After 700 Students Test Positive, a College President Resigns
[The New York Times]
Amanda Rosa
,The New York Times•October 16, 2020
https://news.yahoo.com/700-students-tes ... 29064.htmlThe State University of New York at Oneonta on Thursday announced the abrupt resignation of its president only weeks after it experienced the most severe coronavirus outbreak of any public university in the state.
The departure of the president, Barbara Jean Morris, is one of the most high-profile over the coronavirus crisis, which has thrown many colleges and universities across the country into turmoil as they try to maintain some semblance of campus life during the outbreak.
Last month, more than 700 students at Oneonta tested positive for the virus, causing the shutdown of in-person classes. The outbreak forced state officials to send a virus control crew to the university to keep the spread from reaching the rest of the city, which is in upstate New York.
The outbreak at Oneonta began modestly with only two cases on Aug. 25, but then spread quickly.
Initially, the university tied the cases to a series of parties near campus, which led to five suspensions. But group gatherings off campus were common, students said.
Within days, 29 more positive cases were found. By Aug. 30, the university announced that 105 students — or about 3% of the people who were on campus or using campus facilities by then — had tested positive.
By now, more than 700 students had tested positive.
Oneonta, a school of about 6,000 students, has had almost more than double the number of virus cases that any other school in the SUNY system had.