BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – WVU Tech students have started their third week back on campus, and thus far they’ve seen no issues with the return.
According to Dean of Students Emily Sands, the students are excited to finally have in-person learning again after a two-month hiatus.
“It’s been honestly very exciting for us to have our students back. They left at Thanksgiving, so we’ve missed them for two months. They’ve jumped right into attending classes like they’re supposed to, wearing their masks,” Sands said.
To keep everyone safe, classrooms are cleaned and sanitized every night. They use electrostatic cleaning to get every nook that might go untouched from conventional methods.
This ensures that even if a classroom sees a thousand students go in and out every day, it will be freshly cleaned like nothing had touched it by the next morning. And the staff are given other supplies to ensure they can stay safe throughout the day.
“We have electrostatic machines that go in and sanitize everything, even those things that would be very hard to wipe down. All of our faculty and staff have sanitary wipes available to them.”
As well, the staff is sanitizing high-touch points like door handles constantly each day. Everyone is required to wear a mask at all times, and social distancing is enforced in the classes. Emily says it’s because they want to ensure the campus stays open.
“So we can stay in person, so we can stay through May and talk about graduation. So we can make sure our students are getting the best education that they can.”
Roughly 70% of the WVU Tech student body is taking classes on campus, and the rest are learning remotely.
Other students have classes with blended schedules where half the class attends in-person and then goes remote the next day.
Through the governor’s mandate, WVU Tech tests 10% of its students every week. If a student believes they need to be tested, they can contact Student Life to set up a time and place for testing.
