With many students now living off-campus for the semester amid the COVID-19 pandemic, UNC is continuing methods to consolidate those still in residence halls while cutting down expenditures.

The university announced in an email to on-campus residents on Tuesday 14 dorms will close down  this month as Carolina Housing attempts to keep remaining students in fewer buildings. According to the email, residents of buildings that are closing must respond by Friday to receive a new residence hall assignment.

The message to residents said all residence halls in the Kenan Community and Upper Quad Community will be closing, as well as Craige, Everett, Horton and Lewis Residence Halls. It also clarified if students currently living with roommates want to move into a single room, they could be charged a double room rate following the move to new dorms.

Most of the students who remain on the Chapel Hill campus include those with hardship waivers, ROTC members and student-athletes. Some student Resident Assistants, or RAs, are also still living in the halls. But on Thursday, they received a message about their status as university employees.

Carolina Housing sent an email to staff saying they would be relieved of their duties on October 30, which was first reported by Patsy Montesinos. While they will not be paid, the students will be allowed to stay on campus at their current rate of housing fees.

UNC moved to a remote learning model in August, ten days after the start of in-person instruction. Following several positive clusters of COVID-19 appearing in residence halls, the university moved to exclusively-online instruction and requested most students cancel their housing contracts in an effort to “de-densify” the campus.

Prior to the start of the fall semester, the Centers for Disease Control released guidance for universities holding in-person classes. UNC’s model for its residence halls fell into the ‘highest risk’ tier for spread of the coronavirus.

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