With campuses closing down across Ohio due to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), students are being asked to move out of their dorms and return home.

The University of Akron is one of these campuses, leaving students with several questions: What are the preparations and procedures students need to know? What precautions are being taken to keep safety as a priority?

When the email announcement of closing dorms was sent on March 20, Residence Life and Housing asked students to take a survey to determine who already moved out and who still needed to move out plus turning in their keys.

Once the status of students was determined, Residence Life and Housing sent a link where students could set up a two-hour appointment between March 30 and April 10 to gather belongings and turn in room keys.

Keeping safety in mind, only 10 students with a minimum of two additional people are allowed to be moving things out of each dorm building at a time, with social distancing of six feet encouraged at all times.  

Students are also encouraged to bring their own moving equipment, in addition to the available shopping carts. Sanitizing stations have been created to clean the shopping carts before and after use.

After gathering their belongings, students should fill out the yellow form on envelopes located at front desks to return dorm keys. They should then place it in the key box while keeping the yellow form as a receipt.

The abrupt closing was not how many students imagined their year ending, including freshman Hannah Hunt, an early childhood education and special education major.

“It sucks because it was my first semester and I just started opening up and then I had to leave,” Hunt said.

Sophomore Rickyah Minard, a social work major, said she are going to miss living in the dorm rooms and getting to see friends. 

“I will be living around campus, but I am going to miss all of my friends and everything that I did here like studying here in the study lounges and meeting new people,” Minard said.

Students who have not completed the moving out process and collected their belongings must do so by April 10. Any belongings left in the dorms will be boxed up by UA and available for pick up at a later date.