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Natalia Ortiz was looking forward to taking classes in person at Syracuse University this fall. Instead, she will be starting her first semester from her home in Puerto Rico.

Ortiz, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, decided to stay home after Gov. Andrew Cuomo added Puerto Rico to New York’s coronavirus travel advisory on July 28. The advisory requires travelers from 34 coronavirus hotspot states to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in New York state.

Although Ortiz would have been able to complete the two-week quarantine before classes started, her family felt that Puerto Rico’s sudden addition to the travel advisory didn’t leave them enough time to prepare. 

“After two days of sending emails and calling people, we realized we were out of options,” Ortiz said. “(Taking classes online) was the only thing we could do.”

SU announced on July 20, nearly a month after Cuomo first issued the travel advisory, that students from hotspots would have to complete a self-quarantine at their own expense. Cuomo’s order left over 3,000 SU students scrambling to secure quarantine housing in New York or another “cold” state, and forced others to give up on in-person classes altogether.

Savannah Stocker, a sophomore inclusive elementary and special education major from Florida, was shocked that SU would not help returning students find housing to complete the quarantine. While the university has allowed first-year and transfer students to pay $1,000 to quarantine in their dorm rooms, returning students from hotspot states have to quarantine at their own expense.

SU has offered emergency financial aid, including from the CARES Act, to students who can’t afford to quarantine at their own expense. As of July 29, SU had distributed 90% of the $4.9 million in federal coronavirus relief funds it had allocated to student financial aid.

Stocker plans to stay at one of the 37 hotels that the university partnered with to secure discounted rates for students. 

“They’re doing their best, but it could be better,” Stocker said. “I get why we can’t be in our dorm, but it’s still a little unfair.”

For first-year students such as Ortiz, quarantining on campus may be the easiest way to fulfill the two-week requirement. But the on-campus quarantine — which one SU official likened to a “minimum-security prison” — comes with strict limits on when and with whom students can socialize, exercise and do their laundry.

The university’s deadline for first-year students to sign up for on-campus quarantine passed on July 24, four days before New York added Puerto Rico to its travel advisory. In response, SU opened up 70 additional slots for students from newly added states to join the on-campus quarantine, but only offered students four days to arrive on campus. 

For Ortiz, that wasn’t enough time to pack up and move to New York. 

Anika Carlson found herself in a similar situation when Cuomo added Illinois to the travel advisory, also on July 28. Carlson, a sophomore international relations and Italian major from Illinois, didn’t have the option to quarantine on-campus, and she had already booked flights corresponding with her scheduled move-in date. 

“I was really stressed out for those first few hours when I didn’t know what I was going to be doing at all,” Carlson said. 

Carlson now plans on getting an Airbnb in the Syracuse area with some friends from California, another hotspot state. With her flight being too expensive to change, she’s now taking a 12-hour train to Syracuse, she said.

Several students said that having to pay for their own quarantine has been a source of financial stress. This comes at a time when students and their families are already reeling from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Student Association President Justine Hastings, who is not from a hotspot state, said she was disappointed by the university’s financial assistance for students impacted by the quarantine requirement. While the quarantine itself is necessary to prevent the transmission of coronavirus on campus, the university could have offered students more support in completing the requirement, she said.

“There was a lack of adequate planning on the university in a timely manner,” Hastings said. “These financial expenses, which already to begin with are disappointing, but they are especially overwhelming because of the late notice.”

Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie, who has headed up SU’s coronavirus response, told Hastings that SU is only accommodating first-year students because the university “couldn’t stand the idea of telling 17- and 18-year-olds” that their first SU experience “would be at a random hotel,” she said.

“I wish that there was more on-campus housing available, but I also at the same time understand the logistics administrators are working with,” Hastings said.

Not all SU students have finalized their quarantine arrangements. Madeline Jones, a sophomore bioengineering and neuroscience major from Virginia, has not yet determined whether she can return to campus because of the quarantine order. Virginia was added to Cuomo’s order on July 21, the day after SU informed returning students from hotspot states they would have to quarantine at their own expense.

Jones doesn’t trust that other students from hotspot states will follow the requirement. SU has said it will follow follow state guidelines in requiring students from hotspot states to submit a document stating when they began the quarantine and where they stayed. Students who lie about completing the quarantine could face disciplinary procedures under SU’s Stay Safe Pledge.

“They aren’t even giving clear rules, you just have to basically say you quarantined to be cleared even though you definitely could (have) just lied,” Jones said. “It’s extremely expensive and unreasonable for some students.”

While SU’s approach to the quarantine requirement has created difficulties for thousands of students, it also came as a relief to some.

Florida, where Lindsey Fine lives, has been on Cuomo’s travel advisory since it was first issued. Knowing the order was in place but not knowing how SU would respond to it was stressful, she said.

Fine, a first-year broadcast and digital journalism student, is now quarantining in Lawrinson Hall.

“It felt really reassuring to know what was happening because for a long time we didn’t know,” Fine said. “That uncertainty was worse.”

Published on August 9, 2020 at 11:30 am

Contact Mira: mlberenb@syr.edu