ALBANY – SUNY Oneonta will shut down in-person classes for at least two weeks after at least 105 students tested positive for COVID-19, including 71 since Friday, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras announced Sunday.
The decision by the state makes the college the first SUNY school to scale back operations since reopening to students earlier this month.
SUNY Oneonta, which has an enrollment of 6,000 undergraduates, began in-person classes on Aug. 24.
Since then, state and local officials have received reports of students gathering for large parties. Twenty students who attended a party have since tested positive for COVID-19, Malatras said on a conference call with reporters.
Five SUNY Oneonta students and three student organizations have been suspended for hosting parties, he said.
"We understand students are coming back," Malatras said. "We understand they want to party. But individual responsibility plays into the collective good, so your individual actions have enormous consequences on everyone else in your college community."
Dozens of New York colleges and universities began welcoming students back to campus this month despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, though many students have opted for remote learning instead.
Last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration laid out closure thresholds for higher-education institutions, requiring them to shut down in-person classes and switch to remote learning for at least two weeks if a college has more than 100 positive COVID-19 cases within two weeks or has 5% of the on-campus population test positive.
Resident students will be allowed to remain on campus while in-person classes are shut down, but dining halls will be takeout only.
In SUNY Oneonta's case, the college located near Cooperstown broke the 100 positive case threshold Sunday. About 3,500 students and staff members are on campus this year, meaning about 3% of the population has tested positive.
All students were tested beginning Friday, and the state has also sent a testing "SWAT" team to administer rapid tests to any member of the Oneonta community who seeks one. More information will be released Monday, according to Malatras.
Cuomo said he believes the situation at colleges will act as a "canary in the coalmine" when K-12 schools reopen in September.
It speaks to the need for school districts to have "the right (reopening) plan in place," Cuomo said.
"I think what we are seeing in colleges, we're going to see in the K-12 setting when those schools start to reopen," Cuomo said on the conference call.
More: Here's what it would take for COVID-19 to shut down New York colleges and universities
Jon Campbell is a New York state government reporter for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JCAMPBELL1@Gannett.com or on Twitter at @JonCampbellGAN.
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