SSU’s fall term to include online classes, limited student housing

Life at Sonoma State University this fall will be unlike anything parents — or even returning students — could have envisioned a year ago.

Students will be required to screen themselves for COVID-19 symptoms and complete a wellness survey before checking into classes.

More than 95% of instruction time will be spent online. Only 55 designated courses, labs and field studies deemed impossible to re-create virtually and critical to upper-division students, will meet in person.

Campus gatherings will be verboten. Instead, students will hang out online — playing games, attending club meetings, working out and meeting friends through organized events on the internet.

Where about a third of the university’s nearly 9,000 students typically occupy on-campus housing each year, requirements for private bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as other physical separation efforts means there will be space for fewer than half that number this year. And still, 100 rooms will be set aside in case they’re needed to quarantine infected students or those awaiting coronavirus test results at some point.

It will be anything but a typical college experience.

But with fall semester less than a month away, SSU administrators and staff have planned everything down to the grab-and-go dining hall fare, Clorox fogging machines, one-way hallways and staggered class schedules to try to make school as safe and yet somehow as normal as possible given the nation’s raging pandemic.

Furniture will be moved to prevent people from sitting close together; restrooms and elevators marked and taped to ensure limited maximum occupancy; buildings closed and secured because so few people will be on campus.

The school has developed a detailed plan, approved recently by California State University Chancellor Timothy White, for moving forward in this unprecedented time with mostly remote instruction and campus operations that still allow for some critical in-person educational experiences for about 700 students, as well as on-campus housing for a limited number of students, about 1,325.

There will be no spectator sports, no open rec center, no traditional Big Nite on opening day. The combination carnival and introduction to campus clubs and organizations serves each year as “that big welcome to the college experience at the beginning of the school year,” said Ryan Jasen Henne, dean of students at SSU.

“But we will find ways to connect students with their peers. We will find ways to connect with students and inspire students. We will make sure students get to know their neighbors,” he said.

After reviewing the final operating plan for the fall semester, Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said she still has unanswered questions, however. She is awaiting responses from the university.

“I think given our (infection) numbers and the fact that we’re going to distance learning in our K-through-12 students, that it does bear some thought on whether we should have in-person instruction,” Mase said during one of her regular press briefings this week.

“…I definitely have some concerns about having lots of people of college age together in dorm buildings, on campus and in classrooms.”

Classes kick off Aug. 18, and there’s little expectation the recent surge in coronavirus transmission will be substantially tamed by then.

Despite all the precautions, many students will participate only in distance learning and may not set foot on campus.

Rachel Spektor, 22, who is about to begin her junior year studying kinesiology, plans to spend the semester learning from her parents’ home in the South Bay.

Though she’s lived on campus for the past two years, Spektor felt distance learning was a safer and more cost-effective option considering the pandemic. But learning online will come with its own challenges, among them re-creating the structured learning environment she got from attending classes or studying in the school’s library, Spektor said.

She anticipates her ability to grasp certain concepts will also be more challenging, especially given the nature of her studies.

“My major is incredibly hands-on because we’re dealing with a lot of the human body,” Spektor said. “It’s going to make it a whole lot harder to learn properly.”

The campus plan touts guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as other health agencies that helped used to develop a range of protocols. The safety measures limit access to campus and minimize the number of people in any given space at the same time, ensure timely cleaning and sanitization of common-touch surfaces such as door knobs and railings, and allow for a quick transition to full remote instruction, if needed.

But administrators stand by the need to allow a limited number of students to live on campus — about 1,325, compared to something closer to 3,000 in most years.

SSU President Judy Sakaki, who did not comment for this article beyond a few brief text messages, said for some, “living on campus provides students with stable internet and an environment conducive to study.”

Economics Professor Robert Eyler, interim campus spokesman, elaborated.

“Our two ‘North Stars’ are the primary mission of educating students and also (equally) the health and safety of our students while educated,” Eyler wrote in an email. “For many students, especially those that are housing vulnerable, and perhaps food and healthcare and broadband vulnerable also, being at Sonoma State may be a better situation than at home while pursuing their education. Our providing housing for students, done under the CDC guidelines for higher education as we have planned to do, likely helps students.”

Administrators and staff say SSU’s new policies and precaution track what’s being done across the 23-campus California State University system.

They and others also said 26 courses essential to degree completion and not replicable in a remote format, as well as an additional 29 clinical courses, short-term residencies, field trips and other mostly off-campus experiences have been singled out to be taught in-person, though with social distancing, facial coverings, and other health and safety protocols.

“As you know, the situation with COVID is very fluid,” Sakaki said via text message. “We modify our plans on campus and in our CSU system with the health and safety of students, staff, faculty and community members in mind.”

It will be a smaller student body that makes up this year’s pack of Seawolves, however, with about 12% fewer full-time-equivalent students than were enrolled for fall semester last year.

More than half that difference is in the size of the freshman class.

A year ago, 1,516 brand new college students signed up to attend the Rohnert Park school. This year, 969 freshmen will be enrolled at SSU.

Administrators say multiple reasons account for declining enrollment at SSU, as well as the rest of the state and the country, given fear, uncertainty and vast economic disruption caused by the pandemic.

“It could be that there are students that need to work for their families, or they’re delaying a year because they have to work,” Eyler said. “It could be that they have fears of what it’s going to be like. It could be that they can’t afford it because of the economic uncertainty.

“It’s a host of factors,” he said. “It’s not one thing, for sure.”

But ultimately, the entire campus community and economy is affected, both through reduced tuition and fees, as well as the food, beverage and supplies that are normally sold on campus to students and staff, as well as members of surrounding neighborhoods.

“One of the things that’s tough is that the campus has really become a community place, so that we have people who come to campus just for the restaurants on campus,” Eyler said. “It’s not just the students that are missing from campus. It’s the ability of the community to come to our library, events on campus, the Green Music Center. Sonoma State had been ascending in terms of its community involvement.”

Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.