UNC received more than 450 reports of students breaking COVID-19 rules this semester
When UNC-Chapel Hill students returned to campus this fall, they all signed an agreement to follow COVID-19 rules like wearing face masks and not throwing big parties or events.
Though most students followed the rules throughout the semester, hundreds of them didn’t.
UNC received more than 450 reports of students violating the COVID-19 community standards set by the university, according to a report released by the university Monday.
About 50 students were kicked out of campus housing for breaking the rules, but the majority of the cases resulted in lesser disciplinary action such as written warnings and restricting access to campus facilities.
In 60 of the cases, no student was identified or the student was found not responsible. No students have been dis-enrolled from the university.
“This data reinforces that the vast majority of our students are working very hard to adhere to community standards and are following them whenever possible,” said Amy Johnson, UNC’s vice chancellor for student affairs.
She said students have told contact tracers that they’ve been trying to follow gathering orders and public health guidance when hanging out in groups, but it’s hard when they live with a dozen other students.
In some cases, students said they planned a small event and then more people showed up, so it wasn’t their intention to violate but things got out of their control, Johnson said. In other cases, students may have just forgotten to take their mask out of their pocket and put it back on when they’re at the library.
UNC was forced to move classes online and close dorms after spikes in coronavirus cases in residence halls and COVID-19 clusters at fraternity and sorority houses in August. But Johnson said they haven’t done the analysis on these violations to connect them to any particular time frame or event like a Carolina football game or off-campus parties.
COVID-19 violations at UNC-Chapel Hill
The report doesn’t give details about the type of incident or when they happened, but the complaints were made between Aug. 1 and Oct. 31 and most were not serious violations. There are still 16 cases pending with the Office of Student Conduct.
UNC administrators said there were probably more violations at the beginning of the semester, when about 6,500 students were living on campus and before UNC pivoted to all online classes.
However, most students moved off campus but stayed in the Chapel Hill community rather than moving back to their hometowns, Johnson said.
Aaron Bachenheimer, executive director of Off-Campus Student Life and Community Partnerships, said the total number of off-campus complaints followed a similar trend to previous years under normal circumstances.
Bachenheimer said there’s usually a higher number of complaints at the start when students are excited to see their friends and go to events related to fraternity and sorority recruitment. Then, it levels off and decreases as students settle into the semester and get busy with school.
A lot of the concerns and complaints off-campus were predominantly related to noise and not necessarily large parties and violations of North Carolina’s COVID-19 gathering restrictions, he said.
“The trends that we saw were consistent with numbers and timing of a normal academic semester, but with the layering of COVID expectations on top of them and probably a heightened … sense of concern for any gathering,” Bachenheimer said.
The student conduct violations in the university’s report Monday are strictly related to COVID-19 community standards and university policy and do not include nuisance violations or other incidents reported to the Chapel Hill Police Department.
Bachenheimer said he thinks students are aware of gathering limits and paying close attention when those numbers are changing.
Students, like the general public, also know they should be wearing masks and social distancing, but the university needs to help them understand that still applies even when getting together with a smaller group of friends, he said.
How will community standards change this spring?
The university will continue to enforce community standards and collaborate with UNC police and Chapel Hill police when more students and employees return to campus this spring. But some things will change.
Johnson said they got feedback that the idea of community standards or guidelines makes it sound like it’s just a goal. She said there have been requests to call them “rules” to make it more clear.
UNC will also likely add rules about re-entry COVID-19 testing and ongoing surveillance testing, which is required for students, faculty and staff this spring.
Students will move back into dorms in January, and the semester officially begins on Jan. 19 with the start of classes.
The university will continue to investigate reports of COVID-19 violations through its review process and plans to share this data on a quarterly basis.
“We desire to be transparent to the community in terms of everything we’re doing to try to promote health and safety, including our adherence to standards,” Johnson said, “while balancing that, obviously, with the need to protect student privacy.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 1:59 PM.
