The mayor of Boston — where roughly 140,000 students attend some 30 colleges and universities — said that if students planned to go home for the Thanksgiving holiday, they should not plan on returning anytime soon.
“If you go home for Thanksgiving, you should not be returning to Boston this semester,” Marty Walsh, the city’s mayor, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
His announcement added another wrinkle to what was already an agonizing and complicated choice facing students across the United States: go home and spend time with their family, possibly putting them at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus, or stay on campus and celebrate the holiday in a new way.
Schools like Boston University have been pleading with students to stick around for a “Friendsgiving” on campus. If students do leave, even if they do not travel outside the state, university officials said they would have to self-isolate for seven days when they return, and test negative three times before returning to class, according to BU Today.
“This means remaining in your room, attending courses remotely, and exiting the building only for medical appointments or meals,” Kenneth Elmore, the dean of students, wrote in an email to students, according to the university newspaper. “Violations of this advisory may result in disciplinary action up to and including suspension.”
Eager to avoid the logistical nightmare of thousands of students migrating in and out because of the holiday, many universities around the country — including the University of Connecticut and New York’s SUNY campuses — have planned to end in-person classes before Thanksgiving and require students to finish the term remotely.
For colleges and universities that are encouraging students to return home until the spring semester, the measures they are taking to reduce the chances that those students might carry the coronavirus with them are a patchwork. Many are offering little more than optional testing and advice. Only a minority of schools are mandating that students test negative for the coronavirus before they leave campus.
— Anna Schaverien The New York Times