With campus residence halls vacated, Vanderbilt University is making room for hundreds of VUMC healthcare workers who don’t want to return home for fear of exposing their families to COVID-19.
University officials say 600 beds will be available starting on Monday, though they are still working through logistics. The school is not charging healthcare workers to use this space.
Before opening to healthcare workers, the dorms are undergoing deep cleaning.
Vanderbilt students were told to vacate campus last month. At the time, many students left belongings in their dorms, thinking they would be able to retrieve them later. However, with state and local safer-at-home mandates, returning to campus is no longer an option, and the university is storing or shipping student belongings left behind.
Meanwhile, an unspecified number of students who could not return home remain on Vanderbilt’s campus. They have been consolidated to one residence hall to make room for healthcare workers and to allow for deep cleaning of all residential facilities.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM