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SUNY Oswego president says more coronavirus testing needed to make better plans

Tom Magnarelli
/
WRVO Public Media
SUNY Oswego.

SUNY Oswego President Deborah Stanley said she was somewhat surprised when Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that all SUNY and CUNY campuses were switching to online classes for the remainder of the semester. 

“We had not really anticipated moving directly to the end of the semester, we were going to take a look at it in increments,” Stanley said. “As we know now, with guidance that has come out of the governor’s office and SUNY, after the governor’s announcement, we can move in a more incremental fashion.”

Spring break is next week. After that, SUNY Oswego and several other colleges and universities in central New York, are moving from in-person to online classes, for at least a few weeks. President Stanley said they will be reassessing whether to switch back to face-to-face classes after April 13. But she said the major issue has been not enough testing of the coronavirus.

“We don’t know what actions are really necessary,” Stanley said. “So, we are moving with fairly extreme actions to maintain the virus. Once testing becomes more ubiquitous and we can ascertain what is the level of disease is in our community, we can make better plans.”

SUNY Oswego students will be allowed to stay on campus for spring break, and can come back to campus after the break, if they want. Stanley said they are looking into how many labs might remain open, as well as courses like music, art and theater that might be exempted, because there is not a large gathering of students.   

Graduation, she said, is still up in the air, but they are looking at other ideas, like possibly breaking it up into smaller groups.

Tom Magnarelli is a reporter covering the central New York and Syracuse area. He joined WRVO as a freelance reporter in 2012 while a student at Syracuse University and was hired full time in 2015. He has reported extensively on politics, education, arts and culture and other issues around central New York.