SWANNANOA, N.C. — Tucked in a mountain valley just outside Asheville, Warren Wilson College stands out among most schools in North Carolina for a couple of reasons. But most prominent for 2020 is that it managed to get through the fall semester without a single case of the coronavirus on campus.
While other schools were fighting outbreaks, and some like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and N.C. State University had to shut their campuses down, Warren Wilson managed to stay open and did not record a single case of the virus.
The biggest keys to the college’s success over the semester are the rural nature of the campus, far from population centers, and how small the student body is. Warren Wilson had 624 students for the fall, most living on campus. The school has 250 full-time faculty and staff.
The school did have one student, studying online-only, who tested positive for the virus. There was also one faculty member who had not been on campus who contracted the virus.
But just because the school is a small, rural college, doesn’t mean they’d be immune from the virus. The college offered online-only options for students (about 80 opted to stay home for the semester), required masks and social distancing, cancelled the athletics season, enacted a COVID-19 testing plan, and ended the semester early.
“Faculty had to be really creative and adaptable,” said Mary Bates, associate director for public relations. She said many classes went to a hybrid model with some online and some in-person instruction.
Many of the in-person classes moved outside to take advantage of the fall weather in the North Carolina mountains. The school set up tents for outdoor classroom space, Bates said.
Student activities looked different too, like bonfires, s’mores nights, and group hikes.
“Everyone just stepped up and did the best they could,” Bates said.
Warren Wilson is a “work college” where students work for the university to help pay their own tuition, and the curriculum is based around work and volunteer experience, which all had to be adapted to the online or socially distanced reality of the pandemic.
“The fact that we were able to have zero cases this semester is mind-blowing,” Justin Gildner, director of safety at Warren Wilson, said in a release from the school. “We took it one day at a time.”
“It’s really been an asset to be a small, rural school at this time,” Bates said in an interview with Spectrum News 1. “We really were able to isolate ourselves and stay disconnected from what was going on in wider North Carolina.”
“It really speaks to the community spirit of Warren Wilson. We really are a tight-knit community,” she said.
The college president echoed that idea of community. “I am grateful for our community, for the ways we have demonstrated courage and resilience during this challenging semester,” Warren Wilson President Lynn Morton said in a statement.
“In the end, we were able to ensure the health and safety of our campus because of the students, faculty, and staff who took the virus seriously and followed our health and safety protocols. We are extremely grateful for the sacrifices everyone made to prioritize safety this semester,” Morton said.
Beyond the success at Warren Wilson, the state’s 36 private colleges all managed to stay open through the fall semester, according to Hope Williams. She is president of the North Carolina Private Colleges and Universities, which represents the schools.
“The number one goal in all of this was to keep faculty, students and staff all safe and protected,” she said. “But also how to keep students on progression for their educational progress.”
She said each and every school she represents is a success story. “We were able to keep them on campus and complete the semester,” Williams said. “We were all hoping that would be the case, but it was not a certainty by any means.”
Students at Warren Wilson and most other schools in the state left for the semester at the start of Thanksgiving break to finish up the semester online.
While the students take their exams and get some time off, the schools are finalizing their plans for being back on campus in the spring.
Williams, through the group of 36 private colleges and universities, said administrators and public health experts are sharing what worked as the schools craft their plans to get students back on campus.
“We have learned so much during this fall semester,” she said. “Campuses will be examining everything they did in the fall — what worked, what didn’t work.”
She said most campuses will bring students back later for the Spring semester.
At Warren Wilson, students there will arrive later in January and will not get a spring break this year.
Bates said all students will be tested as they come back on campus.
The school also plans to continue safety measures like social distancing, one-way travel through hallways and have quarantine and isolation rooms available for students who may show symptoms.
But at least at Warren Wilson, Bates said she’s confident the students will be ready for another weird semester. “There was some adjustment that needed to happen but overall we were surprised by how resilient the students were and how well they did adjust,” she said.