The University of Rhode Island, Brown University, Johnson and Wales, Salve-Regina, Roger Williams and Providence College are among the schools that have canceled their spring breaks.
Johnson and Wales President, Marie Bernardo-Sousa, said it would be too risky to have students leave for a week unmonitored.
“The decision was really based on maintaining the health and well-being of our campus community and the surrounding community,” said Bernardo-Sousa. “We felt strongly this would limit the impact of COVID cases on our campus, and the student’s academic journey would not be impacted.”
Ultimately, these schools made this decision to avoid an uptick of cases and increased testing as students come back to campus. However, URI Chair of the Faculty Senate Megan Echevarria, said she is still worried about students traveling.
“Obviously, we don’t live in a policed state, we’re not here to control other people’s behavior,” said Echevarria. “The only thing we can do is provide deterrence. And the idea of canceling spring break was to provide that deterrence.”
Echevarria said that she has heard from students still planning to travel. That, despite the increase in COVID-19 cases at URI.
Almost 200 cases were reported in early March. That number dropped to 76 this week, but officials are still concerned about travel.
At Providence College, officials canceled spring break but opted to give students five days off scattered throughout the semester.
Provost Dr. Sean Reid said this decision was made because of concerns over students’ mental health.
“With all of the stuff that’s going on with COVID and the quarantining that one more pressure that we could alleviate was something that we wanted to do,” said Reid. “We felt that it was important to give them periodic breaks throughout the semester with some off days.”
The Rhode Island School of Design has not canceled spring break, although it is encouraging students not to travel.
