By Skyler Spinelli
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Warren Kelley, senior associate vice president for Student Affairs at the University of Maryland College Park, recalls imminent fears surrounding the return to campus this fall.
“I think it went from no concern of shutting down again to a real concern of shutting down again,” he said.
With the emergence of the delta variant, such concerns were very common among students and faculty within the University System of Maryland. The vaccine mandate and precautionary measures to get students back into laboratories, however, have alleviated many of these fears.
It “changed the game a bit,” Kelley said of the system-wide vaccine mandate, which students have been predominantly in favor of. “If we can comply with COVID regulations, then we can ensure we stay on campus.”
Due to a limited supply of vaccines across the state and limitations on who was eligible to receive it, students at the University of Maryland School of Medicine initially had a hard time finding available doses.
There was a “big scramble for getting the vaccines,” said Terry Rogers, associate dean for research development & administration at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
These medical students were eventually able to be vaccinated in part with the Veterans Affairs hospital, a plan that the governor’s office was on board with.
Pharmacy students at the University of Maryland Baltimore, where the majority of students are enrolled in graduate programs, were directly involved in the vaccine rollout.
Joann Boughman, senior vice chancellor for academic and atudent affairs at USM, said these students had the opportunity of drawing vaccines into syringes while completing one of their clinical rotations.
As more vaccines became available, the University System of Maryland made the decision in April 2021 to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for all students, faculty and staff. There is 95% compliance and there has been very compelling data that this has directly led to the successful return to campus.
While the vaccine mandate was a huge stepping stone to getting students back in the classroom, other precautionary measures played a role as well. This was especially true regarding student research experiences.
Some of the 500 to 600 Ph.D. students at University of Maryland Baltimore watched their labs shut down, giving them no choice but to conduct data analysis at home.
These students were unable to begin new enterprises and could only continue their work if in the middle of a project.
“That was my emphasis for example, to allow students back into the labs,” Rogers said, noting the push to get Ph.D. working on public health projects during Summer 2020, a time when it was needed most.
Rogers was involved with a task force implemented by the USM chancellor, a group that looked at opportunities for research and development across all University System of Maryland institutions.
He said that the plan was to grant waivers to students pursuing research centered around COVID-19 so that they could return to their labs.
Being that student safety was the most important factor, these waivers were designed to be granted only if a student was unable to complete their work from home.
University of Maryland Baltimore began to approve small groups of students for these waivers and individuals who qualified had to complete daily symptom checks on Research Electronic Data Capture, or REDCap, a digital monitoring service. Prior to beginning the process to obtain a waiver, eligible students had to complete certain testing requirements.
Rogers said this process was predominantly successful and that University of Maryland Baltimore was very involved in contact tracing and testing to monitor any outbreaks. With the campus shutdown from March through July of 2020, very few waivers were offered initially, but this quickly shifted to 50 to 75% of students returning to their research. By Fall 2020, University of Maryland Baltimore was seeing a 100% return.
University of Maryland School of Medicine had similar protocols in order to prevent mass outbreaks, such as continuous contacting tracing. Such measures allowed medical students to return to the classroom or clinical setting while remaining socially distanced.
“Everybody was on campus but being very vigilant,” Rogers said of the return to campus in Spring 2021. All members of the campus community were required to wear face coverings and student groups were not allowed to hold meetings.
University System of Maryland institutions have also been monitoring students who may be immunocompromised or not vaccinated due to a qualifying exemption. For these students, additional testing services are provided.
“This fall we’ve been able to bring everybody on each of the campuses fully back” and “keep everyone as safe as we can possibly do,” said Kate Tracy, who serves as a special advisor to Boughman. Tracy works at both University of Maryland Baltimore County and University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she teaches epidemiology and public health.
Halfway into the semester and the University System of Maryland has not experienced that immense rise in positive cases that many feared.
“Across 12 campuses,” Tracy said, “We’ve had fewer than 1,000 cases.”