Since sending students home in March, Miami University has been planning ways to safely bring students back to campus in the age of COVID-19. But with more than 1,300 cumulative cases a month into the semester, members of the Miami community have raised questions about the university’s response to the pandemic.
With Miami’s positive case rate on the decline, Provost Jason Osborne said it is “unlikely” that the campus will completely vacate again like it did in March.
The whole family packed into the room, piling duffle bags and boxes onto the bed and the floor. Clanking noises from one particular bag, full of Kylie’s coffee mugs, echoed around the quiet hallway.
Zoom, the video-conferencing application that Miami uses for online learning, was down and undergoing maintenance for nearly four hours on Aug. 24. This Zoom blackout slammed the brakes on schools across the country and introduced students and instructors alike to a new kind of virtual snow day.
Miami University’s Associated Student Government (ASG) held elections for the position of secretary of academic affairs – the last executive cabinet position that remained unfilled – and for two members of its steering committee at its meeting on Sept. 15.
With President Greg Crawford’s announcement that Miami University would proceed with its phased-in return to campus, members of the class of 2024 had mixed feelings about starting their college experience.
Miami University will continue to offer most first-year transition and engagement events online through the fall semester. With in-person classes set to begin Sept. 21, the university will enforce social distancing guidelines and other COVID-19 regulations. To that end, campus events designed to integrate first-years into the Miami community will be held virtually.
Like most buildings on campus, MacMillan Hall, home to International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS), has seen little to no student traffic for the past few months since Miami University transitioned to remote learning — and it may stay that way throughout the semester.
Miami University will return to in-person classes as planned on Sept. 21, wrote President Greg Crawford in a university-wide email, with residence hall move-in beginning next week.
Students who were accepted into Miami University’s Scholar Leader Community are being forced to withdraw their acceptance unless they commit to living in the program’s designated dorms come September, according to the director of the Harry T. Wilks Center for Leadership and Service, Eric Buller, and several students involved in the program.
As a result of Miami University’s late July announcement that the first five weeks of instruction would be online, many students — mostly sophomores — chose to be released from their housing and meal contracts and find housing off-campus.
Geography and Western Program professor Dr. Hays Cummins had been a stable presence in the department of geography since 1988, but due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, Cummins decided to retire.
But delays in the United States Postal Service (USPS)— especially as they relate to the upcoming presidential election — are only worsening students’ anxiety about what the future holds.
Geno Svec, executive director of campus services and chief hospitality officer, wrote in an email to The Miami Student that the university made the decision to eliminate the sharing of items like bills and coins that are easily spread and difficult to clean.
OPD Lieutenant Lara Fening said the department hasn’t issued any gathering ban citations in an effort to let community members become informed of the new regulations before penalizing them. Fening also said that issuing citations is at the officers’ discretion.
As on-campus students begin planning to return to campus in September, questions about what residence life will actually look like in the age of COVID-19 are arising.
With the return of upperclassmen students to Oxford in mid-August and first- and second-year students coming to campus in September, Miami University facilities are implementing extra safety precautions to protect the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is how the pandemic is impacting Miami’s campus hotspots:
Miami University President Greg Crawford announced that 10 students and two employees have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the school year. In an email sent to the Miami community on Friday, Aug. 21, Crawford wrote that the positive tests occurred on Miami’s Oxford campus.
Miami University representatives Jayne Brownell and Kimberly Moore spoke to City Council members about the university’s plan for the fall semester during council’s Aug. 18 meeting.
As Miami University students begin their fall semester remotely, with many in off-campus housing, Oxford City Council voted to ban gatherings of more than 10 people at its Aug. 18 meeting. The emergency ordinance will be enforced until Gov. Mike DeWine declares the end of Ohio’s state of emergency.