Education

Local officials prepared to crack down on UNC-CH students not following pandemic safety protocols

Officials across Orange County want University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill administrators to take extra steps to ensure area residents are safe as thousands of students return to campus amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Posted Updated

By
Sarah Krueger
, WRAL Durham reporter, & Matthew Burns, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Officials across Orange County want University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill administrators to take extra steps to ensure area residents are safe as thousands of students return to campus amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

If the university can't, local officials are ready to do so.

Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger, Carrboro Mayor Lydia Lavelle, Hillsborough Mayor Jenn Weaver and Penny Rich, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, outlined their concerns in a letter sent Wednesday to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, Provost Robert Blouin and Director of Emergency Management and Planning Darrell Jeter,

They note that people across the county have worked hard in recent months to keep coronavirus infections down, including adopting requirements long before the state mandated them of people wearing masks in public and an end to late-night alcohol sales. Meanwhile, they said, students have already been seen partying off campus without masks or any social distancing.

"Understandably, there is high anxiety amongst the elected bodies we represent and in our communities as we anticipate thousands of university students moving into the community from all over the state and country, many coming from areas that lack the same requirements we have locally for slowing the spread of COVID-19," the letter states. "It is hard to resolve or feel comfortable with this contrast between the decision to bring university students back to campus and the local decisions we have made thus far."

The local officials said UNC-Chapel Hill needs to apply the mask and social distancing standards required of students on campus to off-campus areas as well and institute penalties for violating them. They said the school also needs to provide resources to help county officials follow up on tips of violations of safety rules and mass gathering limits and provide outreach and testing to "high-risk off-campus areas," including student housing communities and neighborhoods where students live and frequent.

The letter comes a week after Orange County Health Director Quintana Stewart urged UNC-Chapel Hill administrators to hold all classes online for at least five weeks, if not the entire fall semester, and to restrict on-campus housing to international and low-income students, as well as those without reliable internet access for online classes.
Blouin said Thursday that administrators have tweaked their plans for the fall semester based on Stewart's concerns, including increasing virus testing capacity at UNC Hospitals, reducing capacity in dormitories and classrooms to 64 percent and 30 percent, respectively, and increased parking on campus and transit options for people to commute and get around in Chapel Hill.

Still, officials said they're frustrated UNC-Chapel Hill continues to press forward with plans for in-person classes despite the growing concerns of the community.

"We’ve tried to talk to the university. We’ve tried to do our best to make all of those classes online and not in person," Rich said. "You know, you can work so hard, and people still don’t understand that the university is the one who has the last say."

"UNC has been a great partner, and they are actually truly stuck between a rock and a hard place as well," Hemminger said. "Between their Board of Governors – what they allow them to do, not allow to do – for bringing students back, for faculty, it’s a hard decision to make."

She noted that many students will remain in Chapel Hill even if all classes are moved online, and she, Rich and the other mayors are most concerned about student behavior in the community.

"We’re trying to work with the students that are living in the communities, students who are out in the community, to make sure that we welcome them here, but we want them to comply with our safety standards," Hemminger said.

Late-night partying at restaurants – bars statewide remain closed to limit the spread of coronavirus – was the genesis of the county order that restaurants stop serving alcohol and close their dining rooms at 10 p.m.

A video posted online recently showed a crowd of young women walking together while not wearing masks.

"There might be students here – not all of them – that are not taking this seriously. They don’t understand what it means to live and integrate into a community," Rich said.

"It’s just frustrating, and it’s scary for the community when they see such blatant disregard for what we’ve asked students to do," Hemminger said. "Students have signed a pledge saying they’re going to comply with safety standards. So, this is what is the concern to us – that that will all be ignored."

Blouin acknowledged that the university "has some limitations" on enforcing requirements off campus, but they are emphasizing with students that the "community standards" they have pledged to abide by extend far beyond the campus boundaries.

"We are expecting our students to stay faithful to those standards," he said. "We're trying very hard to work with the towns ... as we try to develop meaningful, enforceable ways to make sure our students stay compliant as much as possible."

Lisa Everett, who owns the home on Ransom Street west of campus where the young women were gathered, said she was "appalled" to see the video.

"I was actually shocked that so many individuals could be in that home at one time," said Everett, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumna who now teachers at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina.

She said she plans to contact her tenants, who she said are affiliated with the Chi Omega sorority, to get details about the event and inform them similar events in the future are inappropriate during a pandemic.

"Students need to recognize social distancing and masks work," Everett said. "I guess that’s why, knowing the size of that home and seeing that many people exiting my home, was shocking."

Representatives from Chi Omega's national office and Chapel Hill chapter didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, Blouin and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Amy Johnson sent a letter to all fraternities and sororities on campus Thursday expressing outrage at a number of recent events that violate pandemic-related restrictions. Organizations that continue to flout the rules could face a loss of funding and access to campus facilities, and individuals could be expelled, they said.

"Aside from public condemnation, these reckless actions impugn the integrity of the UNC fraternity and sorority system and call into question your collective ability to self-govern the behaviors of your members," the letter states.

Local leaders plan to meet Friday with law enforcement officials to develop plans for enforcing social distancing, masks and other state and local rules related to the pandemic.

"The education process now is over. We’ve been educating since March," Rich said. "We have put an order in place, as well as the governor’s order that is in place, that tells you that you cannot gather. And if you are violating that, we seriously have to have a discussion about when those citations are going to be issued."

First-year students Victoria Jackson and Emma Woody said they have no problem with stricter enforcement of pandemic guidelines.

"I think that’s great if you make people scared about like not following the rules," Jackson said.

"I think that having a citation would make people wear it more," Woody said of masks. "I feel like it’s really not too hard to wear this on our faces if it means that we can stay here all semester."

Both students said all of their classes are online, but they want to stay on campus to have more time to experience college and start making friends.

"It hurts to watch, honestly, because that increases our chances of going home," Jackson said of the online video.

"We’re just hoping we can stay for longer than a few weeks," Woody said.