Dear Brown Undergraduate Students,

I hope all of you are doing well in these early weeks of the fall semester. Some of you are studying remotely, others arrived at Brown before Labor Day, and others have recently arrived and are finishing the first week of your quiet period/quarantine. Regardless of which group you belong to, I hope you’re enjoying your classes and finding ways to stay connected to each other.

I’m writing to thank all of you who have embraced the public health practices that are so necessary during the pandemic, as well as express my concern about reports of some Brown students who are living in the Providence area but claiming “remote” status, thereby jeopardizing the health of the community.

As I’m sure you know, Brown is currently faring well with respect to COVID-19. The testing centers are up and running, and the number of students and employees who have tested positive is low. You can track Brown’s progress on our COVID-19 dashboard.

This success is a credit to how seriously the vast majority of you are taking public health guidelines. You are going to the OMAC or Davol Square to get tested, practicing frequent hand washing, wearing masks, and socializing only with small, stable groups of friends. Thank you for doing these things. It shows how much you care about each other, Brown employees—from dining service workers, to custodians, to your professors—and Providence community members. And, it makes everyone in the Brown community proud.

You may have heard about a large outbreak of COVID-19 cases at Providence College, which led to sharp restrictions on teaching and socializing, and a smaller (but still significant) outbreak at the University of Rhode Island. The experience of these institutions is instructive. The outbreaks haven’t been linked to large parties. Instead, the problem is that students weren’t keeping their social contacts limited to small, stable groups. If students socialize across multiple groups—even if those groups are small—one infection can rapidly turn into dozens or more. The lesson is to create small pods of trusted friends who commit to socializing only with each other.

Despite all of the good things I see happening on campus, I am very concerned about reports that a number of students who have signed up for “remote status”—meaning that they should be studying away from Providence—have actually returned to the area and are living in apartments around campus. Because these students are not enrolled in the testing program and may therefore spread the virus without detection, they pose a danger to the entire community and could undermine everyone’s efforts to have a healthy and successful semester.

Students in this situation are being contacted by Campus Life and informed that they must come forward and enter the testing program immediately. If you are one of these students, please let us know you are here. If you know of one of these students, please encourage them to come forward as soon as possible. Being in Providence while being registered as “remote” is a serious violation of the Campus Safety Policy, and can lead to sanctions as serious as suspension from Brown. This is a harsh consequence, but it reflects the gravity of the public health threat created by students who do not enroll in the established testing program.

Again, I am grateful to the vast majority of Brown students in the Providence area who are doing the right thing and following all of the necessary health protocols. I hope that all of you who are studying at other locations are also taking precautions to protect yourselves, your families and your communities.

None of you expected that one of the things you’d learn as a Brown student was how to live safely during a pandemic. I hope that, after COVID-19 is behind us, you never have to worry about social distancing or mask wearing again. But I also hope that the broader lesson—of how important it is to care for and protect others—stays with you always.

Sincerely,
Christina H. Paxson
President