As cases continue to rise at Boston University and across the country, Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore wrote to students Friday asking the community to “do better” and to comply with the Massachusetts stay-at-home advisory that took effect Friday night.
BU encourages students to stay home between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. — as per the Commonwealth’s advisory — the email reads.
Exceptions are allowed for essential needs such as grocery shopping or emergencies, and going to or from work or school, according to Elmore’s email. For BU students, exemptions may include traveling to or from classrooms, libraries, labs and other locations on campus that remain open past 10 p.m.
The Fitness and Recreation Center will remain open as usual, but the advisory will require certain club sport practices be rescheduled or canceled.
Dining halls will also remain mostly unchanged. However, Late Nite Cafés at the West Campus and Warren Towers dining halls now provide strictly take-out service.
“What we do outside of our classes, labs, and public spaces in our homes and with our friends and loved ones matter,” Elmore wrote. “If we want to continue to share in this in-person, Boston experience, we must do better, and we can do better”
Jason Campbell-Foster, senior associate dean of students, said restaurants across campus that lease from BU will also change hours to comply with a 9:30 p.m. — or earlier — close time, excluding take-out.
The University will also look into limiting spaces from being reserved for events and meetings after 9:30 p.m., Campbell-Foster said, to allow people to return home by 10 p.m.
Campbell-Foster said students can still “roam around campus” as needed, but that they should try as often as possible to be at their residence by 10 p.m.
He added the University will not directly punish students who violate the advisory, but it will monitor violations carefully.
“We are really going to be mindful of people who might chronically be, and openly flouting those policies,” Campbell-Foster said. “We will probably take a different approach for non-compliant students in that case.”
Campbell-Foster said the mandates extend beyond BU’s rulings.
“We’re looking for flexibility for understanding from students that this is a provision that we cannot ignore and it’s really not flexible for us,” Campbell-Foster said, “given that we are citizens of Commonwealth.”
Melissa Ellin contributed to the reporting of this article.
