EDUCATION
College is open, but
life is shut down
The Typically busTling main campus of
Pennsylvania State University is quieter than nor-
mal. Many students are tuning in to classes online
from their dorm rooms. A town ban on gatherings
of more than 10 people limits social life off cam-
pus. Mask requirements make recognizing faces
and making friends more challenging.
“I can tell that the university is trying their
best to give returning and new students the full
experience that Penn State has the potential to
bring,” says Sophia Melocchi, 20, a junior. “It’s just
not the same.”
Across the country, colleges have taken a range
of approaches to the fall semester. A Chronicle of
Higher Education tracker of nearly 3,000 colleges
found that of those with firm plans, 19% are open-
ing primarily in person; 27% are primarily online;
and 16% are, like Penn State, a mix.
But all are facing a semester unlike any other.
Schools that brought students back to campus
quickly have run into problems controlling their
behavior. Some have criticized universities for
shifting blame for coronavirus outbreaks onto the
returning students. Penn State recently suspended
a fraternity that threw a party with about 70 peo-
ple, and it reprimanded other students for gath-
ering, without masks and close together, in large
crowds outside a residence hall. “I ask students
flouting the university’s health and safety expecta-
tions a simple question: Do you want to be the per-
son responsible for sending everyone home?” Penn
State president Eric Barron said in a statement.
As of Sept. 4, more than 200 students at Penn
State’s University Park campus had tested positive
for COVID-19 since Aug. 21, and Barron said that
trend could force a shift to fully online classes.
That’s already happened at other colleges. Sev-
eral clusters of corona virus cases in dorms at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led the
school to cancel in-person classes and move to a
fully remote model on Aug. 19, a week after classes
began. At the University of Alabama’s Tuscaloosa
campus, more than 1,800 students have tested
positive for COVID-19 since returning to school.
The 40,000 undergraduates at Penn State’s Uni-
versity Park campus are hoping their institution
does better. “I originally thought that we would be
sent home or moved completely online within the
first two weeks of school, but we’ll see how it goes,
because it seems like the school has it under con-
trol,” says CJ Scoffone, 20, a junior. “I hope it gets
better and goes back to normal.” —KaTie Reilly,
with reporting by paul moaKley/new yoRK
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