HANOVER — Ahead of Thursday’s announcement of the plans for Dartmouth College undergraduates, several students were anxiously awaiting administrators’ decisions.
Junior Ines Tanoh, a U.S. citizen whose family lives in Ivory Coast, said she had planned to stay on campus during spring break due to travel restrictions related to the virus.
“It was just very risky for us to attempt to go home,” Tanoh said of international students, who make up about 10% of Dartmouth’s student body.
She learned on Thursday that she would need to vacate her dorm by Monday, when Dartmouth had asked all students to depart. She said administrators had told students who had applied to stay that their applications would be reviewed on a “case by case” basis. “I’m stressed,” she said.
As the president of the African Students Association, Tanoh said she was working to support her fellow students who also were wondering about housing, as well as visa issues and work.
Tanoh, who has dyslexia, said she also was communicating with the school’s student accessibility services about how she might best absorb information from her classes should they be moved online. “I hope it will work out,” she said.
Junior Olivia Audsley created a Google spreadsheet to help those looking for emergency housing for spring break and beyond. The spreadsheet lets community members with extra rooms list their contact information and details about the space they have available.
“A lot of Dartmouth students are from the Northeast and have extra space in their homes, so I figured creating a space to advertise extra rooms would at least allow people to connect with others who might be able to host them for break or the entire term, should Dartmouth go completely online,” Audsley said in Thursday email.
Audsley, who is from western New York, said she had already filled the two extra beds in her family’s home. She was supposed to be on a study abroad program during spring term that was canceled, but she said she felt fortunate she has a home within driving distance from the college and she was able to find a job near her home.
“I will be relatively unscathed by this,” she said. “I am much more concerned for folks who do not hold those same privileges, especially international students who need a residence to maintain their visas.”
— Nora Doyle-Burr