Important Information for Campus Residents Regarding Packing

This message was sent on April 14, 2020

Hello –

I hope you and yours are well and are navigating the COVID-19 situation as best you can. At Wake Forest, we continue to have to make unprecedented adaptations to our normal operations, and I am writing today to update you on a process that does not currently affect you but we wanted you to have this information in the spirit of transparency.

Each summer, we schedule important maintenance and repair projects in our residence halls, which begins as students vacate their rooms. This summer, some of that planned work will take place in Bostwick and Johnson halls. This work was scheduled to begin as you all moved out of the residence halls around May 9th. Our work on Bostwick and Johnson must move forward as scheduled.

Herein lies the problem: North Carolina is on a stay-at-home order through April 29th and Winston-Salem has extended their stay-at-home order until May 7. Public health officials anticipate that peak infection in Winston-Salem will take place in the second and third weeks of April. This landscape means that we cannot safely invite anyone to return to their rooms to pack belongings, as would be our (and your) preference. So we are now faced with the difficult necessity of having to pack up student rooms in Bostwick, Johnson, and move the students currently in Bostwick and Johnson into the apartments in Polo (which will necessitate packing up a small number of rooms in Polo).

While this plan does not involve you or your belongings, we wanted to make you aware of what was happening on campus. We do not have any information on what the plans will be for all other residence halls, because we need to work in alignment with public health directives that will be unfolding in the coming days and weeks. We will provide an update on our plans related to other areas of campus on or before April 30th as outlined in the University’s March 30th communications.

Thank you for your extraordinary patience and flexibility during this time of crisis. As we navigate these challenges on campus, we thank you for your support and understanding from afar. We look forward to the day that we can welcome you back to Mother So Dear safely!

Best –

Matt Clifford, EdD
Assistant Vice President of Campus Life
and Dean of Residence Life and Housing