Day Student Dorm Visits
By: Ellie-Ana Sperantsas, Catherine Wu, Andrew Yuan
The Academy opened dormitory common rooms to affiliated day students on April 3 from the hours of 7-10 p.m. on Fridays and 8-11 p.m. on Saturdays. Day students expressed excitement about the additional space to rest in and socialize. The recent decision also impacted ongoing community discussions on the possibility of day students comprising COVID-19 safety.
Dean of Students Brooks Moriarty announced the policy to all students on campus in an email sent April 2, which stated, “A resident boarding student will need to admit day students during those hours as day student key card access cannot be enabled for these specific hours. Day students will also need to check in with the faculty member on duty upon arrival and check out when [they] depart the dorm.”
Many day students appreciated having access to common rooms, explaining that it would allow a greater sense of community between boarders and day students. “Sometimes it can be difficult to see my boarder friends outside of class and on the weekends because they spend a lot of time with each other inside dorms,” upper and day student Oscair Page said. “Being able to enter common rooms with them opens up another space where day students can hang out with friends and feel more connected to the Exeter community.”
Upper day student Alana Reale shared other benefits to the common room space. “Especially when the weather is colder, it's not as comfortable to be sitting outside all the time. It's nice to be able to have a place to go inside instead of sitting outside in the cold,” Reale said.
“I understand that it has to be a slow transition back to normal access to common rooms, but it would be nice if students could be in the common rooms more than the limited hours that they are right now. It would be nice to be able to be in the common room as a day student at other times throughout the week, like during the day as well,” Reale added.
Webster Dorm Head and English Instructor Alex Myers noted that allowing day students into dorms may increase their opportunities for social interactions. “We have a great group of day student affiliates who, in past years, have hung out in the dorm often. I hope that this will let them be social and interact more with dorm friends,” Myers said.
Main Street Dorm Head and English Instructor Tyler Caldwell noted that allowing day students into common rooms would allow them to benefit from the community. “I will say that I think it is wonderful that day students are allowed in the dorm common spaces now. Everyone needs to feel connected to a community. I have no concerns about day students exposing the dorm to COVID-19. I trust day students are just as responsible as boarding students in terms of taking safety precautions at all times,” Caldwell said.
Senior boarder and Abbott Hall proctor Emilio Abelmann spoke about the importance of dorms for day and boarding students alike. “I think this further allows day students to be integrated with campus culture and brings them into the dorm scene, which I’m sure they’re going to be really happy about, as are we in the dorm. In Abbott Hall as a proctor team, we are going to reach out to our day students and make sure they feel welcomed, because that is part of the Exeter experience whether you’re a day student or boarder, it’s nice to have the dorm support system to rely on,” Abelmann said. “I think it’s a good decision. It makes sense with COVID protocols, and I wish it had been done earlier.”
Many day students expressed opinions regarding the community’s COVID safety concerns surrounding day students. “I think it’s important to be concerned about potential COVID risks and to hold day students accountable to avoiding those risks as much as they can, but at the same time it’s unfair to suggest further alienating day students from Exeter,” Page said. “It is impossible to create a perfect, risk-free bubble around PEA. There will always be a variable that we can’t account for (faculty, their families, employees, food deliverers, etc.). All we can do is try our best to control that risk and support each other.”
“Questioning the place of 20% of the student body isn’t the right way to do that. Now that a lot of the day student population is eligible to be vaccinated, the chance that we’ll bring the virus to school is greatly reduced so hopefully that will change the current attitude around day students’ presence on campus,” Page continued.
Prep day student Natalie Welling similarly highlighted student fears around day students considering the COVID risk their movement to and from campus poses. “It's interesting to me how quick people have been to criticize day students,” Welling said. “Yet nobody has criticized any faculty living off-campus. While I do not want to invalidate anyone's concerns, most day students that I know are giving up a lot in order to keep campus safe, and it doesn't seem fair to act as if we do not have the same rights to be here as everyone else does.”
“It's also odd to me how everyone has always been allowed into the library, and yet we are just being allowed into common rooms. One would think that the commons rooms are really not that different from any other building, and keeping day students out just feels like one more way we are being excluded from campus life,” Welling continued.
Abelmann also reflected on other policies around building access in relation to the opening up of common rooms. “I think [allowing day students into common rooms] makes a lot of sense,” Abelmann said. “If I can be with day students, masked, in a classroom or room in EPAC with the door closed, I don’t understand why I can’t do the same thing in a dorm setting as long as social distancing and mask wearing are being done properly.”
Prep day student Kate Rose shared experiences of receiving criticism for being a day student. “I have been told many times that I am putting people at risk and that day students are the reason that the virus is getting to the school,” Rose said. “This is so false, because as a day student I can say that we spend 90% time on campus, we aren't socializing with big groups of people outside campus on the weekends. The other ten percent we are at home doing homework and spending time with our families. There is way too much paranoia surrounding day students and the risk they bring.”
“As a day student I do not spend time with people outside school regularly, and I do not attend group activities like club sports… Sometimes I feel like boarders look down on day students and think that we are the risk. I have had people be flat out rude to me several times because I am a day student,” Rose continued.
Prep day student Advay Nomula empathized with boarder concerns on COVID-19 safety with day students. “I think the conversation [around COVID safety] is very valid, and if I was a boarder, I would be scared too,” Nomula said. “I’m actually surprised the school is allowing day students in the dorms, but at least they’re limiting it to only Fridays and Saturdays… I am not going anywhere other than campus and home. This is just helping with keeping the bubble more secure.”
Reale shared similar thoughts. “I think it's a valid concern that day students are introducing more risk into the community. But I also think that it's not reasonable to expect these students to completely go to measures that don't make sense. For example, I know people have suggested day students should wear masks in their own home, which seems a little excessive,” Reale said. “I think that at some point we just have to trust in the day students’ sense of responsibility and their ability to make good decisions, and also in the testing protocol that's been set up. I don't go out much, and when I do go out, I always take the standard precautions: wear a mask, maintain distance.”
Page emphasized that day students are following precautions strictly to minimize exposure to COVID risks. “I’m taking all the precautions that I can feasibly take. I wear a mask in public, I try to limit my interactions with people outside of the PEA community or my family, and I follow social distancing guidelines,” Page said. “Many of the day students that I’ve spoken with are doing the same. We all know what’s at stake and are conscious of our unique position in the community.”