During the current fall semester, the University of Maine system, including the university of Southern Maine, has remained free of the kinds of large COVID-19 outbreaks that have been seen at many other colleges and universities around the country.
The university administration credits this level of success to the way the students, faculty, and staff have maintained a high level of cooperation with mask wearing and physical distancing rules mandated by the university. Chancellor Dannel Malloy stated, “Our campuses are among the safest places in the country in terms of COVID exposure and case counts. With our students leading the way, we will finish the final two weeks of in-person instruction planned for this fall and send everyone home to their families safely at the Thanksgiving break.”
To achieve this level of safety, the university system has maintained an enhanced level of mandatory asymptomatic testing. This university-wide testing has detected approximately half the cases which have been diagnosed among students and employees. To back up the individual COVID-19 testing program, the university system has also utilized COVID-19 monitoring of waste processed at sewage plants on three of its campuses, including the one at USM in Gorham.
Additionally, many USM classes have been remote-only this semester.
Many faculty-student meetings are handled remotely. Students have not been allowed to invite guests to the residence halls or anywhere on campus. In fact, all members of the public continue to be prohibited from visiting the campus.
From October 1 through November 20, there have been just 18 confirmed COVID-19 cases among USM students (13 among commuters, and five among residential students) with most cases occurring since November 4. There were no cases diagnosed among support staff or maintenance staff, and just one case with a faculty member (an instructor who teaches remotely).
As planned, all residences will close and all in-person instruction ended for the semester on November 25, when the Thanksgiving break began.
From November 16 through November 19 the University’s Safe Departure Program provided asymptomatic testing for 8,000 students and employees system-wide. This testing program was designed to enable as many people as possible to travel for the holiday period with a recent negative test in hand. The testing included all residential students and out-of-state students system-wide. To support any students who tested positive and were prohibited from traveling, the university maintains safe isolation spaces on campus throughout the Thanksgiving break, and beyond that if needed.
For the remainder of the semester, classes and exams will be remote-only, with the campuses largely closed to students until late January. The spring semester is scheduled to begin on January 25. The start of the spring semester has been pushed back by a week to account for the cancellation of spring break.