Columnist Doug Girardot writes that in their reopening rhetoric, BC officials did everything in their effort to downplay the realities of college life in a pandemic. The flurry of summer emails students received in their inboxes and the maroon and gold technocratic signage littered throughout campus have suggested a conditional promise of normalcy: If you do all these things, then we can have school just like usual. But this is a dangerously fantastical apodosis.

With the fall semester just weeks away, several colleges and universities in Massachusetts have recently reversed course. BC will reopen as planned.

BC students will not have to quarantine for two weeks upon their arrival in Massachusetts if they receive a negative COVID-19 test result within three days of their return or test negatively when they arrive on campus.

BC will establish a state-certified lab on campus to analyze 200 to 300 samples daily and is securing equipment to analyze test results within one hour.

BC released a letter on Monday with more information on how testing and contact tracing will be conducted in the fall and giving a more detailed look at the plan for a mix of online and in-person course instruction.