As the University of Oregon holds fast in its plans to reopen in the fall, the question of student housing becomes more and more pressing. Despite the danger the coronavirus poses, UO plans to require first-year students to live in the dorms as usual, with some increased precautions. UO will also allow Greek life to operate their official houses under guidelines laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but allowing students to live in group housing at all is problematic.
Requiring students to live in the dorms, even with the added precautions, puts the entire school year at risk – even for non-first-year students. At other schools around the country, reopening has gone predictably poorly for first-year students. At Penn State University, classes hadn’t even started, but students were partying and breaking social distancing rules. It is ignorant to think UO students would behave differently. UO is not only risking the health of their students by requiring first-year students to live in the dorms, but it is also risking all the money and time it has invested to make the school pandemic-ready. Once there is an outbreak on campus ─ and there will be ─ it is more than likely that the school shuts down, and all the work will have been in vain.
The precautions the school is taking for on-campus housing are not thorough enough. Students are required to test negative before moving into the dorms and there will be no triple rooms. This means that there will still be doubles though, and the overall community nature of dorms is likely to lead to more socialization. UO’s student housing page even touts the social benefits of living in the dorms: “Living on campus for at least your first year is a significant advantage that contributes to your success at the University of Oregon. You will be part of a community and make connections to other students, faculty, and staff.” Limiting the number of students in each dorm is a good idea, but the problem that can’t be solved is the physical size of the dorms. Rooms and hallways in every dorm are too small for social distancing. A simple walk to the bathroom from your room could lead to an entire floor being infected. An outbreak of the coronavirus in the dorms seems inevitable, and pretending it isn’t will cost lives, money and time.
While UO has direct control over what happens in the dorms, they have almost no control over behavior in Greek life housing.
Greek life housing, in this context, refers to the lettered, official houses of sororities and fraternities, not their live-outs. It is well within UO’s power to shut down these official houses, and in the face of the pandemic it is the administration’s responsibility to do so. The school is implementing a number of precautions in these houses, but they do not go far enough and are not enforceable. Most of the houses will have a reduced number of students, all of whom will live in their own, separate rooms. Students will also be required to wear masks, even while inside, but these limitations will not make enough of a difference.
As a school that operates on the quarter system, UO has the privilege of watching other schools grapple with a hybrid learning model and reopening in general. UO should take note of the failures and successes of other schools instead of neglecting them. The University of Washington is the perfect example of what can happen when Greek life goes unchecked, and Penn State shows what can happen in on-campus housing. UO should not require first-year students to live in the dorms this fall, and it should not allow official Greek life housing to operate. If it does, countless students will get sick, countless classes will be ruined and an insurmountable amount of money will be lost.
