David Kotz:
Welcome everyone to this first summer edition of Community Conversations. As you may know, Provost Joseph Helble is departing Dartmouth this summer to become president of Lehigh University. I was honored to be asked to serve as Dartmouth’s interim provost while Dartmouth conducts a nationwide search for the next provost. I’m deeply indebted to Joe Helble for his steady leadership to the many challenges of the past year. On behalf of the extended Dartmouth community, I want to thank Joe for helping us to weather the storm and bring us safely to the point where we are ready for a full reopening this fall. Joe, the poise and resourcefulness you brought as a leader was critical in navigating the College through one of the most difficult times in its history. Though there were countless uncertainties and challenges, you met them all head-on and kept the campus in form from this very room.
In preparing my remarks for today, I realized that it was 40 years ago this month that I first set foot on the Hanover Plain as a high school junior and perspective Dartmouth student. Little did I know then that I would return one year later to be taking classes from faculty like John Kemeny, and exploring the many mountains and rivers of New Hampshire, nor that I would later return to join the Dartmouth faculty as a professor in computer science. As a Dartmouth alum, as a Dartmouth professor, and more recently as a Dartmouth parent, it is an absolute honor to be speaking with you today. As always, I’m joined by Justin Anderson, our vice president for communications from the Starr Instructional Studio in Berry Library, where we are recording today’s conversation on July 20th. Justin and I will be joined today by Josh Keniston, co-chair of the COVID-19 Task Force and vice president of campus services and institutional projects, and Dr. Ann Bracken, director of clinical medical services and assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics.
Before introducing our guests, I will start with a campus update. Summer term is in full swing with students engaging both remotely and in person. About one-quarter of all course sections are meeting in person or have some kind of formal on-campus component. This number is in stark contrast to just six months ago when fewer than 4% of sections had a formal on-campus component during winter term. In fact, this summer 60% of students enrolled are in at least one course with an on-campus component. But these numbers tell only part of the story. Although a quarter of our courses are meeting in person this summer, because all of the enrolled students are on campus, courses that include remote students must necessarily be taught online. Nonetheless, many faculty have created informal opportunities to connect with students in person where possible. In fact, at least 75% of all arts and sciences courses and a hundred percent of their courses provide some sort of in-person activity such as in-person office hours or discussion sections.
While we are pleased at this progress and the increased number of in-person interactions, we recognize that no one will be completely satisfied, myself included, until we were all back in the classroom or lab together. That continues to be our goal and our plan for the fall term. In the meantime, we’ll continue to seek out opportunities for in-person time together in the classroom and outside of it. With respect to COVID, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve had only one positive test in the past 40 days since June 8th of testing within our community. I’m even more pleased to report that as of this morning, 91% of Dartmouth students, faculty, and staff who are working in learning on campus have been fully vaccinated. These numbers are extremely welcome news after the challenges that our community has endured over the past year and put us in a great position as we head into the fall term. There are countless people who I can thank for making this possible, but I would like to take a moment to echo President Hanlon’s words in giving my sincere thanks to the COVID-19 Task Force.
The members of the task force have worked tirelessly over the past 16 months to ensure the health and safety of every member of the Dartmouth community. You have the gratitude of the entire campus. As we prepare for a full return to campus this fall, I remind you that all Dartmouth faculty, students, and staff must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 unless they have received a medical or religious exemption. Specifically, students must provide documentation showing that they are fully vaccinated or have been approved for exemption. The deadline to do so was three weeks ago, June 30th. Without this information on file, there will unfortunately be a hold on your enrollment for fall term. You will not be able to check-in for classes, you will not be allowed on campus, and you will not have access to campus housing. If you miss that deadline, it is still easy to submit your vaccination information. Simply photograph the front and back of your vaccination card or document and email the photos to medical.records@dartmouth.edu.
Students can also email that same address—medical.records@dartmouth.edu—with questions about vaccination or requests for medical or religious waivers. If you’ve been unable to obtain access to one of the approved vaccines, Dartmouth College Health Services can help you get vaccinated once you are here. Also, all faculty and staff accessing Dartmouth campuses and buildings are required to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 1. To accommodate the interval between two-dose vaccines and to allow 14 days for a vaccine to take effect, staff should begin the vaccination process this week. Free vaccinations are available from your primary health provider and at many pharmacies, including CVS right here in Hanover. Faculty and staff may submit a picture of the front and back of their completed vaccination card, along with a consent to share their data with Dartmouth by filling out an online form at dartgo.org/vax, or for those who do not have access to a computer or mobile device by making an appointment human resources by calling 603-646-3411.
Faculty and staff may also request medical or religious waivers through the office of institutional diversity and equity at dartgo.org/vaxexempt. As a reminder, individuals are considered fully vaccinated 14 days after their final dose in a COVID-19 vaccine series. Acceptable COVID-19 vaccines include those that have been fully approved or received emergency use authorization by the FDA, those that have received approval or emergency use listing through the WHO, and this is new, those that are undergoing assessment for emergency use listing through the WHO. The full list of emergency use approved vaccines can be viewed online by visiting a link, dartgo.org/who-vax, W-H-O-V-A-X. You can also find it and all of these other lengths by visiting the website, covid.dartmouth.edu, and clicking on vaccines and testing.
Now let’s look ahead to the fall, and what students can expect upon their return to campus. Those that are fully vaccinated and coming from within the U.S. will be required to take a PCR test within 48 hours of their arrival. Those students who are fully vaccinated and coming from outside the U.S. will also take a PCR test within 48 hours upon arrival, and then again on their fifth day, after returning to campus. Students who are not fully vaccinated by the date of their arrival will be required to take a PCR test and an antigen test on day zero and again on day five and must participate in a seven-day arrival process, which includes additional masking and social distancing. More details will be communicated to students in advance of their arrival date. We continue regular surveillance testing, and we’ll continue testing throughout the fall term. Students and employees who are fully vaccinated and must be tested every 30 days. Students and employees who are not fully vaccinated, including those who remain unvaccinated due to a medical or religious exemption are required to be tested twice weekly. This summer, COVID-19 testing is currently conducted at the Hopkins Center, Courtyard Cafe, Mondays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and the Williamson Translation Research Building at DHMC, Tuesdays, 7:30 to 3:00 p.m. Tests can be scheduled through the link on the screen or at the covid.dartmouth.edu website.
We plan to reopen Courtyard Cafe for dining in the fall, and when we’ll announce the fall term testing location and schedule later this summer. Now I want to address a topic that I’m sure is on many of your minds on-campus undergraduate housing. In a normal year, on-campus housing is guaranteed to first- and second-year undergraduate students with housing provided to third- and fourth-year students as available. This year, we have applied the same priorities. Fall term is oversubscribed every year and this year is no different. At the same time, we know that this year is different. Many of you have been away from campus far more than you would like and are eager to return, see friends, faculty, and resume the life and experience you have come to expect at Dartmouth.
We are eager to have you, but with a larger on-campus enrollment than in typical years, housing will be especially tight. As a result, Dartmouth has taken many steps to alleviate the situation and reduce the gap between the number of on-campus beds requested and the number available. At the end of spring term, we offered a $5,000 stipend to support students who were able to make alternate plans for the fall, and 122 students took up this offer, reducing the gap by 122 beds. This summer, we created additional beds by converting large doubles into triples, reducing the gap by another 55 beds, converting several common areas into bedrooms, reducing the gap by another 31 beds.
We are also reallocating an existing building to undergraduate housing, reducing the gap by another 26 beds. And cross-checking the list of students enrolled in off-campus programs to determine who no longer requires on-campus housing, reducing the gap by another 10 beds. These measures have thus far reduced the gap by 244 beds. As of this morning, we currently have 93 students on the waitlist. This size wait list is typical for midsummer, and we expect it will shrink further. As students find off-campus housing or make alternate plans for the fall term.
Nonetheless, we continue to seek every feasible solution. For example, we are extending deadlines for and expanding funding for leave term grants, fellowships, internships, and other Dartmouth-funded leave term opportunities. I guaranteed the directors of all such programs that I will provide additional funding where necessary to ensure that more students are granted leave term funding. So I encourage students who may be interested in a leaf term opportunity this fall to visit the undergraduate advising and research website for more information.
Looking ahead to fall of next year 2022, we’ll open a new graduate student housing complex with more than 500 beds, which will alleviate some of the housing pressure close to campus. And we are drawing up plans for another potential undergraduate housing facility to open in fall of 2023, two years from now. Now the rise of on-campus enrollment has also put stress on our classrooms this fall as has the ongoing renovation of Dartmouth Hall, which is not slated for completion until the next academic year.
We have taken a two-pronged approach to help address the classroom crunch. First, we are revising the class time schedule for the remainder of the academic year, fall, winter, and spring to add more class slots and schedule more classes outside of the common core into the early mornings and late afternoons. Second, we are reallocating 22 conference and meeting rooms as classrooms for the fall and outfitting them with the furniture and technology necessary to support Dartmouth courses. We’re grateful to the department’s centers and institutes for their flexibility as we allocate their spaces for classroom use.
In the winter, new classrooms come online as we open the new Center for Engineering and Computer Science and the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society. And with that, I turn to Justin and our first guest, Dr. Ann Bracken, director of clinical medical services and assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics. Welcome Justin, welcome Ann. It’s good to have you here.
I think I’ll start with a question for Ann, which may be on the minds of many of you. The Delta variant seems to be spreading quickly in parts of the U.S. and abroad. Are the current vaccines effective against the Delta variant?
Ann Bracken:
This is a really good question. And today the CDC announced that now 83% of the circulating virus in the U.S. is a Delta variant. And that jumped from just July 5. They were at 50%. Now we’re at 83%. So we know that the Delta variant is circulating across the country. We also know that there’s a disparity in vaccination rates across the country too, which puts people at risk. The Delta variant is highly transmissible so that the Wuhan virus, the R0 so how infectious it is was one person could give it to 2.5 people.
Then the Alpha variant was the British variant, the next one, one person could get that to four to five people. And now the Delta variant, they’re saying one person may get that to five to eight people. So it’s much more transmissible. And what we’re seeing in the U.S. is in states where there are lower vaccination rates, there’s more severe illness, hospitalizations, and now deaths too. So it’s a concerning variant.
There’s some good news about the vaccinations. It looks like Pfizer and Moderna and the J&J, AstraZeneca, they’re all effective against the illness, the Delta variant. It’s variable and the research shows like differences, but it does look like it’s effective. So being vaccinated can really protect people against the Delta variant. And you had mentioned that 91% of our population is vaccinated. Fantastic. And we have 50 students who have sought exemptions for medical or religious reasons, but primarily, most people are seeking to get vaccinated.
We even had one student who requested an exemption then changed their mind to get vaccinated. So we want to facilitate any students and staff and faculty who want to get vaccinated to do that. In fact, you know there’s a clinic right now in Alumni Hall where they’re vaccinating both students and staff and faculty. And you mentioned that it’s really easy to sign up for vaccines. You can go to our website, the College website, and you can go online, and you can pick a pharmacy. You just put in (the Zip Code) 03755, 25 pharmacies in a 25-mile radius, which is kind of amazing that there are that many pharmacies in this area, but so people can get the vaccine and they can choose vaccine too.
Kotz:
Oh, sorry. Go Ahead.
Justin Anderson:
Ann, you mentioned that the Delta variant that the current vaccines seem to do a good job of protecting us against the Delta variant. We know there will be more variants, or we certainly suspect there will be more variants. There could easily be a new variant for which the current vaccines are not nearly as effective. Is that right?
Bracken:
That’s definitely a possibility. I read in the New England Journal, there’s a Kappa variant. There’s not a lot of information about that variant, but I’m sure we will see more. We’ve had the original, then the Alpha, the Beta, the Gamma, the Delta. There will be more Greek letters I’m sure associated with these variants. And so far, the vaccines are working. There’s a lot of interest in whether we add boosters and what that would look like.
So currently the CDC is saying, there’s no booster indicated. And if you look at some of the research that’s emerging, it looks like people are protected by the current vaccines in the U.S. And in terms of reducing severe illness hospitalization and death. So those are our major outcomes that we want to avoid, but there is a lot of discussion that boosters are in our future. It’s just when will they be in our future and what will that look like? Will we combine different types of viruses? vaccines, like we have the mRNA vaccines, and then we have the adenoviral vector vaccine, which is the J&J and the AstraZeneca. And then there’s a lots of different vaccines that the WHO isn’t investigating that have different mechanisms so.
Kotz:
Traditionally, Dick’s House would offer flu vaccinations for example. Do you see that being part Dick’s House future will be offering boosters, COVID boosters?
Bracken:
Absolutely. We will offer COVID. So we’re negotiating with the state right now. We’re jumping through the bureaucratic hoops to we’re approved as a site to give COVID vaccine. And we’re just getting people trained up to do the things that we need to do to be in compliance. So we will give the vaccine at Dick’s House as soon as we’re able to. We’ll certainly vaccinate students. And in the interim, we’re already advising students about how to get vaccine those that are arriving over.
We’re having students arriving now and through the month of July, graduate students. So we’re supporting them to get vaccinated in the community. And then we will vaccinate people. And hopefully, we will have opportunities for employees to get vaccinated. Dick’s House takes care of the students, but I think the College has facilitated vaccination opportunities for staff and faculty. And I imagine that will happen in the future, but also it’s so easy to get vaccinated in the community right now too.
Kotz:
Yes, all right.
Anderson:
Dave, I’d like to ask you a question and this is a question that was submitted in advance of today’s taping by one of our viewers. The viewer asks, “Will increased transmission of the COVID 19 Delta variant affect Dartmouth policies in the fall?” And I assume that we could take out the Delta variant and replace whatever the next variant is going to be. But I guess the question is how or will these variants affect the policies that we have planned for the fall and our plans for the fall?
Kotz:
Yes. Well, we’re always monitoring the situation. I talked to people like Ann and to Lisa Adams and other members of the scientific community on campus to monitor the situation. And if it becomes clear that we need to, for example, resume some masking or social distancing, or make other adjustments to our policy, then we need to do that. At this point, I certainly hope we don’t need to. I don’t anticipate we’ll need to, but we will keep an eye on things and adjust if needed.
Anderson:
You know, Ann, Dave just mentioned masking and I know that in Los Angeles County, the county has mandated indoor masking for vaccinated people, which is not something that we’re currently doing. And in fact, it’s not even something that the CDC recommends. What do you make of that decision and how do you think about something like that as it relates to a measure that Dartmouth might contemplate taking in the future? Not saying that we would do that, but something, some sort of measures that we might have to take.
Bracken:
Yes, well, when we know that masking can really reduce risks, so it’s not surprising in LA that they have implemented that. I read in the Times that Las Vegas may follow suit. So I think some communities may ask people to mask indoors. The American Academy of Pediatrics came out yesterday recommending masking for school-aged children over the age of 2 to mask during school this fall term. So it’s different over the age of 2 to mask during school this fall term.
So it’s a variation from the CDC recommendation. I think we may see more recommendations to protect communities, to have people mask. We were chatting a little bit before we started about how, in the spring, our students masked here, and in the summer, we’ve had the liberty of taking off masks, which is so nice. So nice to see people’s smiles, their lower face, their teeth, but we also are noticing that students are getting sick. We’ve had a lot of students this term with the typical college viruses; mono, and then we’ve seen some strep. We don’t have a strep epidemic, which some people were concerned about, but we’re seeing regular college illnesses, which we typically see. Midterms on, students are working really hard, staying up late, having close contact with their friends. So I think we know that masks make a difference. We had one case of flu all last year, and we know nationally, the flu rates were really low. I think masking is clear, the evidence shows that it really reduces the risk of spreading upper respiratory illnesses.
So we’re hoping that students will also mask when they’re sick and to protect themselves, to protect the community and that it will maybe be more culturally the norm that people use their masks if they’re concerned. Then we were asking unvaccinated students to mask, and some students may have anxiety about getting sick too so they should feel free to mask. At the health service, we wear a mask all day. So that’s part of our culture. I think that there are lots of different ways, but I do think masking will be more in our future, yes.
Anderson:
We have time for just one more question and I’m going to put this to Ann, Dave, but please just jump in if you’d like to. This is another question from a viewer and it’s somewhat related to what you just said about students and anxiety. What will be done, what will Dartmouth do to support students who are nervous about a return to normal operations, especially in the context of rising cases nationally?
Bracken:
Well, there’s the opportunity to get tested. So currently the recommendations are unvaccinated students will be tested twice a week, and then vaccinated students will be ... and staff and faculty ... be tested every 30 days. We may end up increasing the testing cadence if we find that we’re having some breakthrough infections. We Want to support students’ mental health. It’s been a really, really rough year this year, and the College has increased the number of counselors by 50% this year, which is amazing.
So now there are 15 counselors and, actually, as you know, the College is going to partner with the JED Foundation to reduce suicide risk, and it’s going to be a four-year relationship. So as part of that initiative, they’re going to hire two more counselors that have expertise in suicide prevention and a wellness coordinator. We’ll be working with the undergraduate schools and the graduate schools to address, particularly, suicide prevention and mental health issues. We have the counselors. We also, in primary care, we love to take care of mental health issues so students can book online for visits related to anxiety and depression, insomnia. We’ll see them in person. We can see them multiple times. We can provide medications if needed. There’s the Student Wellness Center too that helps with doing wellness visits. So there’s a lot of opportunity to support students and we really hope that students will reach out and let us know if they need help.
Kotz:
That’s great, and I hope we can come back to that particular topic maybe in a future community conversation because it’s so important and there’s a lot more to talk about there. But thank you for coming today and I really appreciate it. Appreciate you and your whole team for helping keep the students and everyone safe and healthy this year.
Bracken:
My pleasure. Good luck, Dave.
Kotz:
Thanks.
Bracken:
Thank you for doing this job.
Kotz:
No problem. Now I’m pleased to welcome our second guest, Josh Keniston, co-chair of COVID-19 Task Force and the vice-president of campus services and institutional projects. Welcome, Josh.
Josh Keniston:
Good to be here in person.
Kotz:
Yes, I know this is awesome.
Keniston:
I’ve done a few of these, but this is the first time not on Zoom.
Kotz:
Very good. Yes, it’s nice to have you here. My first question is about the reopening of campus and campus facilities, in particular. I’ve noticed a lot more happening around campus already here in July, but I understand in August, we’ll be opening more services, more buildings. Can you tell us about that?
Keniston:
Yes, we’ve been gradually doing it over the summer. I think students that were on campus this term will have seen more academic buildings open. We worked with student assembly to open up classrooms with technology packages so if they had a remote class, they could go in there, and so that’s a progression that’s going to continue and really ramp up in August. So I think it’s not all going to happen on day one. There’s a lot of furniture that needs to be moved. We need people in the buildings that are ready to staff them and make sure they’re ready, but you’ll start to see the library, the gym, a lot of the spaces that people were used to accessing open up in a more typical way that you would expect for the campus.
Kotz:
Great. Yes. Awesome. I’m looking forward to it myself.
Anderson:
Dave, if I could jump in with another question that came in from a viewer, and this is something that your predecessor in this seat, Provost Joe Helble, had to respond to quite often, and this was about in-person learning during the summer. So this person writes, “Could you explain where you are with getting back to in-person learning for the summer students? Some faculty say they have struggled with the ability to find spaces. Others say they’re not allowed to hold in-person unless all students are on campus. So could you provide a little bit of clarity on that situation?”
Kotz:
Yes, thank you. As I mentioned in the introduction, about a quarter of the classes are being held in-person this summer, and some number, others, have in-person components, but when there are remote students, we can’t hold the class in-person because we have to provide an equitable experience for students who are unable or unwilling to come back to campus for the summer. That’s a transition, certainly. It’s a lot more in-person courses this summer than there have been in the past and, by fall, we plan to be fully in-person.
My understanding is that there are plentiful classrooms for faculty who are meeting students in person. The challenge sometimes has been for faculty who are willing to do hybrid teaching, so they have some in-person students and some remote students. There are very few classrooms that have the technology capability to enable a fully suitable classroom pedagogical experience for all students, and that may be where some of the faculty may be finding a shortage. But I think that’s a relatively small number is my understanding.
Anderson:
Josh, are you finding that, that, at least in the summer, that there is enough classroom space around campus for those who are interested in acquiring it?
Keniston:
Yes, as Dave said, I think for the summer we certainly have space. It’s about whether or not that space has the specific thing that the people need, and I think that’s one of the things that we’re paying close attention to as we look towards the fall and reopening. There’s a lot of requests for new things. There are some learnings that we have from the pandemic and people are wanting to do things slightly differently, whether it’s in the classroom or staff that are holding hybrid meetings, and I think there’s going to be a transition period in there. It’s not something we can do overnight, in part, because everyone around the world is trying to do this and so we’re actually seeing some real supply chain issues in terms of getting some of that technology. So we know we need some more of it and we’ve identified some high priority areas. Dave talked about some of the classrooms that we’re equipping for the fall, so we’re really focused there, but I think we’re going to continue over the fall to be able to expand what we have available.
Anderson:
So as Dave noted in his campus update, there is still a waitlist for fall term housing. We know that many students and families are anxious about whether or not they’re going to be able to find housing in the fall. So I wonder, Josh if you could just go into what you and the team at Residential Life has done to try to provide the supply to meet the demand.
Keniston:
Yes, we’ve been turning over every stone trying to find more beds and we’ve been successful in a few areas. Dave talked about we’ve been able to shift some of our housing stock and make some more beds available. In part, we changed how we were looking at our quarantine isolation space that we know we need a little bit of in the fall because of what Ann was talking about with the Delta variant. We actually were able to find some hotel spaces that could serve that purpose, which allowed us to open up another building on campus, so that was a really good step forward. Looking for doubles that could be triples, and lounges, and so we’re going to continue to look at our spaces and see if there are more that we can get there, but I think we’ve gone pretty deep already. So there’s not a ton more on that front.
I’ve been getting a lot of emails about all the different ways we can do this. Can we go to the hotels? Can we get modular housing? And the answer is we’d love to, and in a different scenario, maybe we could have. And we’ve explored all of those and all the different permutations of it. I think the challenge is we’re not the only ones coming back from COVID with some unexpected ramifications. On the hotel front, there’s huge demand for hotels in the area. And we have fewer already than some of our peers that are in more urban areas to tap into. And so as we reached out to the hotels, they were saying, “I’m already booked for every single weekend for the fall. And I can’t kick out my guest just for your students.”
Kotz:
Yes. This is high season for tourists in New England.
Keniston:
It’s leaf-peeping season. Everyone wants to be here. They couldn’t come last year. And so they want to be here. We’re also hearing from some of the hotels that the labor market to find staffing, there are some hotels that are purposefully not filling rooms because they don’t have the labor to clean the rooms, to provide the services. So looked at hotels. We looked at hotels that are offline. Could we get them online in time? And again, we look at the labor market and they’re just, it isn’t there to get construction crews in there in time for the fall.
And the same is true on the modular housing piece. It’s the getting the actual modular units on campus is the easy part. It’s then connecting them. It’s servicing them, making sure that they’re habitable. And with supply chain challenges and the process to actually make them connected to sewer and water, they’re all just things we couldn’t get done for fall. I wish I had different news on that front, but that is where we are with those.
Kotz:
What do things look like beyond the fall into the winter and spring and then next year? I mentioned in my introduction sort of tantalizing hints about opportunities for fall ’22 and ’23.
Keniston:
I think we’re going to be in a better position next year, next fall. As you referenced, we have a new grad housing project with over 500 beds that’s going to come on at the end of next summer. Those are beds that, even though they’re geared towards graduate students, I think is going to help across the board. That will relieve pressure in other areas of the market. And that’s a facility that has a shuttle that’s going to run to campus. So it’s going to make it more accessible to folks that maybe don’t have cars. So that’s huge. And we’re really excited. We’re working with a third party to help move that along quickly. And the schedule is looking really good so far. So that’s going to be really good news. I think winter and spring, we’re taking it term by term. I suspect that we’re going to find that those are probably a little bit more challenging, similar to fall. But we’re trying to look ahead and use the time that we have to plan for that.
Anderson:
Josh, I have a question for you about the wait list that Dave referred to during his introduction. Dave mentioned that there are still 93 students who are on the wait list for the fall. So, understanding all of the challenges that you have just mentioned, what are you doing now, moving forward, to try to get that number down to as close to zero as possible?
Keniston:
We’re not stopping. We’re continuing to look at, are there other facilities that we can tap into? These are things that don’t happen overnight. And so I think we’re not going to stop on any of our efforts until it’s start of fall. But I have to say we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. And so I think we want to be clear that we can’t guarantee anything at this point for the wait list. Although, as I think you’ve heard others say, these are numbers that we’ve seen in past times. And so it is within a normal range.
And then as you know, we’re working with partners across campus to find students other opportunities. Dave mentioned some of the extension of application periods for other opportunities. So it’s really a collaborative effort trying to look at this from all angles. Looking at, are there a couple more beds we can squeak out in any of our dorms? Are there other opportunities available for students? So we’re by no means done and kind of put this to bed. It just we really have run through the list at this point. And there’s, I think at this point, we’re largely looking at students making individual decisions and deciding to be elsewhere to get the wait list down.
Anderson:
Well, we have time for one more question. Dave, unless you want to ask it, I will ask the last question.
Kotz:
- Go ahead.
Anderson:
I think everyone wants to know, Josh, what are you doing with all your free time now that the task force has disbanded?
Keniston:
(Laughs) well, didn’t you hear Dave say we have new resident’s hall plans coming? That all falls into my area. So the housing piece is the new thing keeping me awake at night.
Anderson:
But a little bit more seriously, it is possible that the task force could get back together should it be required. One thing that we’ve learned during the pandemic is that it doesn’t move in a linear way. And just because there’s no task force now doesn’t mean that we might not need to be knocking on your door again.
Keniston:
I know. But I think we’ve talked about the task force disbanding at the end of this month. And there are a lot of pieces, I think, fewer meetings for all of us. There’s a lot that’s going to kind of shift with that. But there are mechanisms in terms of groups of people that pulled together to communicate, and the way we share information, the way we analyze things that those aren’t going to disappear. And so I think we’re going to keep some of those elements alive so that if we do need to reactivate it, we can do it quickly.
Kotz:
I think if nothing else, we want to keep our eye on the situation. So continuing testing, continuing monitoring the national and global picture and continuing communication so that if we need to, we can make decisions about possible changes. Great. Well, thank you again, Josh, for all your work on the task force and for all your hard work in turning over those rocks and looking for beds. I appreciate it. And look forward to continuing to work with you. So thank you.
Keniston:
My pleasure.
Kotz:
Thanks Justin.
Anderson:
Thank you, Dave. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Josh.
Kotz:
Well, Josh and Ann, thank you both so much for joining us today. And many thanks to the extended Dartmouth community who tuned in to be with us today. As you recall, Provost Helble referred to this summer as a time of transition. As we head into more certain times, we plan to hold Community Conversations once a month rather than biweekly, at least until the beginning of fall term. I look forward to speaking with you all again during the next Community Conversations on Aug. 18th. Thank you.
