Numerous Point Loma Nazarene University students packed up their belongings Friday and headed home after they were told they must vacate the campus by the evening in wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter posted Monday by university President Bob Brower assured students that there were no cases of COVID-19 on campus, but is forcing non-essential students to leave campus out of an abundance of caution by 10 p.m. Friday.
COVID-19
“Given the availability of remote learning and continued guidance from state and federal officials as recently as this afternoon, we have made the difficult decision to close residence halls, with limited exceptions,” Brower said.
Beginning Monday, courses will be available for students online. Although their education will continue remotely, some students say this is an emotional time because their senior year was disrupted.
“I knew I’d be packing up my things and leaving and then as soon as I did, like as soon as that kind of became real, I became super sad and super mad,” senior journalism major Jenna Miller told NBC 7. “I was like, this just cut everything short and I’m not getting my senior year.”
“It was just kind of like very abrupt and it happened all within a few days,” Miller said. “And so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to process everything, so it definitely kind of hit in different waves throughout the week, but it was not great.”
The university will allow for a limited number of students who have personal or financial hardship or employment reasons to stay at school to remain on campus, Brower said. An application to petition to remain at the PLNU campus is available online. It will be approved on a case by case basis.
San Diego State University students were also removed from campus in wake of the pandemic.
