Small school, big plans: Thomas College readies to reopen at a cost of $1M-plus

PHOTO / JIM NEUGER Thomas College President Laurie Lachance, photographed at the Waterville campus last year, says the school is “working around the clock” to ensure a safe return to campus.

Write a Comment

By Renee Cordes

With less than two months to go until the start of fall semester at Thomas College, the small private school is investing a bundle to ensure a safe return for students, faculty and others to its Waterville campus.

“We’re putting in over $1 million in just the basic setting up for safe delivery of our product,” says Thomas College President Laurie Lachance, “and that’s before we look at the cost of a regiment of testing to ensure safety.”

The school, which has a student body of about 800 full-time undergraduates and 200 graduate students, wrapped up the school year in June with an online commencement ceremony for more than 250 degree recipients.

Lachance, who also co-chairs an expert committee to advise on the state’s economic recovery, says that Thomas College’s fall semester reopening plans envision three scenarios.

“We are working around the clock to ensure a safe return to campus for our students, and are looking at every aspect of college life,” she says.

The reopening plan includes increased cleaning and disinfecting protocols as well as putting capacity limits on every room in every building, including bathrooms, based on social distancing and safety standards.

“This is where the expense comes in,” Lachance says.

The school has also hired three additional custodial staff full-time to help with enhanced cleaning and disinfecting,including all high-touch areas and bathrooms multiple times a day.

Lachance underscores while the preference is to bring everyone back to campus, the plan is flexible and allows for a return to remote learning if needed — as much as students missed the social aspects of the college experience this spring.

“Students were begging me to stay on campus, but we had to assess the danger of the situation, and it was the right thing to do in the spring,” she says. “If we have to do it for their safety, we will do it again. We are prepared — it’s just not preferable.”

In the meantime, she says that Thomas College is talking to a nonprofit laboratory in Massachusetts that could potentially offer COVID-19 tests at a fraction of the cost it has seen elsewhere and is working closely with medical experts at MaineGeneral to determine a testing strategy.

“We will definitely be using a testing protocol to ensure the health and safety of our entire community to the greatest extent practicable,” Lachance says.

It also will be prepared if the virus returns, setting aside a certain number of dorm rooms for students and their roommates to quarantine if needed.

“You can’t keep 18- to 24-year olds in a bubble,” Lachance notes. “There’s going to be a chance that the virus is going to come onto your campus, but if you can catch it soon enough, you can contain the spread. That’s what testing allows you to do.”