On Thursday, Aug. 20, North Carolina State University (NC State) sent out an email to students informing them that all undergraduate courses will transition to remote learning as of Monday, Aug. 24. While graduate courses and clinical education can continue to meet in person, NC State cited large parties and several COVID-19 clusters as the reason they are moving undergraduate courses online. However, unlike UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State will not be requiring students to leave on-campus housing. If students do choose to move out, NC State’s email states that they will be able to leave with no penalty and will be reimbursed “the prorated amount for housing and dining based on the number of days [they] lived on campus.”
The majority of NC State’s COVID-19 clusters can be traced back to off-campus apartments and Greek Village houses. At one cluster location, a party was held in early August; therefore, the virus had the opportunity to spread to many people, some of whom may not have shown symptoms. NC State’s COVID-19 tracking page lists 442 currently quarantined cases. According to a tweet from The Technician, NC State’s student-run newspaper, that number may have grown to 500 students currently in isolation, the vast majority of whom are quarantined off campus.
With Meredith being right down the road from NC State, this decision may be of significant interest to many Meredith students. While it’s hard to say how much Meredith’s policies in the upcoming months will reflect that of larger universities like NC State, historically Meredith has been known to enact policies that are in line with many of the larger neighboring universities. Students will no doubt be keeping an eye on their emails to see whether guidance from Meredith arrives in the coming days or weeks.
By Olivia Slack, Co-Editor in Chief