{"id":51983,"date":"2020-08-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-students-arrive-are-greeted-with-nasal-swabs\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:58:09","slug":"fort-lewis-college-students-arrive-are-greeted-with-nasal-swabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-students-arrive-are-greeted-with-nasal-swabs\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College students arrive, are greeted with nasal swabs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jordan
Jordan Abrams, a nurse graduate from the University of Colorado Denver, performs a COVID-19 test on Ethan Wright on Thursday as he goes through the drive-thru check-in at Fort Lewis College. Students moving into resident halls are required to take the test.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Last year, college students from 47 states descended on Durango with nary a worry in the world about their annual migration.<\/p>\n

What a difference a year makes.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis College, like institutions across the world, has been busy since March adapting to the new normal brought on by COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The planning has been apparent this week, move-in week, at FLC.<\/p>\n

Drive-thru check-in<\/div>\n

\u201cWe started Monday with the drive-thru check-in. We paid a lot of attention to logistics, and it\u2019s paid off. No one\u2019s had to wait more than 30 minutes at any one time,\u201d said Jess Savage, director of admissions, speaking under one of a dozen tent awnings set up in the parking lot of Roy Dennison Memorial Field.<\/p>\n

In a drive-thru circuit, students received an orientation, an initial consultation with admissions and a meeting with student housing. Finally, before exiting the parking lot to move into their residence hall, they hit the COVID-19 testing station, where all students staying on campus were administered a nasal swab test.<\/p>\n

Ethan Wright, a freshman from Birmingham, Alabama, who will major in engineering while racing mountain bikes for the cycling team, said the FLC nasal swab test was gentler than his first test, administered by his sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was way shorter and easier. I think she was just trying to torture me,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

Southwest Colorado is new to Wright, but he\u2019s come to Colorado to snowboard for several winters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been riding since I was 3 and racing since eighth grade. So this is great \u2013 to be in the mountains on my bike,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Savage said as many as 1,400 students are expected to live in residence halls on campus or in the Durango Downtown Inn, which has been leased to provide additional space in an era of social distancing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been some movement in the last week, with students wanting online-only classes, so the final numbers may be a bit less,\u201d Savage said.<\/p>\n

After move-in week, the COVID-19 testing station will remain in the football field parking lot, offering nasal swab tests to all students from 8 a.m. to noon Mondays to Thursdays.<\/p>\n

\"Devyn
Devyn Valandra, 18, moves into a Fort Lewis College resident hall Thursday with the help of his father, Casey Valandra.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Safer on campus<\/div>\n

Belle Raleigh, sophomore border language major from Redstone, is especially pleased about precautions on campus to minimize risk from the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad testing will be available during the semester if you\u2019re exposed or if you\u2019re feeling sick,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Raleigh, who works with the city of Durango\u2019s Gametime recreation program for children 5 to 13, said she feels more secure about measures taken on campus to deal with virus than most other places.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think things can be a little more concerning off campus, where people may not be wearing masks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Asymptomatic cases likely<\/div>\n

Jeff Dupont, associate vice president for student affairs, said less than half of the 1,400 students expected to be tested had been administered nasal swabs as of Thursday morning. By noon Wednesday, no positive cases had come back.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t expect the absence of cases would last.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do expect to have some asymptomatic cases in the student community. We have students coming in from across the nation,\u201d Dupont said.<\/p>\n

If a positive case is identified, the school is prepared to quarantine the student for 14 days, Dupont said.<\/p>\n

The drive-thru testing station will come down Thanksgiving weekend, but by that time, students will have left campus, with finals week conducted all online.<\/p>\n

Patrick Fredricks, leaderships program coordinator, who organized the drive-thru check-in, said the logistics was a \u201chuge collaborative effort across campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had conversations with a lot the departments to find out what worked for them, and how we could structure things so the drive-thru worked for everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Initially, 40 FLC employees and 10 student leaders were slated to work the check-in station, but things were going so smoothly 10 employees were sent back to their usual campus duties.<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College President Tom Stritikus welcomes Keaton Ross, 18, of Alaska, as he arrives Thursday during the drive-thru check-in for students moving into residence halls.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fort
Fort Lewis College President Tom Stritikus receives a nasal swab test Thursday for COVID-19 at the check-in set up in the football field&#x2019;s parking lot.<\/span>Courtesy of Fort Lewis College<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
More time with students<\/div>\n

FLC President Tom Stritikus said some aspects of drive-thru check-in will be retained.<\/p>\n

Students were given a schedule of when to show up at the drive-thru check-in and when to move into the residence halls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will keep things like staggered move-in over six days, and a scheduled orientation gives us more time to spend with the students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Devyn Valandra, 18, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and a freshman, business management major, from Rapid City, South Dakota, on-campus learning is his preference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was worried it was going to be all online with no hands-on work, so I\u2019m excited just to be on campus. I was unsure we\u2019d even have school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Casey Valandra, Devyn\u2019s father, who helped him move, said he\u2019s not too worried about his son joining more than 3,000 other students from around the country on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried about him. He\u2019s a strong, healthy kid. He\u2019ll be fine. I\u2019m excited to have him meet new people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On-campus learning resumes next week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,132,13,28,445,3528],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-tom-stritikus"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88028,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51983\/revisions\/88028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51983"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}