June 29, 2020 - COVID-19: Plans for the Upcoming Academic Year

Dear Students,

As President Hanlon and Provost Helble just announced, we now have a framework for enrollment for the coming year. While we know that many of you hoped that it would align more closely with your individual hopes and plans, we are doing our best to ensure that each of you who wants to be here has an opportunity to do so. The good news is that you have options, and you can now begin the planning process. Your immediate next steps follow below.

THE BASICS

Each of you has an opportunity to be here on campus for two of the four possible enrolled terms. Being here will involve primarily remote instruction, single room occupancy, and primarily remote out-of-class activities given physical distancing requirements and restrictions on group gatherings. Assigned arrival times will be staggered over six days the week before classes begin, and timed to allow for COVID testing before move-in for a 14-day in-room quarantine period the first two weeks of the term. All students will be required to participate in daily screenings, periodic testing, contact tracing and assigned quarantine or isolation as necessary throughout the term. Testing and compliance with all College health requirements will be mandatory. More about that below. You are not required to be here - any of you can choose to enroll remotely for any term if you prefer to learn from somewhere else, or if you don't think you can or don't wish to comply with the conditions required for on-campus enrollment.

Please know that there isn't anything you can do to move this faster, or to know more sooner. There is also nothing you can do to alter or circumvent the framework that the College has established. Please review the details below, and the FAQs at this link:
https://news.dartmouth.edu/covid-19/academic-year-2020-21-return-campus-plan/frequently-asked-questions. We need you to rely on these sources for the coming week, and to follow the steps I am outlining below. We will not be able to respond to individual questions for a while, so please bear with us. If you send questions, we will aggregate those and add them to the FAQs to ensure that you have access to the same information at the same time. You will hear from me again, every Monday throughout the summer, with any new updates.

STEP ONE - TELL US YOUR PREFERENCES
Tomorrow, June 30th, you will receive an email from the Office of Institutional Research, providing each of you with a unique individual link to the fall planning form we need you to complete. This is NOT a first-come first-served process, so you do not need to complete the form immediately. You will be able to submit anytime during the next three weeks, with an absolute deadline of July 20th (see below).

The form will ask each of you to indicate whether you would like to be here during your class year's priority term, and to rank the other three terms of 20/21 in order of preference for your second opportunity for an on-campus term. Incoming '24s will simply be asked to confirm their intentions for the designated on-campus terms for fall and spring. Again, the framework for all other classes is as follows:

CLASS OF 2021: '21s have priority for spring. '21s will be asked to confirm whether they would like to be here in the spring, and to rank preferences for fall, winter and summer as their second opportunity for on-campus enrollment. We know most of you are graduating at the end of spring, but not all of you are, so summer will be included as an option.

CLASS OF 2022: '22s have priority for fall. '22s will be asked to confirm whether they would like to be here in the fall, and to rank preferences for winter, spring and summer as their second opportunity for on-campus enrollment. Those of you who received permission to defer your sophomore summer residence requirement to next summer will need to take that into account in your rankings.

CLASS OF 2023: '23s have priority for sophomore summer. '23s will be asked to confirm that they will be here in the summer, and to rank preferences for fall, winter and spring as their second opportunity for an on-campus term.

CLASSES OF 2019 and EARLIER: You have not been assigned a priority term. We will ask you to rank fall, winter, spring and summer in order of preference.

Please keep in mind that these are priorities and preferences, NOT guarantees. This is simply a first step in order to have accurate and current data on demand for on-campus spaces by term. All students are eligible to enroll remotely. For academic year 20/21, an "R" in your D-plan does not mean you are enrolled for an on-campus term -- it means you will be taking classes. You will receive official confirmation of your approved on-campus terms by the end of July.

STEP TWO - FALL TERM REGISTRATION AND D-PLAN CONFIRMATIONS
The Registrar will post fall term courses on July 17th, along with information about fall term course election. If you plan to enroll for fall term, whether remotely or on campus, you will elect your fall courses following the Registrar's guidelines in late July. If you need to see what courses will be offered this fall before deciding what your on-campus term preferences are, you will have until July 20th to complete your priorities/preferences form.

Financial aid awards for 20/21 will be available in early August, after individual on-campus and remote terms are confirmed for the full year.

Residential Life will communicate with those of you approved to enroll on campus for the fall by the end of July. Fall on-campus students will receive single room assignments, assigned arrival dates and times, and other critical fall term information the week of August 16th. You will also be required at that time to sign and confirm your agreement with the terms of the College's COVID-19 Enrollment and Housing Policy (see below). Move-in will be a controlled, assigned, timed process to stagger arrivals, reduce risk of transmission, and conduct incoming COVID testing at the Health Service. None of you should make travel plans for fall until you receive this information the week of August 16th.

COVID-19 ENROLLMENT AND HOUSING POLICY FOR 20/21
It is important that you understand, now and as we go forward, that all students living and studying on-campus, and the faculty and staff working to support your education, will continue to be functioning in the context of a worldwide pandemic of enormous scale and human impact.  Every one of us has a direct and powerful effect on those around us -- on campus, in our homes and residences, in the Upper Valley, and wherever we reside. Dartmouth is committed to the health and well-being of our students, employees, and community neighbors, as well as to the safety of our campus. Our ability to offer on-campus enrollment at all this year is premised upon mutual accountability owed by each of us to act in a manner that reflects the importance of adherence to health and safety standards to limit the spread of COVID-19.

If you are permitted to return to campus during the 20/21 academic year, whether to live on-campus or to attend classes on-campus or both, you will be required to acknowledge your understanding and agree to the 2020/2021 Supplemental Undergraduate Enrollment and Housing Policy.

Any student who fails to follow the Policy and the College's health and safety expectations, including but not limited to  requirements for daily health screening, contact tracing, self-quarantine, self-isolation, face covering, handwashing, physical distancing, restrictions on group gathering, facilities access, guest policies, travel and/or other institutional health guidelines or directives on or off-campus will automatically lose the privilege of on-campus enrollment, including the privilege of residing on campus. In other words, you will be required to leave campus within 24 hours of notification.

If you don't feel you can comply with these expectations, you may choose to enroll remotely to continue to progress towards your degree. If you lose the privilege of on-campus enrollment for failure to comply with this policy, you will be permitted to remain enrolled remotely, but will have forfeited the privilege of returning for on-campus enrollment for the remainder of the year. Loss of on-campus enrollment privileges under this policy will be a separate action, independent of the College's disciplinary process. Depending on thenature of the infraction, however, individual students and student organizations alike, may also be subject to disciplinary sanctions under the College's Standards of Conduct and disciplinary process, including the possibility of individual or organizational disciplinary suspension or separation.

The point is this: we are a community that needs to assume collective responsibility for promoting the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the residents of the greater Upper Valley. Under the circumstances of the pandemic, any undergraduate who puts the health and safety of others at risk by failing to comply with the College's COVID-19 policies will need to leave immediately. Your remote education won't necessarily be interrupted, but you simply will have lost the privilege of being here. We cannot offer the opportunity to return for an on-campus term without knowing your commitment to behave responsibly. When you complete your form over the next three weeks, we will ask you to read and acknowledge that you understand the basic framework. When you receive your room assignment, you will be expected to review and sign the full detailed policy before you can accept your place on campus.

NEXT STEPS
Please read the FAQs. Many of your questions will be answered there. As I said, we will aggregate all questions and add to the FAQ site, where they can be accessed by the entire student body. Watch for your form link message from OIR tomorrow, and set aside time to consider your options for the year in the context of this framework. And finally, stay tuned for my next message, on Monday, July 6th, and the next Community Conversation with the Provost, on Wednesday, July 8th.

In the meantime, please know this: hundreds of people have been working virtually around the clock on your behalf to make this on-campus opportunity possible. The world is upside down as a result of the pandemic. We know that many of you have been deeply affected by it, and by the national protests against racial injustice. We are living in an extraordinary time of upheaval and change, and we don't want to lose any of you because of it.  If we all work together in a spirit of collective responsibility, your education at Dartmouth, and the bonds you have forged here, can continue in new ways and become even stronger. We all look forward to making that happen as safely and successfully as possible.

All my best,

Dean Lively