CentralState

Resident assistantsandthe PirateAmbassadorsreturned to campus last week. Other upperclassmen will get to campus this weekend.

Central State will limit private and public gatherings to no more than 10 people, the university said. Thomas said the university is giving personal protective equipment packages to students.

The school has designated spaces where students will quarantine if they get sick, he said.

Wendy Hayes, vice president of student affairs, said students were permitted to bring two familymembersto help them move in. Everyone had to have their temperature checkedwhen they arrived on campus.

“Students are excited to be here,” Hayes said. “This is a different normal, especially if they’vebeenaroundtheirfamilies and didn’t have to social distance from their household, but now have to social distance fromtheir friends.”

Move-in campus activities were adjusted to comply with safety protocols. Activities planned throughout move-in days, including lunch and dinner, are on staggered schedules to ensure students maintain social distancing.

Pirate Week, the annual orientation for newstudents coming to Central State, will be virtual this year. This year’s event willbetake place on Facebook Live with featured guest speakers, student spotlights and a message from Thomas.

“We’re excited about the model we’ve created for bringing students back and we feel that will help us in terms of being a safe university,” Thomas said.

The president said he feels safebecause they will be testing everybody on campus at the historically Black university. It was important to test everyone on campus, he said, because of theway the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately impacted minorities.

In an interviewlastweek, Dr. KarenMathews, Central

State’s executive director of health and psychological services, echoed that sentiment.

“We looked at our population, which has certain vulnerabilities and risk factors, given the demographics of our students,” she said. “And we’ve also learned fromthe experience of other universities that have opened earlier than ours. And based on that, we opted to go ahead and do some more aggressive testing.”

“These areunprecedented times and they are uncertain times,” Thomas said, “but at the same time, we have an opportunity to do some wonderful things here.”