WASHINGTON — College students are heading back to campus following more than two years of a pandemic that led many schools to empty out for full semesters and later move to hybrid schedules in a struggle to curb the spread of COVID-19.

But the attempt by colleges and universities to return to something resembling normal could be truncated by monkeypox, the virus that has steadily increased throughout the summer, 

Higher education plans for dealing with monkeypox appear opaque or nonexistent. Schools have begun sending students information about monkeypox through websites and newsletters, but large public colleges contacted by States Newsroom were unable to explain how they’ll help students isolate or keep up with their classes during the two to four weeks they’ll be contagious if they contract monkeypox.

Case counts throughout the United States began increasing after a Massachusetts man was diagnosed on May 17 and have since  to more than 14,100 people in every state except Wyoming. The White House has declared this outbreak 

American Public Health Association Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin said colleges should be preparing for the year by assuming they’ll have monkeypox cases on campus.

“My advice to universities is that, while we’re all trying to rapidly return to normal, the truth of the matter is they ought to have contingencies to provide support to students in a hybrid manner,” such as providing options for online study, he said in an interview. “Anybody who’s not making plans for that is going to find themselves deeply disappointed.”

Student health centers and health care providers that regularly treat college students should become extremely familiar with how the rashes and lesions are presenting in this monkeypox outbreak, he said.

“Rashes are high on the list of what people see in the student health centers,” Benjamin said. “The vast majority of those will be rashes for a range of other relatively benign conditions, but they want to make sure they’re really up to speed on the early phases of monkeypox.”

Preparation is key, he said. “There’s nothing to say they’ll have big outbreaks, but all schools should assume that they’re going to have somebody on their campus that has monkeypox,” Benjamin said. “The outbreak is just too widespread for that not to be the case.”

College responses vary

The virus, which is a cousin of smallpox, is characterized by a rash or lesions that can look like acne or mosquito bites. The virus can come with flu-like symptoms and painful muscle aches, though sometimes it can present with just the rash. No one in the United States has died in this monkeypox outbreak.

Unlike COVID-19, which is a respiratory virus that can spread somewhat easily from person to person, monkeypox is spread by direct physical contact with someone who has been infected. It can also spread by touching fabrics, such as bedding or towels, or surfaces an infected person has touched.

The current outbreak in the United States has spread predominantly among gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men, though cases have been diagnosed outside that population as well.

Among colleges and universities reviewed by States Newsroom, there’s no guidance about how students should address missed lectures, exams, labs, or work-study programs that might be critical for students’ financial aid. Colleges don’t offer insight on how students on academic or athletic scholarships might be affected if they miss a month of instruction, or practices due to monkeypox.

The university guidance also lacks information about how administrators will respond if several cases crop up in a dorm, or other on-campus housing.

In New Jersey, Rutgers University’s online  details what monkeypox is and how it spreads before telling students that “at this time, there is no need to take special precautions to avoid monkeypox unless you experience symptoms.”

Rutgers then directs students to the state health department and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites for more information.

A University of Maryland spokesperson shared  run by the state health department, but said in a statement, “We don’t have any particular university’s plan. This is all general information that is provided for use by all Marylanders.”

The University of Georgia, where students are already back on campus ahead of the fall semester, says on its  the University Health Center’s “clinical staff are trained and fully prepared to identify any patient presenting with signs and symptoms consistent with monkeypox infection.”

The University of Iowa  students who believe they have monkeypox to call the student health nurseline or seek care from their health care provider.

“Due to the length of the isolation period (2-4 weeks), students living in a residence hall will be expected to isolate off-campus until they are healed,” the website says. “In the rare event this is not possible, the University of Iowa will work with students to obtain alternative housing.”

Students at Iowa living off-campus should “take precautions to limit exposure to others living in the same household,” according to the university.

The University of Michigan’s  notes the “Public Health Response team has been closely monitoring the evolving situation with monkeypox — or MPV — and its potential impact on the U-M community.”

The University of Florida , sent out this week, plainly tells students the “overwhelming majority of cases in the U.S. have been transmitted through intimate sexual contact.”

“It is important that you consider this in deciding how widely to engage in intimate activities,” it says.

A spokesperson for the University of Florida said the student health center plans to “increased promotion of health hygiene and safe sex messaging” to try to reduce spread.

Still working on plans

Rachel Mack, spokesperson for the American College Health Association, said in a statement that “many colleges are still working on their plans to prevent and manage monkeypox outbreaks.”

At the moment, she said, “there isn’t much guidance specifically for colleges and universities,” including on how to address “unique considerations” like isolating students, making academic accommodations for students who contract the virus, providing extra cleaning and administering testing.

Colleges are working to come up with the best way to communicate with students effectively, she said.

“Because currently the virus is primarily affecting gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, some students may feel very fearful — or even stigmatized — while other students may mistakenly believe there is no risk to themselves,” Mack said.

Since anyone can contract monkeypox, Mack emphasized that colleges “should communicate it as a public health concern for all. However, campus communications can be tailored to different audiences to be most effective.”

Benjamin said student health centers need to understand how to access the antiviral drug Tpoxx that federal officials are using to treat monkeypox cases. At the moment, the federal government requires an “onerous” amount of paperwork to dispense the prescription medication for monkeypox patients, he said.

Universities, Benjamin said, will need to determine how they’ll isolate students who test positive and how they’ll ensure those students can keep up with their coursework.

Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the current monkeypox outbreak has spread “further and wider than it ever had before” because the virus “found itself in a social/sexual network and really exploited those network effects.”

Colleges and universities, he said, should be able to keep cases at bay if they follow some best practices. That includes explaining the virus during orientation, preparing the student health center to test and get test results quickly, planning for the complicated process required to order the antiviral being used to treat monkeypox, providing a bridge between students and the health departments distributing the vaccine and having a plan in place to isolate students who test positive.

“It’s something that universities have to be proactive about because it’s likely that they’re going to have people that have cases on their campuses,” Adalja said. “And I think if they’re managed swiftly and competently, you won’t have much sustained spread.”

Mark O’Neill, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said in a statement that “while everyone should be aware of the presence of monkeypox, most individuals, including college students, are at low risk of contracting monkeypox as the disease does not spread easily between people.”

The CDC, he writes, “maintains that people who contract monkeypox typically have skin-to-skin contact, direct contact with body fluids, or prolonged face-to-face contact with someone who already has monkeypox.”

Those three things, however, could make up a typical Saturday night for some college students, especially if they don’t realize they have monkeypox.

Some states, though, are moving ahead on plans. Kevin Litten, spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Health, said staff are meeting with “higher education leaders and student body presidents next week to provide an update on the monkeypox outbreak, our response and the latest guidance and a communications toolkit.”

“We see these materials as a starting point for their own education and awareness-raising efforts on campuses,” he said.

Monkeypox transmission

CDC Director Rochelle Walenskythat 98% of monkeypox cases are in men and that “among cases with known recent sexual history and gender, 93% of cases were among men who reported recent sexual contact with other men.”

Monkeypox is transmissible from the time symptoms begin through when the rash has completely disappeared and a new layer of skin has formed, a trajectory that typically lasts between two and four weeks.

That timeline, much longer than with COVID-19, could create significant problems for students, many of whom don’t have remote classes anymore and would likely miss much of their coursework.

College students also often live in crowded houses and apartments where completely avoiding contact with someone who tests positive or all the fabrics they may have touched could be especially challenging.

The federal government began the outbreak as the only entity allowed to test for monkeypox, but has since opened up testing to commercial laboratories.

Vaccine demand high

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began distributing the Jynneos vaccine, which requires two doses, to state health departments earlier this summer.

Guidance for who is eligible has evolved as cases have increased.

At the moment, the CDC recommends vaccination for people who are identified as a close contact of a person diagnosed with monkeypox. People who have had a sexual partner from the past two weeks test positive are eligible, as are people with multiple sexual partners in an area with monkeypox cases. Anyone whose job might expose them to monkeypox, such as a healthcare or laboratory worker, is also eligible.

But demand has far outpaced supply in many areas, leading the federal government to announce earlier this month that it would for injecting the vaccine just under the skin, or intradermally.

The move away from injecting the vaccine subcutaneously, below the layers of fat in the arm the way most people have experienced, is expected to allow health care providers to get up to five doses out of each vial instead of one.

Benjamin said the United States is behind on distributing the vaccine.

“We have an inadequate number of vaccines, overall. Our pipeline is very thin,” he said, adding that “the manufacturer has already said they’re not sure they can keep up with the demand.”

Adalja was highly critical of the federal government’s response to monkeypox so far, saying “it should have been easier to get a handle on” the virus had there not been “systemic incompetence that you see in the government.”

“The federal response has been dismal from the very beginning, because what you’ve seen is a response that’s very reminiscent of the same mistakes that were made during COVID-19,” he said.

Adalja, however, is optimistic that colleges and universities have learned enough from their COVID-19 experiences as well as from meningitis outbreaks on campus to keep monkeypox from becoming widespread among students.

“I think that there’s a risk on college campuses, that there’s going to be cases and they may see some limited spread,” Adalja said. “But it’s not going to be a disruptive force in the way COVID-19 was on college campuses.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and

The state Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s 26 public universities, voted Tuesday to change their institutions’ free speech policies to bring them in line with state legislation.

The new policy largely does away with so-called campus free speech zones, areas of the campus open to protests and rallies. The zones are a relatively new concept in Georgia that has come under fire in recent years, especially with religious and conservative groups, who say the idea curtails First Amendment rights and opens the state up to lawsuits.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former Georgia Gwinnett College student who was prevented from handing out religious literature on campus.

Under the change, set to go into effect July 1, members of the campus community — students, faculty, staff and invited guests — can have access to outdoor parts of campus for protests. Schools will have the ability to set certain restrictions such as disallowing late-night demonstrations outside a residence hall, but these restrictions cannot be based on the content of the speech.

People who are not part of the campus community can be restricted to specific high-traffic parts of the campus and made to comply with other restrictions, including the requirement to make reservations.

“Clearly, the Board of Regents is trying to thread the needle here with allowing free speech throughout the campus, without it being disruptive, and allowing people to make their case in a way that supports what all institutions of higher learning should support, which is free and open discussion of ideas,” said Richard T. Griffiths, president emeritus of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.

Others say some campus protests are less about the open exchange of ideas and more about threats and intimidation. While the idea was in the Legislature, concern it could embolden fringe groups who go beyond distasteful speech to harrass students based on their race, religion or sexual orientation.

Georgia Tech student Alex Ames said she and classmates sometimes travel the campus in groups to protect each other from vitriolic protesters, who are particularly prone to shouting down Muslim, Jewish or LGBT students.

Ames said some of the distasteful demonstrations have been at the request of student groups, which means they could have free rein of campus in the future.

“Now there aren’t really places on campus where marginalized students can be safe from these extremist groups showing up,” Ames said. “And USG’s policy doesn’t just mean that students and faculty and staff can go on campus, it also means that outside, invited groups, like these extremist groups, you know, the ones that hold signs that say “Muslim people will go to hell,” or use slurs referring to LGBTQ students as they walk around, now, those groups could go across campus.”

Griffiths called the Regents’ plan to open campuses up to people who live or work there while maintaining restrictions on outsiders a nuanced and appropriate solution. 

“Free speech is one of the great rights in our Constitution,” he said. “But as with all our great rights, we have to balance our rights against the rights of others, and it’s a beautiful thing when it works well, and a challenge when it doesn’t, but ultimately, it is free exchange of ideas in a setting that is respectful and open to dialogue that allows our society to move forward.”

For times when the dialogue is not open and respectful, college leaders need to make sure marginalized students who are being harassed have a way to report it and that administrators are able to respond — that only seems right when students are paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend classes, Ames said.

“It shouldn’t be on students to have to go out of their way to protest and keep each other safe when you’re paying tuition to be there,” she said. “And you should be able to walk across campus as a Muslim student or as a queer student without being harassed on your way to class. That’s the university’s responsibility to us.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

From nine stories high, she can gaze down at a sun-smothered, urban Arizona sprawl featuring a school she began serving in 1981 – the top of an auditorium here, her last faculty office there.

The former political science professor is so fond of Arizona State University that she retired on campus.

“One of my former professors said, ‘Stay on campus as long as you possibly can. … Because those students will keep you young,’” she recalls. “I realized the wisdom in what he said.”

Dr. Jones lives in a high-end, intergenerational senior living residence that opened on the Tempe campus last year. With perks like access to classes and campus IDs, Mirabella at ASU is billed as an immersive alternative to traditional lifelong learning. Retirees here are convinced they have more to give, rejecting a mindset of decline for one of usefulness and growth.

Take Karen Busch, for example. She’s embracing life at Mirabella after tough pandemic months and the death of her husband.

“I feel now like I have a much better purpose again to life,” says the senior with spiked, rose-colored hair. 

Christine Hudman Pardy had achieved the artist’s dream: a passion-filled career and financial stability. But when the pandemic hit and she lost it all, she turned inward to face her external circumstances.

But seniors aren’t the only ones benefiting.

Intergenerational living: A two-way street

Pencie Culiver and Deven Meyers both wear thick watches on their left wrists. At Mirabella’s street-level bistro one October afternoon, they joke around as if pals forever – no matter their ages are decades apart.

Mrs. Culiver, a Mirabella resident, shared burgers with her future husband at ASU football games in the ’60s. Now back living on campus, she and Ms. Meyers, an ASU student, sometimes do double dates.  

“She energizes me. She gives me hope for the future,” says Mrs. Culiver of her new friend. 

“Honestly, it’s just fun to hear her stories,” says the business health care major.

They were paired through an intergenerational “pen pal program,” though they prefer meetups over missives. As director of lifelong university engagement, Lindsey Beagley is tasked with promoting such cross-campus exchanges.

“I do think part of my job is to challenge assumptions on both sides, right? About the different generations,” she says.

Mirabella’s sleek 20-story tower opened its doors last December. Surrounded by traffic and eateries, it sits on the urban edge of the Tempe campus, which hosts roughly 55,000 students. U.S. News and World Report  for innovation.

“We believe strongly at ASU in the idea that we should all be lifelong learners,” says Morgan Olsen, executive vice president, treasurer, and chief financial officer of the school.

Mirabella’s couple-hundred residents, ages 62 and older, are largely white and presumably well-off. (Entrance fees range from $382,400 to over a million dollars, on top of monthly service fees up to $7,800.) Some residents have moved there from across the country, while several have ties to the university as alumni or former employees, like Dr. Jones, who mentions enjoying an undergrad course on world religions and recreational art classes at Mirabella.

“They say to get outside your comfort zone,” she says at home, enthroned on a yellow leather recliner. “No greater discomfort than taking a watercolor class.”

By staying on campus, Dr. Jones also gets to witness her professional legacy unfurl. As the first tenured woman in the political science department as well as the first to serve as its chair, she recruited several women to ASU during her career – a point of pride for the retiree.

“It’s not hard to recruit good women,” she says. “It’s hard to create the environment that will help them succeed,” adding that she maintains casual meetups with some of the women still there. 

Down the hall lives Dr. Busch, with the short, soft-pink hair, a retired director of faculty development who moved from Michigan. This spring she launched a weekly conversation group in Spanish that she hopes more students will join.

Another Mirabella resident, Richard Ruff, who, with his wife, Janet Spirer, divides his time between here and San Diego, also connects with students on academic topics. A retired organizational psychologist, he mentored students this past semester through the Center for Entrepreneurship. Along with helping him feel purposeful, the gig afforded him welcome insight into kids these days.

“They’re scary smart,” says a gray-sweatered Dr. Ruff.

Mirabella at ASU, a 20-story retirement community, features intergenerational socializing and lifelong learning opportunities. Mirabella’s Executive Director Tom Dorough believes interactions across generations can help chip away at ageism.

A growth path for campuses?

Older adults seek three things, says Andrew Carle, a senior living and aging industry consultant: “They’re looking for active, they’re looking for intellectually stimulating, and they’re looking for intergenerational retirement environments. And basically, I just described a college campus.”

One  counts around 100 higher ed-affiliated retirement sites. But Mr. Carle, who coined the term “university-based retirement communities” (UBRCs), says only three or four dozen projects meet most of his criteria.

The ASU model is unusual for its on-campus location and close affiliation with the school, he adds. Boston-area Lasell Village is another example, where residents on Lasell University’s campus  to at least 450 hours of enrichment a year.

Given declining enrollments – and potentially more empty buildings if virtual learning expands – UBRCs can increase campus-based revenue, Mr. Carle argues.

“I said to one university president … ‘You can hopefully start giving birth to baby geniuses who start college at age 5, or you can recycle your old customers.’”

ASU leases the nearly 2-acre site to a joint venture managed by Pacific Retirement Services. The 99-year land lease cost around $7 million up front, plus the joint venture pays a semiannual fee.

As a life plan community, Mirabella offers multiple levels of care. Beyond the 238 independent living residences, a few dozen units are dedicated to assisted living, skilled nursing, and memory care, though the latter hasn’t opened yet due to industry-wide staffing shortages.

Other growing pains stem from its location. In October, Mirabella filed a lawsuit against Shady Park, a live music venue across the street, asking Maricopa County Superior Court for an injunction to keep it from emitting noise above local limits. 

Mirabella alleges the venue’s noise and vibrations have caused “substantial personal harm” to residents, though the city says the venue, which predates Mirabella, hasn’t been cited for noise violations. A judge denied Mirabella’s request for a temporary restraining order last month.

“Discovery is ongoing but we are confident that when the facts are developed they will confirm that the sound created by music at Shady Park is reasonable and appropriate,” emailed Shady Park spokesman David Leibowitz.

Despite some friction, having both retirees and college-age concertgoers wanting to call Tempe home is “a great problem to have,” says Deputy City Manager Rosa Inchausti.

Senior advocates agree that the benefits of proximity outweigh the hiccups.

Counteracting ageism

Mirabella’s Executive Director Tom Dorough believes interactions across generations can help chip away at ageism.

“For whatever reason, in Western culture, we kind of push older adults to the side like they’re no longer useful,” he says. “The more intergenerational opportunities that we have where we’re connecting younger adults to older adults, I think the better the understanding is.”

To encourage that interaction, Mirabella pays room and board for four student musicians-in-residence. In exchange, they dedicate at least two hours a week to performance or other programming, like lessons. 

At a late-summer Mirabella happy hour, musician-in-residence Michelle Kim was playing the piano when she says a man encouraged her to choose a favorite tune of her own. A couple months later, she still recalls the group’s applause as her fingers sank into the opening keys of “Autumn Leaves.”

“They’re so compassionate,” says Ms. Kim, who’s pursuing a doctorate of musical arts. After months limited by COVID-19, “it’s so nice to have a regular audience – and your fans.”

“I’m just so grateful to work with the residents,” she adds. “They’re literally like my grandparents.”

It’s a familiarity similar to what Ms. Meyers and Mrs. Culiver share. As they prepare to leave the Mirabella bistro, the two mention a plan to reunite for sandwiches soon.

Then they hug goodbye.

This originally appeared at  and is published here in partnership with the .