Bates, Colby roll out fall semester plans; 85,000 COVID-19 tests planned

FILE PHOTO / MAUREEN MILLIKEN Colby College in Waterville is preparing for the fall semester with a health and safety plan that includes aggressive testing for COVID-19 infection.

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By Staff

With classes starting eight weeks from now, two more Maine colleges have unveiled plans for opening their campuses and resuming face-to-face instruction.

Bates and Colby colleges spelled out details of the plans in separate announcements Tuesday. The private, liberal arts schools are following similar approaches — similar also to the plan introduced by the University of Maine System on Tuesday.

But there are differences too, including an aggressive COVID-19 testing protocol at Colby.

Bates, in Lewiston, and Colby, in Waterville, said they will begin the fall semester with students, faculty and staff on campus, but will operate virtually after the Thanksgiving recess. The UMaine System also will switch to online classes after its break in late November.

The Bates and Colby announcements also said the schools will stagger the move-in dates for students on campus before the semester starts, in order to avoid large groups of people arriving simultaneously. Bates begins classes on Sept. 2, with students beginning to arrive about 10 days in advance. Colby will start the semester Aug. 26, and arrivals will take place over several days beforehand.

There will be new dining procedures at both campuses to facilitate social distancing. Classes may include more online components even while students are on campus, Bates President Clayton Spencer and Colby President David A. Greene wrote in letters to their respective academic communities.

Both colleges as well as the UMaine System plan to test students for COVID-19 infection upon their arrival at campus. Colby’s approach is especially rigorous.

Students will be tested prior to arrival with self-administered kits provided by Colby, and all members of the college community will be tested three times during the opening weeks of the semester. After that, tests will be conducted twice a week, according to Greene’s letter.

Testing will be administered by the Broad Institute, a biomedical research center affiliated with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“To put this in perspective, we expect to administer roughly 85,000 tests in the first semester alone, a number that almost equals the total number of tests administered in the entire state of Maine since the start of the pandemic,” Greene said.