has named this virus um and it's a dartmouth inspired plant-based virus but uh we have a lot of young um providers at dick's house who are really enthused about the name of this the control virus but um anyway we're going to be looking to see if there's an uptick in um in the sewage of the car the sarsko v2 we have a health epidemiology group that um is advising us we're working together to make plans related to surveillance so the current surveillance and then the ongoing surveillance we may end up quarantining uh people if we see an uptick in a certain dorm and then testing the people in that dorm so we'll be working partnering with dhmc to to monitor this and fun and feel this is like a really interesting project that can add to the regular testing that we're going to be doing so this is an added surveillance option um great um and on the subject of testing i'll just i'll i'll stay with you um i'm getting also getting questions about uh the saliva test um and about its uh how how reliable it is uh compared to to the the nasal swab test so the pre-arrival test is a a saliva and that's a pcr test there are also some saliva antigen tests that are less sensitive so there's different types the pcr tests tend to be more sensitive than the antigen tests the antigen tests are now being used more there's reduced sensitivity but if you use them more frequently you can pick up illness so there's different reasons currently the anagen tests are approved to be used for people with symptoms but it may be that students in congregate living situations can use the antigen test in fact the vermont department of public health released a health alert network memo today talking about using that in congregate living situations so we have these several different ways to test we have the darden fishcock medical center pcr test we have the broad institute pcr test the broad institute is for our surveillance testing the dhmc we're using for our symptomatic testing we may add point of care testing at dick's house so more redundancy related to testing the point of care testing might be a 20 to 40 minute result and that would be really great uh to add to our testing regimen so we're really exploring adding other options for testing currently we're using the pcr testing um john back to you uh with a question uh about um dds staff um and you know uh students are writing in about um staff that they're accustomed to seeing uh regularly when uh when when they when they dine um at foco um what is going to happen with all of those staff members um you know the during quarantine um will will they be will they be at work will there will will or when will there be interaction between students and uh dds staff members that they're that they've grown accustomed to seeing um over the years i want to tell you thanks for the question that all of our staff pretty much are all still here you're going to get to see most of your favorite folks right over at the one of those six service locations when you pick up your meal uh we'll all be out there pretty much every day making sure that you're getting uh the food you need when you need it uh and such and uh honestly uh i've been so thrilled uh as we've all come back together now uh to see the motivation and the enthusiasm that everyone within the dining team has had number one to get back together and number two to think about students returning to campus so uh you'll be seeing all your favorites and they will be very excited to see you and uh i look forward to making some great relationships with students over this coming year um so so that's great to hear john um uh just a question just came in about the number of meals a day um will there be three meals a day during the actual quarantine period uh so if you will uh until we get to regular operations around september 25th it will be three meals a day as i try to indicate there will be a card in your uh your meals when we first start delivering if you're having any concerns problems need something extra give me a call we'll make sure we get it to you but you'll be able to get a good hearty portion of three meals every day during that period and then once we get to regular operation you really have unlimited access to the main dining hall and you can use a meal swipe if you will as you go about campus for your dining dollars so no one will go hungry that's my mission here and we work on that every single day so no worries everybody we'll be fine um uh and i'm gonna uh i will we'll end with you because we have time for just one more question um and joe uh mentioned this briefly during his introduction but it's about the it's about the uh testing location um or locations where on campus uh will tests uh be taking place okay currently we have a tent out just outside of dick's house in our parking lot where we're doing the graduate student testing so a smaller scale than the undergraduate we have another teeny little temp that we use for the symptomatic testing also right outside dick's house on the corners joe mentioned a row fairy and maynard there's an enormous tent and that tent is will be able to take 600 to 1800 students over the course of the day through listing and then there's another temp that is connected to that so students go through they get screened for symptoms then they they register they do the reserve test they come around the corner and they go into another tent where they get their key and it's a bag of goodies including some cleaning supplies and masks and other things information about how to check their results and then they go to their room so um the those are the two testing areas currently um thank you and very much and john thank you very much and thank you both for all that that you have done already for dartmouth and will uh be doing uh over the course of the coming weeks and months it's really important work and we are um so thrilled and proud to have you uh working at dartmouth so thank you very much um joe um we're about out of time uh but i'm gonna i'm gonna go back to you uh to uh say goodbye great well thank you justin and let me add my thanks to you ann and to you john for not only joining us today but as justin said for your extraordinary commitment and the planning that's gone into it so please share that with your colleagues in dining services in dick's house i'm extraordinarily impressed thankful and grateful for the work that's been done and the plan that's been put in place to enable our community students and also faculty and staff to affect this transition as smoothly and safely as is possible i often have to say i'm across the board i've been impressed by our facility staff our custodial staff our center and institute directors and the work they've done to prepare us for the return of students to the campus and the work they've done to develop creative plans for engaging students who won't be with us here in hanover this fall to engage them remotely our faculty and staff i know are hard at work getting campus ready and getting classes ready for those students who are going to be learning remotely and for the classes that will be delivered remotely to those here locally it's just been extraordinarily to to be extraordinary to behold so i look forward to the return of students to our campus next week i look forward to meeting with my new advisees the end of this week and to personally being able to participate as a volunteer in some of the testing of our first year students that will be taking place next week and joining with other members of the dartmouth community and supporting them until then until our next community conversation which will take place on september 16th i wish you all the best and to all members of the dartmouth community stay healthy stay well and thank you for all you are doing to support this extraordinary group of students on their learning and research journey take care everyone we'll see you in two weeks

Channel: Dartmouth

Views: 1,698

Rating: 4.5555553 out of 5

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Id: 5qmFUSef_ac

Length: 63min 41sec (3821 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020