Senate reports on Trigger Level 1 update

In a meeting with the presidents and vice presidents of the Undergraduate Councils, Vice President for Student Life Peter Konwerski provided justification for the raising of the Trigger Level 1 case threshold. Undergraduate Council Chairperson Ketu Patel ’24 explained to the Senate that it was raised to 250 people “because most of the cases [of COVID-19] were off-campus.” Class of 2025 Senator Ben Hadad ’25 questioned what would happen if the case count exceeded 250 people. Patel said “they didn’t tell us anything about it being re-evaluated again,” but also mentioned that the Undergraduate Council did not ask.

Grand Marshal Cait Bennett ’22 explained that the test re-evaluation is based on how many cases are from people on-campus versus those who are not: “If there [are] off-campus people who are the majority of cases, [RPI] can still house people on-campus if they have cases.” This is because Rensselaer does not require off-campus students who test positive for COVID-19 to isolate in quarantine housing. “If the rate of off-campus versus on-campus positive [cases] remains the same, [the Trigger Level 1 threshold] won’t go up,” Bennett continued. “If it is suddenly that all positive students are on-campus, it might go down.”

Patel added that until February 28, events can only be under 100 people. After that, events can hold over 100 people. Graduate Senator Zach Barringer explained that the positive rate was lower than Student Life expected. Because of this, Student Life projections showed that moving events to allow over 100 people is “no more risky” than having 100 people for events, as was the case in the Fall. Furthermore, athletes will continue to test twice a week as was the case in the Fall.

The Senate meets Tuesday at 8 pm in the Shelnutt Gallery.