On Sept. 20 all students were notified by the Office of Housing and Residential Life that the guest rules for residence halls were updated. Now, commuter students are allowed as guests and each resident can sign in up to three other residential guests, as long as all of the other roommates are comfortable with it. That is one more step towards pre-COVID-19 housing rules, since at the beginning of the school year commuter students were not allowed in residence halls and guests were limited to up to two per resident. Last year the school had a no guest policy, which means things have been improving, or so it seems.
From where I see it, these new updates to the guest rules were much needed. For starters, commuter students do literally everything with residential students, except, of course, share a room. Commuter and residential student interactions happen on a daily basis, in classes and common areas of the university and even off campus. Prohibiting commuter students was not only incoherent, but unfair to the students who attend school normally and were deprived of simple activities such as studying with their friends in the dorms.
Moreover, the spread of COVID-19 in the university does not depend on how many guests are allowed in each residential hall or if commuter students are allowed in or not. NSU’s campus is an open campus, so the school administration does not control who comes in and out and consequently, who interacts with students while they are at the school’s common areas. NSU also does not control who staff and faculty see after hours and they could also be seen as a point of contamination. Residential students are allowed to leave and interact with people off campus and even attend big social events, such as parties, which the school also has no control over. If anything, commuter students should be the most worried about COVID-19 policies at the school, because they are the ones who come home to their families every day.
I cannot say COVID-19 case numbers will not increase after these changes in the guest policies, but I can say that if they do, it is not fair to blame it all on these small changes made to the housing guest policies They were nothing but coherent, considering how the school had been handling COVID-19. Plus, more flexible rules allow freshman and sophomores, who had an unusual first year due to COVID-19, to strengthen their bonds with their friends and recover some of the social interaction they lacked for the past year. In the end, NSU is just trying to make the campus safer and more pleasant to the students, but that also requires students to do their part if they still want to gradually return to a pre-pandemic normal.
