ECU PARENTS UPDATE — MARCH 17

ECU Parents:

On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, your ECU student will be receiving a very important communication about the next steps related to COVID-19 and the impacts on their on-campus housing situation.

The communication will be sent to all students living in residence halls at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning to each student’s ECU email account. Please encourage them to regularly check their ECU student email account throughout the coming days for additional updates.

This message to you tonight is a simple heads up so that you will understand the email to your student and its intention. As a reminder, all ECU residence halls will officially close on March 25, 2020 at 3 p.m.

Wednesday’s communication will provide three options for each student: 1) move out of the residence hall completely between March 19-25; 2) not return to campus and leave student’s belongings in their room; or 3) apply for an exception to remain living in the residence halls.

Let us explain each option a bit further to help ease some of your possible questions:

• Move out of the residence hall completely between March 19-25
  • Your student is NOT being forced to come back to the halls and move out. For people that have a long distance to travel, don’t want to travel at all due to exposure risks or want to practice safe social distancing, you do NOT have to move your student out of the residence halls at this time.
  • If you do need to come back and move them out, your student will need to complete the form linked in the Wednesday email to select a day/time they want to move out. Please coordinate with them about the selection before they complete the form.
  • Note — if you do plan to come back to move your student out, we would strongly encourage using non-peak times (e.g. mornings, evenings) to complete the move-out process.
  • Finally, any persons assisting with the move-out process should NOT be currently experiencing any fever, cough or shortness of breath symptoms. They won’t be allowed on campus if they have traveled to CDC Level 3 countries or been in close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case.
• Not returning to campus and leaving student’s belongings in their room
  • Any student choosing not to move out of their room between March 19-25 will have their residence hall room secured by Campus Living staff.
  • Students will be contacted in the next several weeks about the process to be able to return to campus, likely in early May, to complete the move-out process.
  • Note — Campus Living staff will be coming through all rooms in every residence hall to check on items left in freezers/refrigerators and dispose of anything left inside these items for health precautions.
  • Access will not be granted to the residence halls after March 25 for any reason so the items left in the room will not be available until a future move-out date is identified.
• Apply for an exception to remain living in the residence halls.
  • Some students have extraordinary circumstances that might require them to remain in the residence halls. ECU is hopeful that this number will be extremely low.
  • Students who want to stay will need to complete an application for an exception to stay that will be reviewed for approval based on the case-by-case circumstances.
  • Note — students that are approved with an exception may be moved out of their existing residence hall space and consolidated into one or two residence halls in one location on campus. Additionally, some campus resources will be very limited, and others will not be available at all during the remainder of the semester.

ECU will continue to provide information to our students and our parents as we want to keep you informed. Following Wednesday’s communication, please connect with your student to discuss next steps and options.

Of note — many parents have asked questions about residence hall and dining refunds options. ECU is waiting for guidance from the UNC System, which manages all 16 university campuses in the system including ECU, to determine what actions will be taken. We have been informed that this decision is not expected from the UNC System Office until sometime in April.

Thank you for your patience, understanding and cooperation during this difficult time.