On Monday, Southeast Missouri State University released its “Protect the Nest” plan in preparation for students’ return to campus. To get more information about the plan and the context around it, KRCU’s Clayton Hester spoke to Southeast President Carlos Vargas.
“This plan is the result of a number of conversations we’ve had across the campus from the beginning of the spring when we actually had the pandemic hit us,” Vargas said.
He spoke about the decisions made to cut out a number of breaks in the Southeast calendar and having the university go online starting at the Thanksgiving break.
“The idea behind shortening the semester in this way was to avoid having the students go home or other locations with the potential risk of getting infected and then coming back and then bringing the virus to this community here,” he said.
Should a student contract COVID-19 living on campus, Dearmont will be used as a living facility where students can be relocated. Vargas also said that Dearmont has been tested to ensure healthy air quality.
“We would not put anybody there if we were not confident that Dearmont is able to be inhabited during the semester,” he said.
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