‘Worried about the next 2 weekends.’ Neighbors want UK to do more to limit off-campus parties.
Mark Swanson, the city councilman for many of the neighborhoods which surround the University of Kentucky campus, said this past weekend has shown that UK students aren’t complying with social distancing rules when they step off campus.
Traditionally, the start of college football occasions student parties and this past weekend was no different. UK received nine reports of off-campus student parties, spokesperson Jay Blanton said. That number of reports is consistent with previous weekends this fall. A neighbor said seeing students partying with no masks and no social distancing was a “slap in the face.”
At mid-afternoon Saturday, Swanson said he saw multiple “relatively small parties” on the streets which flank Waller Avenue — neighborhoods known to be highly populated with students. Most of the parties he saw were made of 20-30 unmasked college-aged individuals.
“They were moving from party to party to party and I didn’t see a single mask,” said Swanson, who is the Councilman for Lexington’s 3rd District and is also an associate professor in UK’s College of Public Health. “What that tells me is that the university is getting students to wear masks and socially distance on campus but those lessons aren’t being carried over to off campus.”
Swanson said he’s passed on his concerns to university leadership and is awaiting their response. He said he hopes to see the university develop plans to enforce the university’s Student Code of Conduct for off-campus parties where many have worried that social distancing may not be followed and the spread of COVID-19 likely.
“UK is in a real bind,” Swanson said. “That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be doing more.”
This past weekend, the Lexington Police Department received 33 calls complaining about loud parties — the same amount of calls as the weekend prior, spokesperson Brenna Angel said. Some of those calls were about the same location and some may have come from locations not near campus.
Residents in the neighborhoods surrounding campus have reported occurrences of house parties and have been critical of the university’s regulation of off-campus students. At the end of last week, Gov. Andy Beshear and the head of Fayette County Public Schools said that UK’s student cases are making it less likely that the school district will be able to return to in-person learning.
But according to UK, rising student COVID-19 cases have not so far meaningfully contributed to community spread across Fayette County, Blanton said.
Of the approximately 4,000 COVID-19 exposures — generally defined as individuals who have been within six feet on an infected person for more than 15 minutes — that have been recorded by UK’s contact tracing team since its mid-August start, only 5.5 percent have been individuals who are not either a UK employee or student, Blanton said. Meaning that most of the exposures to the disease stay within the university system.
Blanton said the number of active UK cases, which according to the university, have remained steady at just over 400 in recent weeks, show that the university is effectively managing the spread of COVID-19. The university’s contact tracing team which has grown to 50, from its original 15, works seven days a week to spot trends and help provide services for students who have been infected.
Students made up nearly 47 percent of the county’s newly reported cases this month with 1,210 since the start of September and 1,880 since the university began testing students at the beginning of August.
UK contact tracers have discovered instances where multiple COVID-19 positive students have attended the same event, Blanton said. The university has encouraged students to socially distance on- and off-campus with constant reminders around campus and on social meida. UK has also provided alternative events — like a watch party for the football game in the university’s outdoor baseball stadium that was attended by nearly 400 students.
UK has also promised to enforce its Student Code of Conduct — which now includes regulations for social distancing and applies to both on- and off-campus Penalties for violating the code can vary from an informal warning to a potential suspension or expulsion, depending upon specific circumstances and frequency.
The university often receives reports of off-campus parties from the Lexington Police Department, as the department has jurisdiction over off-campus neighborhoods. While the police are not specifically targeting student gatherings, they are responsive to noise complaints called in by neighbors..
UK’s in a really tough position, since they don’t have a lot of enforcement authority off campus, Swanson said. Instead of relying on reports from neighbors and the police, Swanson said the university should try to send people out to monitor near-campus neighborhoods on weekends, point out parties and remind students that there could be further consequences for not social distancing.
“UK is not independent of the rest of Lexington,” Swanson said. “I’m very very worried about the next two weekends where there’s in-person, at-home football games. As somebody who has lived half a mile from the football stadium for the past 20 years, I know what kind of partying goes on during those games and it’s much more intense when the game is here, even if they’re not all going to the game.”
Blanton said the university is doing more to provide alternative events this weekend, such as physically distanced movie nights on Friday and Saturday. Around 1,000 students will also be allowed to watch Saturday’s game in person.
This story was originally published September 28, 2020 at 4:13 PM.