By Anna Hansen
Sept. 24, 2020
Edgewood students can use a new text hotline to report behavior that violates college COVID-19 protocols.
Edgewood College President Andrew Manion announced a new hotline for “see something, say something” reporting on campus in a Sept. 24 email sent only to students.
The hotline is accessible to all students at 608-556-9836 and will be monitored by the campus security office. According to Manion, all reports to the hotline can be addressed immediately if needed and will ultimately be routed to the Dean of Students Office.
Edgewood had paused all Fall sports for two weeks and closed Phil’s, one of two on-campus dining halls, following a spike in cases, which rose from five to fifteen between Sept. 15-Sept. 17. Cases then rose to 28 between Sept. 17 and Sept. 19.
The most recent statistics on Edgewood’s COVID site show that there are 23 active cases on Sept. 24, a downturn that Manion said he felt “encouraged” by.
“While it is true that we have had a small number of cases of serious violations of our COVID-19 protocols on campus, those are the exception,” said Manion. “As a rule, the vast majority of you are doing exactly what we are asking of our entire community: wearing your mask, maintaining physical distancing at all times, and tightening your social circles.
“But I recognize that sometimes we forget or let our guard down.”
Manion said that the idea for the hotline came from conversations with Student Senate leaders. Senate President Shawn Padley told OTE they had met with Manion to discuss frustrations expressed to them by fellow students about peers breaking protocols and concerns over not knowing how to address these situations.
“Most of the day-to-day interactions these students had told me about involved small infractions to our COVID protocols that they felt didn’t merit filling out the online conduct form ((for example,) students eating too close together, not wearing mask, etc.),” Padley said in a Sept. 24 email.
“But they also didn’t feel comfortable simply approaching other students that they don’t know (and I don’t blame them at all, strangers are scary). So, the idea of a text hotline to address these sorts of situations right away felt like a good middle ground.”
Student Senate also spoke to Matt Sullivan, Edgewood’s assistant vice president for student development, to consider a town hall to address COVID concerns on campus.
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