Marist Administrators To Answer Concerns Over Campus Case Numbers

Written March 24, 2021, at 11 a.m. , in collaboration with the Poughkeepsie Observer

Marist College is hosting a Precautionary [Campus] Pause Q&A at noon today, where administrators will answer submitted questions from students and the community.

Register for the webinar or submit a question by swiping up on Marist’s Instagram Stories. Email julin.sharp@marist.edu to ask additional questions.

There is much to be addressed as the college continues to be on an extended pause until Friday, March 26, when key school decisionmakers will reconvene to assess the COVID data and make judgments on restriction policies going forward.

As students have communicated in the Poughkeepsie Observer's comments this week, the behavior of peers, classmates, and Marist itself broadly affects the Poughkeepsie community as well.

Marist is a local employer, host to NY sponsored vaccination sites, has businesses adjacent to campus, and its Conklin Hall quarantine housing is located at Dutchess Community College (DCC).

One Poughkeepsie resident described to us the loud, maskless parties he witnessed on Wednesday, March 17, or St. Patrick's Day, while driving on East Cedar. He noted continued instances of students walking from campus housing towards these parties, presuming intoxication of varying degrees, throughout the rest of that week and weekend.

Many off-campus students reside in neighborhoods populated by other Poughkeepsie residents and families.

The Marist Circle highlighted parties happening in Conklin - again, a residence hall off-campus located in DCC housing - with COVID positive and quarantining exposed students congregating. The space is designated as a quarantine zone, for those who tested positive, and an isolation space, for those potentially exposed; the anonymous source specified how blurred that distinction has been, as most Conklin residents cannot actively distinguish between positive classmates and those merely exposed.

But the parties must(?) go on, it seems.

Positive students pay an additional $100 to reside in Conklin Hall while waiting out their isolation or quarantine periods, depending on the individual case. This fee goes towards supplying students' needs such as for food (or toilet paper, the Director of Student Conduct noted). One student likened the situation to a prison, as well as the quality of the food:

"...the food scales well to the prison food as well as I'd assume given the quality.

Amid times of campus pauses, Marist has encouraged students under lockdown to order meals through the Grubhub app. It is unknown if Grubhub delivery drivers are aware of the full contexts of the order, who they are delivering to, and the potential to expose themselves by delivering on campus or these residence halls.

The Marist Democrats pleaded for a more active presence from Marist Security to shut down parties, in a petition that has garnered almost 150 signatures in three days.

While Marist public statements ensured safe and quiet St. Patrick’s Day festivities, student testimonials we received differed as partying in other dorms went on, as examined in the above cases of off-campus and far-off quarantine housing.

Many on-campus students attribute large gatherings and parties to Fox Run boarders. But one anonymous source informed the Marist Democrats on their Instagram story of Fox Run's total compliance to social distancing, as security has responded multiple times to just a gather of a couple people. The source explained any sightings of large Fox Run gatherings to be that the quarantine pods or groupings of students living there are much larger due to the proximity of one another and they are no longer a risk of infecting each other within the same environment.

The anonymous source pointed out that they have heard and seen just as many unruly cases coming out of Gartland in comparison to what Fox Run is purported to be.

This morning, Marist’s COVID Dashboard stands at 170 Active Cases, last updating yesterday with a 10 case decrease amidst the spike.

Editor's Note: The Marist Dashboard updated mid-day March 24 and has remained at 170 Active Cases, while it indicates six students have been moved from their homes or campus housing to a designated quarantine dorm.

Currently, New York State’s database numbers show collected active cases of 185 from yesterday, March 23, to have increased to 204 today.

Please note the careful statistical literacy when reporting case numbers, as data collection methods and reporting styles vary by institution. Visible above as that COVID Case numbers are published the day after they are collected and submitted from New York State.

It is currently unclear for the reasons behind supposed discrepancies between Marist and New York State's case numbers, but it most likely has something to do with older cases being cycled out every two weeks as there are no longer active or infectious after that ten to two week window of time.

Yesterday, we titled it "a short-term, retroactive solution for a longer-term problem" if cases follow a new trend and start to spike further.

All NY State school data can be accessed via their COVID Report Card Health Dashboard.

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