Quarantine Lifted for Marian and Champagnat Halls

Champagnat Hall residents were finally able to leave the building again after a week in quarantine. Source: Greta Stuckey ‘23

Tuesday, March 23, was the first day in almost a week that resident students living in the freshman dorms of Marian and Champagnat Halls were able to get fresh air. Students were alerted on the previous Wednesday that their dormitories would be going into a precautionary quarantine due to the uptick in positive COVID-19 cases found in the living areas. Six days later, students were notified that the precautionary quarantine was lifted, and they were permitted to freely leave the building again. 

“With the warm weather, I was kind of jealous of everyone that was outside,” Marian Resident Assistant Daijia Canton ‘23 said. The week-long precautionary quarantine meant that students had to stay in their rooms at all times and were only permitted to leave to use the bathroom, report for COVID-19 testing or pick up food. 

“It was scary to see the residents start getting pulled out of the building after they were testing positive for COVID-19 because I had interactions with many of them,” Canton said. “All of the cases made me paranoid to go outside when the pause got lifted on Wednesday, and it’s odd to see people still not being cautious.” 

The building residents also had to be available for the next 48 hours after the precautionary quarantine was declared so that they could report to mandatory COVID-19 testing. The college created a special testing site for these residents in the Cabaret on campus in order to find any other positive COVID-19 cases within the building. 

“We are reaching out to inform you that the College has identified positive COVID-19 test results from residents of Marian and Champagnat Halls,” the Director of Housing and Residential Life Sarah English said in an email to students. “Our contact tracing team has identified close contacts of these individuals for testing and quarantine. Out of an abundance of caution, we will be instituting a precautionary and temporary quarantine for Marian Hall and Champagnat Hall, effective immediately.”

It was unclear to students how many people in their residence halls had already tested positive for COVID-19 or were taken into quarantine as a close contact. Some students that were still in the dormitories made the decision to go home because they felt their physical and mental well-being would be better off-campus. 

Only a few days after going into a precautionary quarantine, the Marist COVID-19 dashboard soon turned to an orange alert level. The school has reported a total COVID-19 case number of 286 for the spring semester and currently there are 170 total active cases. An orange alert level is defined on the COVID-19 Dashboard and means the “incidence of cases is rapidly increasing and transmission is less controlled.”

Students living in Marian and Champagnat resident halls were not permitted to go to in-person classes. After six days of balancing online courses while the rest of campus was in-person, Marist decided to place the entire campus on pause. 

“Many campuses have had surges at the start of the spring term, and Marist is no different,” the Executive Vice President’s office said in an email to students. “While we see some positive trends in the data, we must continue to be prudent because of the challenges this virus presents.”

On Tuesday at 5 p.m., Marian and Champagnat residents were permitted to go outside, but not much else has changed since the precautionary quarantine was lifted. Students are still taking classes online and the rise in COVID-19 cases is still concerning for students living on campus. 

The precautionary quarantine in the two freshman dorms was just as mentally challenging for students as it was physically challenging. Residents only saw each other in brief encounters in the bathroom or grabbing food from the Grubhub table on the first floor. Even the interactions between students felt different during the precautionary quarantine because students were unsure and afraid of who was infected with COVID-19. 

“We know the precautionary quarantine has been challenging, but it has been important to ensure your health and that of the Marist community,” English said. “We thank you for your cooperation with members of Health Services, the Contact Tracing Team, Housing and Security during this time.”