COLLEGE PARK, Md. — With Monday marking the return of in-person learning at the University of Maryland, local leaders and business owners said they remained cautiously optimistic as the fall semester gets set to enter a new phase.
Starting next week, around 15% of undergraduate classes will hold in-person lessons on campus.
For longtime College Park landlord Lisa Miller, the return to the classrooms brought another sign of life slowly getting back to normal.
"I do feel like it’s a toe in the water," she said on Friday. "Every little inch is a helpful step forward.”
Over the summer, Miller said that more students chose to come back to College Park and move into their homes compared to other years. After speaking and meeting with tenants, she said many were excited for the new semester.
"In general, most people wanted to come back even if there was not any in-person class," she said. "They wanted to be around their friends. They wanted to have some semblance of a college experience.”
With the fall semester now happening as the pandemic continues to unfold, Miller said the situation has led to plenty of phone calls from parents and making sure her renters are aware of the latest guidelines.
"We make house rules. We go over the consequences of not doing it," she said. "I spent a lot of time on the phone talking to parents and talking to students answering questions and figuring this out.”
On Friday, College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn said the return of in-person classes brought a small sign of progress.
"It is a step towards going back to normal," he said. "I think there’s no question that learning in person is better than learning virtually, but there’s only limited circumstances when it can be done safely and I think the university has recognized that limited to those circumstances.”
When asked by WUSA9 if he agreed with the decision for limited in-person learning at the University of Maryland, Wojahn said it was important for the school to carefully monitor coronavirus data and testing.
"It is what it is," he said. "It’s very limited and given that I think it’s acceptable. As long as the reopening is done in a very careful and thought-out way, I think it’s acceptable to open on a limited basis.”
As of Friday night, over 100 coronavirus tests done on the University of Maryland campus had come back positive in the month of September.
The school's official dashboard tracking the pandemic also showed that 62% of on-campus quarantine and isolation housing was unoccupied.