SPRINGFIELD/CHICOPEE – Several colleges in the area successfully completed their fall semesters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it was not uncommon for cases to arise on campus, most colleges were able to isolate, contact trace and allow their students to stay in residence halls until Thanksgiving break. With winter break now ending, many are wondering how local colleges will handle their spring semester in the midst of rising COVID-19 cases and new variants making their way to the United States.

Elms College, Western New England University (WNEU), American International College (AIC) and Springfield College will all allow students to return to their residence halls for spring. According to AIC’s Vice President of Student Affairs Matthew Scott, students were able to return to campus on Jan. 18.

“We were planning on coming back a little earlier than that, but the Governor actually required that schools wait until the 18th at the earliest to bring students back,” said Scott.

AIC ended their fall semester with about 575 students living in the residence halls, compared to their normal 700 to 750 students. This semester there will be about 550 students living in dorms compared to the usual 650 to 750. Scott said that even before COVID-19, the fall semester usually had more students living in dorms compared to spring.

Springfield College is choosing to bring their students back in two stages. Sixty percent of students returned to dorms the weekend of Jan. 22 and 40 percent will return the weekend of Feb. 5. Both AIC and Springfield College students living in dorms will have roommates, as they don’t have enough rooms to house every student individually. However, Scott said that AIC is keeping groups of similar students, such as freshman or athletes on the same sports team, together in dorms and suites to try to minimize spread.

Elms College is one college that is able to open their residence halls with single-room assignments to help minimize the spread of COVID-19 through an overpopulated dorm situation.  

According to an Elms College press release, “Residence halls will be open with single-room assignments and students will receive designated days in January to return to, or move into, their on-campus rooms.”

Many colleges in the area will continue their course structures similarly to fall. A majority of classes will be conducted virtually, though there will be some in-person options for Health Science students and those who need to complete practicals or labs.

Testing is a primary focus for colleges that will allow students back on campus. Both AIC and Springfield College will be stepping up their testing from fall semester. In the fall, AIC was only offering COVID-19 tests to symptomatic people and any of their close contacts. This semester, they will be requiring students living on campus to be tested once a week.

Springfield College required testing every other week in the fall and set up a contact tracing unit. They will now be increasing testing to once a week. They have also increased their number of isolation and quarantine spaces and every student who comes back to campus from Winter break needs to produce a negative COVID-19 test before they move in.

“We feel pretty good about what we were able to do considering the challenges in front of us,” said Patrick Love, vice president of student affairs for Springfield College.

Colleges are also trying to minimize opportunities for students to leave campus. One way of doing this is by eliminating Spring Break. Elms College, WNEU, AIC and Springfield College will all be forgoing a Spring Break this year, meaning that students will have to push through about 15 consecutive weeks of classes.

According to WNEU’s website, the purpose of eliminating Spring Break this year is “with the desire and intention of keeping the vast majority of students on or close to campus for the duration of the semester.”

Love recognized that this will be a hard semester for many students, but is hopeful that Springfield College’s support and activities can help them get through it.

"That’s a long haul for students. We’re hoping that we’re going to provide enough support, enough service and activities to keep them on campus, to keep them away from bars and off-campus houses and going to other institutions to parties, so that we keep the virus off campus if at all possible,” he said.

The theme for the first six weeks of spring semester at Springfield College is “Embrace the moment.” According to Love, the college has built an ice rink in the middle of their quad to get students out of residence halls and prevent them from hunkering down. The college has also added yellow Christmas lighting to each of their light poles on campus. Love said this has significantly brightened up the campus.

Springfield College will also be hosting outdoor sports tournaments such as ultimate frisbee and softball, all with the intentions of keeping their dorms as de-densified as possible.

AIC is also trying to keep students’ spirits up. Students can use the fitness center, intramural sports are still occurring, fitness classes are still going on and clubs and organizations are still able to meet, though they are all running differently than normal due to COVID-19. According to Scott, AIC is also planning as many safe extracurricular activities as they can.

“We’ve heard from the students that they are a little Zoomed out. They really want us, even if it’s just small events in large spaces, to have as many in-person events as we can safely have. So that’s what we plan on doing,” he said.

Local colleges have also had to rethink graduation for the second year in a row. Last year, many colleges across the country chose to host virtual graduations, including AIC.

“It was something that we just produced, it wasn’t a live event necessarily where people were turned into it. It was just something put together for the students,” said Scott.

Last year, Springfield College wasn’t able to do much for their graduation. According to Love, the college postponed graduation once to October in the hopes of doing it during their Homecoming instead. They are now uncertain about what will happen this May.

“It doesn’t look like now, again, we’ll be able to have any large group gathering in May and so we’re looking at alternatives,” he said.  

Springfield College plans to host senior week activities for students, with some taking place virtually and some in-person.

“We recognize that a May gathering won’t work, but we also don’t want to do what we did last year which was just hope for the best and postpone it. We’re going to do something while looking for other alternatives out into the future where we might be able to have students and their families come and gather and really celebrate and appreciate not only the fact that they’ve graduated, but that they’ve graduated in one of the most challenging time periods in the last century,” said Love.

According to WNEU’s website, “Commencement weekend will be advanced by one week, with ceremonies for undergraduate students on May 15 and for graduate students on May 16,” though it is uncertain whether the activities will be virtual or in-person.

For now, colleges are hoping to complete the spring semester with as few bumps in the road as possible. AIC is using what they learned from the fall to continue on a path to success.

“Our students, when you treat them like adults they act like adults. The more that we educated them and they understood the risks that they were taking, I mean, all things considered, we had a great fall semester. Our students were very responsible. Occasionally you would have to remind somebody to pull their mask over their nose, but they’re wearing their mask so that’s the important thing. You didn’t see our students arguing with people or going into the dining commons and refusing to wear their masks,” said Scott.

Keeping students mental and psychological health up during such an uncertain time is key to many of the colleges this semester. Increasing testing, providing safe activities and outdoor socialization, offering healthy options in the dining halls and giving students snow days off to recover are just a few ways some colleges plan to do this.

Though the spring semester won’t be without hardship, Western Massachusetts universities are striving for success in as many ways as they can.

“It is truly going to take a village to get through the spring semester,” said Love.