Bridgewater, Va. – The usual $35 per night fee for students to stay on campus during breaks has been waived for Fall Break 2020, giving more students the option to stay on campus.

The fee waiver was announced in an email to students from Suzanne Mullins on Sept. 21. Students interested in staying on campus were asked to fill out a form by Sept. 28, to help Residence Life know who will be on campus for safety reasons. 

Typically during breaks, campus amenities such as the dining hall and the Funkhouser Center are closed. However, because of the number of students who chose to stay during break, the KCC Main Dining Hall, Funkhouser Center, and Forrer Learning Commons will all be open, operating on reduced hours.  

Vice President for Student Life & Dean of Students Leslie Frere shared the reason for the fee being waived. “The reality is we just wanted to make it more flexible for students, in the interest of public health, to be able to stay if going home didn’t feel like the best option for them and their family,” said Frere. 

According to Frere, there are around 142 students who have filled out the form to stay on campus. However, because the form was not required, there may be additional students staying on campus over break. There will be eight RAs and one SRA on campus, in addition to a professional Residence Life staff member on call.  

This number of students is significantly lower than typical, according to Frere. In a normal semester, fall sports teams would be staying on campus over break for competitions, resulting in “upwards of maybe 400 students,” said Frere.

For junior Austin Bacon, both coronavirus concerns and the fee waiver played a large role in his decision to stay on campus during break. “I don’t feel the need to risk getting either infected from going home or bring anything I might possibly have home with me,” said Bacon. “If the fees weren’t waived, I would have gone home.”

Senior Ben Williams typically stays at friends’ houses during breaks, so the fee waiver provided a better alternative. “Now I don’t have to worry about maybe bringing something, a disease like corona, to other people’s houses,” said Williams. “I do have a five-year-old nephew who lives with us, so I really don’t want to bring anything to him.”  

In an effort to provide activities to keep students engaged, CEAT will be hosting Virtual Bingo on Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. over Fall Break.