Now and in days and weeks ahead, as college and university administrators seek to balance the viability and financial health of their institutions with the well-being and safety of students and staff, higher education is facing a historically difficult challenge. A careful review of the facts provided by the Center for Disease Control and public health experts offers a degree of guidance for reopening campuses, but provides few concrete steps given the vast differences in geography, population density, environmental factors, and risk tolerance.

While it’s likely there is a widely variable tolerance for risk among the various members of your on-campus community, it makes sense to consider strategies that maximize the number of people willing to return for the fall. Thinking creatively about ways to build on the foundational steps outlined above can help inspire peace of mind for the greatest number of students, their parents, and staff.

Strategic Partnership with Degree Analytics

Deployed into your existing campus WiFi network by Apogee, the location analytics module from Degree Analytics is a software platform that uses anonymized data and machine learning to log WiFi access by zones you designate. The tool generates visualizations – heat maps – of zone utilization and dwell time and can be used to gauge social distancing compliance on a zone-by-zone basis.

While not a prescriptive or predictive analytics tool, the heat map insights that the platform delivers can be used to monitor and see potential trouble spots. This monitoring capability can enable actions such as reducing occupancy through rescheduling or closure, driving enhanced communications around social distancing guidelines, or facilitating physical reconfiguration of a space as needed, greatly enhancing the safety of students and staff.