CU Boulder Making Students Move Out Of Dorm To Create Isolation Spaces After Spike In COVID-19 Cases
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - Students living at a high-rise dormitory at the University of Colorado Boulder must move out by Sunday, just days after they were notified the rooms will be needed for isolating students with COVID-19. The move will double the number of available dorms by using Darley North in Williams Village for quarantined students.
"It's difficult to do all your school work and get this done," one student told CBS4 on Friday. "I'm not going to be moving to another dorm in Will Vill just because I think that I'll be moving out again in a few weeks so I'm going to be going home."
The university explained in an email the move was required to create additional spaces for on campus residents. Roommates will not be kept because of limited space, CU said in an email.
"We know that moving mid-semester is challenging, and we are doing everything we can to minimize the impacts of this change for our residents," the email added. "We will do our best to keep your community together, though we will not be able to move roommates together due to space availability."
CU had 267 rooms before this move, the addition of Darley North will bring 314 more dorms reserved for students who need to be quarantined.
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"I think it makes sense to isolate everyone to one residence hall so they could like setup some sort of dining plan for them," another student living in Darley North said.
Students were waiting for notification on Friday to find out their new dorm. While they may understand the need to add more rooms, they were frustrated at the timing. CU said on Friday it notified students as soon as they made the decision.
"The university is doing things that actually kind of punish the people who are following the rules in order to help the people who aren't," said Joy Liu, a freshman living in Darley North. "While not really punishing those who aren't following the rules."
Students are being given a $250 credit to their Bursar's account, for the inconvenience of this short notification.
Earlier this week, Boulder County Public Health issued a strong recommendation to every CU Boulder student living in Boulder to self-quarantine in their Boulder home or residence hall for 14 days to contain the outbreak. Students are asked to only leave homes or residence halls for essential needs.
"I've been very careful," one student said. "We're roommates, we've stayed in our room, we've been very good about that."
