Photo courtesy of Genevieve Kuhlmann.
The class of 2025 is coming. On March 18, students across campus received an email from Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Andy Strickler with an update on campus life. The email read, “Beginning next Monday, March 22, students in the Class of 2025 will be able to tour campus in limited numbers. We are excited to give them this opportunity to see the campus in person—and much of the credit for that goes to you and your efforts to keep the campus safe.” Like many students, I was excited about the prospect of another element of campus life returning to normal. The College just completed its fourth week in Alert Level Green and COVID cases have remained relatively low among students and college employees this semester. At the time of this article’s publication, the College has administered over 21,000 COVID tests and has a positivity rate of 0.07%, with only 16 cases since Feb. 1. But I had questions about how Conn would continue to keep our campus safe and remain in Alert Level Green while resuming tours of the college.
Last fall, traditional tours were not conducted. Instead, people applying to Conn were allowed to drive through the campus and were told to remain in their cars at all times. Drive-through tours were limited to thirty minutes and were only to be done during business hours: 9 am to 4:30 p.m. “The tour guides have been conducting virtual tours titled ‘Coffee with a Camel’ since the beginning of the Fall semester. We were informed at the end of January 2021 of the possibility of in-person tours returning. The return of in-person tours was confirmed on Feb. 16 and we have met through Zoom with the tour guide coordinator twice over the past two weeks to talk about the logistics of in-person tours this semester,” wrote tour guide Brian Speers ‘22 in an email.
Conn is employing thirty-four tour guides this semester and the Office of Admissions is considering hiring more guides for the fall. Tour guides do not have to give in-person tours if they do not feel comfortable doing so, and are given the option to continue conducting virtual tours if they so choose. “Each tour guide that chooses to participate in in-person tours will give an in-person tour once a week. Each guide is assigned a weekly time and then they also have the ability to sign up for extra tours on Saturdays,” Speers continued, “Tours run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (and on select Saturdays) and there are 3 tour time slots per day. On each of these days, there is a 10:30 am time slot, a 1:00 pm, and a 3:00 pm.”
Prospective first-years on tours this spring will only be allowed to bring a single guest and will have to provide a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours upon their arrival. If they cannot produce one then they will not be able to come to campus. Only twelve people are allowed on each time slot for a tour. There will be three tour guides per time slot and tour guides will only be assigned to two students and their respective guests. While pre-COVID tours visited campus buildings such as Cummings, New London Hall, Harris Dining Hall, the Plex, a dorm room, and the Crozier Williams Student Center, tours will now only enter the Shain Library vestibule. The rest of the tour will be conducted outdoors.
“I am very excited for in-person tours to start again. I have always loved showing off our campus and meeting prospective students. It is also exciting because many of the accepted students in the class of 2025 have most likely not been able to visit campus yet due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, I am hopeful that the in-person tours will help many of the accepted students make their decision on whether or not to commit to attending Conn,” Speers concluded.
“My primary concern is making sure that OUR community remains safe. The LAST thing I want is to introduce risk (via Covid) to our community in a way that will make any of our students, faculty or staff at greater risk,” wrote Dean Strickler, “Feel free to tell other students to reach out to me with any questions or concerns. This stuff only works if we are all communicating and on the same page regarding health and safety.” You can reach Dean Strickler at astrickl@conncoll.edu and the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid at admission@conncoll.edu with any questions you may have.
