COVID-19 in Connecticut institutions of higher education during the 2020-2021 academic year

Background: During the 2020-2021 academic year, many institutions of higher education reopened to residential students while pursuing strategies to mitigate the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission on campus. Reopening guidance emphasized PCR or antigen testing for residential students and social distancing measures to reduce the frequency of close interpersonal contact. Connecticut colleges and universities employed a variety of approaches to reopening campuses to residential students. Methods: We used data on testing, cases, and social contact in 18 residential college and university campuses in Connecticut to characterize institutional reopening strategies and COVID-19 outcomes. We compared institutions' fall 2020 COVID-19 plans, submitted to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, and analyzed contact rates and COVID-19 outcomes throughout the academic year. Results: In census block groups containing residence halls, fall student move-in resulted in a 475% (95% CI 373%-606%) increase in average contact, and spring move-in resulted in a 561% (441%-713%) increase in average contact. The relationship between test frequency and case rate per residential student was complex: institutions that tested students infrequently detected few cases but failed to blunt transmission, while institutions that tested students more frequently detected more cases and prevented further spread. In fall 2020, each additional test per student per week was associated with a reduction of 0.0014 cases per student per week (95% CI: -0.0028, -0.000012). Residential student case rates were associated with higher case rates in the town where the school was located, but it is not possible to determine whether on-campus infections were transmitted to the broader community or vice versa. Conclusions: Campus outbreaks among residential students might be avoided or mitigated by frequent testing, social distancing, and mandatory vaccination. Vaccination rates among residential students and surrounding communities may determine the necessary scale of residential testing programs and social distancing measures during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Some Models and Methods to Nurture General Management Skills in Engineering Students Living in Large Residential Communities

To be successful in one’s profession, an engineer operating in the contemporary globalized world needs to be adequately equipped with suitable management skills. They include talent to plan, implement and manage engineering projects in diverse and pluralistic teams, ability to communicate at different levels, perseverance in the face of failures and crisis, creativeness to improvise innovative solutions, maintenance of physical and mental health, ability to invent and implement eco-friendly engineering solutions, and smartness to work within stipulated time-frames, etc. Large residential student communities prepare suitable context for engineering students to nurture their general management skills, if carefully planned. In the current paper, we present some innovative models and appropriate methods to convert large residential student communities into an arena where students can train themselves in general management skills. It also presents some results of two years of implementation of such methods in a men’s hostel, which accommodates youngsters between 17–19 years of age in their first year of undergraduate engineering study.