Columbia recommends final exams move online, mandates boosters for spring 2022

Upper West Side NY

17 December, 2021

1:56 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ESHA KARAM DECEMBER 16, 2021 In the wake of rising COVID-19 cases on campus, the University today strongly encouraged professors to move final exams online and recommended that students return home as soon as their on-campus obligations are finished. Hours later, the University announced that it plans to mandate booster vaccines for all eligible faculty, staff, and students by Jan. 31, 2022. "The guidance on exams was issued in the context of end-of-semester travel. Protecting our students' health and safety is the highest priority, and most students will be traveling soon," a University spokesperson said in a statement to Spectator. "The Task Force's protocols minimize the risk that students might need to isolate and therefore be unable to travel, or the risk that they might travel to family and friends while infected." The updated guidance follows a rise in cases in New York City and college campuses nationwide, in part caused by the spread of the Omicron variant. In New York City, positivity rates have doubled in the past three days. Numerous other universities have shifted to online exams and announced booster mandates. Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania have moved all exams online, while New York University also "strongly encourage[d]" finals to be held online. Cornell University—which has had over 1,400 cases this week, including confirmed cases of Omicron—also moved all finals online on Dec. 14 and advised students to leave campus after they tested negative. The guidance on exam modifications and expanding the vaccine mandate both cited a spike in cases within the Columbia community as a motivation for the rapid changes. "The Task Force is monitoring daily conditions, and has observed a continued uptick in student positivity rates. Campus remains in the 'Yellow Zone' of 'low risk,' and students who tested positive are generally reporting either no symptoms or minor symptoms," a University spokesperson said in a statement to Spectator. At the time of publication, Columbia has only published COVID-19 data from the week of Dec. 6 to 12. 45 students and eight faculty and staff members tested positive, with respective positivity rates of 0.93 percent and 0.84 percent. Campus COVID-19 positivity rates peaked in September, with 112 positive tests in a single week. Although much is still unknown, a growing number of studies have shown that booster vaccines may protect against variants like Omicron. Currently, over 20 colleges, including Harvard University, New York University, and Brown University will require booster vaccines for the spring semester. Columbia's announcement came on the first official day of exams, and some instructors have already moved to offer online exams; Core Curriculum classes like Literature Humanities and Frontiers of Science have shifted final exams to an online format. Some students, like Veer Vohra, SEAS '25, learned that their finals would be moved online just hours before they were scheduled to take them. "I got a message on Canvas that my calculus final went virtual, and it [was] only two hours away," Vohra said. Alicia Yang, SEAS '25, said that instructors' responses to the University's recommendations were inconsistent, even across different sections of the same course. Yang's section of General Chemistry I, which has 83 students, has an in-person final, despite other sections having moved to an online format. "It's really messy. Some professors are making it online, but … [my professor] is saying that we're in-person until further notice," Yang said. "I just want to get home as soon as possible." The rapid tightening of policies and encouragement of students to leave campus may remind some of the University announcements issued on March 12, 2020, that encouraged students to leave campus and moved classes online for over a year. With a new variant on the rise, and increased travel over the break, students are concerned that the new guidelines might parallel spring 2020. "I don't want it to be a repeat of last year," Yang said. "But, of course, the health and safety of the majority of people is important." Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.