BY CHRIS PEACOCK

Stanford has been going to school on peer institutions’ pandemic experiences with bringing undergraduate students back to campus.

Those lessons learned, as well as Stanford’s own after many graduate and professional students and a limited number of undergraduates returned this fall, are instructive as the university prepares for more undergraduates to return for winter quarter.

“We’ve been following the experiences of our peer institutions, especially those where significant numbers of students have returned to campus already,” said Russell Furr, associate vice provost for environmental health and safety. “The scenarios we’ve heard about and the examples we’ve observed reflected a range of approaches.”

“Some outcomes have been encouraging, others cautionary,” Furr said, “but one approach stands out: The campuses with really good testing compliance usually manage to catch infectious individuals early and limit the scope of spread. That’s how it is supposed to work.”

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