BY CORIE LYNN
The Open Forum portion of FHSU Student Government Association meetings is a time in which any student, faculty or staff member can discuss their ideas and concerns.
Meeting for the first time in the fall semester Thursday evening, the SGA played host to University Provost Dr. Jill Arensdorf, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Joey Linn and Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Teresa Clounch.
The latter two serve as advisors to the student organization, but Arensdorf made a special appearance at the meeting to help answer questions about how the university is addressing COVID-19.
Linn began the discussion during Open Forum, thanking Arensdorf for attending and informing the students how excited the university is to have them back on campus. As he went on, he emphasized that faculty wants to hear from students about their concerns and questions.
“We’re not hiding out. We’re not hiding information,” Linn said. “The issue sometimes is we don’t want to put out misinformation because there’s so much misinformation.”
With that in mind, he shared the most recent report from CRL, the Lenexa-based lab that supplied COVID-19 spit tests to the university.
As of Thursday morning, Linn reported, 881 FHSU faculty, staff and students had submitted tests to the lab. Of these tests, 48 came back positive. At the Student Health Center, 48 students received COVID-19 tests with 25 testing positive.
This brought the group into a discussion of how FHSU is isolating and quarantining students.
“If [the Student Health Center] decides to test you, you’re a presumptive positive, meaning you have to isolate,” Linn said.
Because of this, residence hall students who need to isolate are moved to local hotels where they have their own rooms and bathrooms with the university paying for the students’ stays.
For those students who need to quarantine, the first floor of McMindes has rooms and bathrooms available. Clounch explained that students who enter quarantine at the same time are paired up to share a bathroom on the floor.
Quarantine for students in Heather and Agnew, Wooster, and Stadium, however, looks different because residents already have their own bedrooms and bathrooms.
“Because we only have so many places in McMindes for quarantine, [an isolated individual’s] roommates would be able to stay in Heather or Agnew to quarantine and stay in that place,” Clounch said. “[The] roommates in Stadium place would be able to stay and quarantine in that space.”
Questions also arose about testing, both through the Student Health Center and the free spit test provided to students.
The faculty confirmed that the last day for students and staff to order their spit tests would be Monday, Aug. 31. This deadline was established to help the University do mass-entry testing, which is necessary at the beginning of the semester..
“There will still be testing available on campus through the Student Health Center, and we’re also working through some other possible testing plans in partnership with the county, in partnership with the Hays Medical Center, and those just haven’t been flushed out and formed yet,” Arensdorf said.
In addition, students who had difficulty ordering their free test can visit the SHC to receive one.
Considering the sudden increase in cases in Hays the first week of the semester, one Student Senator cited problems within local bars not enforcing masks and asked what is being done to address the issue.
“I can tell you the chief of police has talked to some establishment owners, the city, because it’s a city issue, has talked to some establishment owners. The mayor has pleaded. And, quite honestly, […] Jason Kennedy and the Ellis County Health, if things get really out of hand, he has the power to shut things down,” Linn said.
A shut down plan for FHSU, however, has not been established, with faculty stating that there is not a certain number of cases in which the university would send students home. They are instead monitoring hospital capacity and other local indicators.
The goal is to keep students on campus.
“Please know that we are all in this together,” Linn said. “Every single one of us is in this together. We make a mistake, by gosh we’re going to tell you. We’re not hiding a thing. We’re trying to get through it. We’re trying to stay open.”
Going forward, the FHSU community can find updates on campus cases and links to local data on the new COVID-19 testing dashboard.