WPI president helped create plan to get college students back to campus

WORCESTER, Mass. — There’s now a plan to get the half million college students who study in Massachusetts back to campus.

It’s a framework that mimics the state’s reopening and if all goes well students could be back on campus in the Fall.

But heading back to college will be a bit different after the coronavirus closed campuses this spring.

Laurie Leshin, president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, helped create the plan.

“I just want parents and families to know that we are working incredibly hard that any reopening we are able to do is going to be safe,” Leshin said.

Leshin is working with higher education leaders across the state. Their plan will be phased in like the state’s reopening plan and also be in four phases that are spaced about three weeks apart.

“In phase one there is an opportunity to repopulate our research laboratories,” Leshin said.

The four phases will take place by starting with Phase 1, the reopening of labs and clinics. Phase 2 will allow some summer sessions among other small steps. Phase 3 will allow students to return to campus. Phase 4 will see a return to a new normal after a vaccine or herd immunity is reached.

Leshin said students could return in the fall.

"The large scale re-population of our campuses wouldn’t happen until Phase 3 and that would be bringing more of our students back in the fall time frame we hope,” Leshin said.

But each school’s reopening is up to them. She said it’s not a one-size-fits-all model.

“Each campus can work within the framework that we have put forward to build a plan that really works for them,” Leshin said.

And each school must have a plan to return students safely, be able to monitor students and faculty for thinks like social distancing, have testing available and have a plan if the virus returns.

Each college hopes to announce if they’ll reopen in the fall by July 1, 2020.

And COVID-19 concerns mean that the online learning students were all forced to switch to this spring will be a big part of their education moving forward.

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RESOURCES:

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