Pictured is the SUNY Fredonia campus entrance in May. Submitted Photo.

About $6.3 million has been refunded or credited to students for their meal plans, housing fees and any other costs that needed to be returned.

The SUNY Fredonia College Council met Wednesday by Zoom and discussed various items, including the refunding of credits and the reopening of the school in the fall.

Most, if not all, students have been refunded or credited the costs for services that were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For students who paid their fees with credit cards, the money was put back onto that credit card and the same process was used for bank account transfers. The only method of refund that took longer than others was the checks. For students that paid with a check, their refund was sent to their home address.

For students who agreed to credit the amount for their next semester, those funds will be available in the fall, if the college reopens.

In the middle of March, student lives were changed for the rest of the semester. Students who could go home were sent home and all classes shifted to virtual classrooms.

These changes may carry on to the next semester at Fredonia as well, if the campus is not reopened.

Members of the College Council reported that they have been discussing and working on the reopening of the campus for the fall semester. Though a seven-page plan has been prepared and sent to SUNY in Albany, the jury is still out whether in-person classes will happen in the fall. The council is supposed to be getting some feedback on the report by the end of this week that they hope to share with the campus.

Part of the report is the plan for if or when a student becomes positive for COVID-19 during the semester. Dennis Hefner, interim president of Fredonia, explained that there will be a residence hall left empty for this reason, so sick students may go there to be in isolation to help stop the spread of the virus. It was also reported that the college has 13 trained tracers on campus to help contain the spread of the virus if it comes to the campus.

“Our intent is to hold at least some of our classes in-person during the fall semester,” Hefner said. “We are going to have to wait, of course, for the governor’s approval to open the campus.”

If the college is not able to open for the fall semester, there could be devastating results, Hefner said.

“If the governor doesn’t allow us to reopen, then we will have to go 100% online,” Hefner said. “I can’t tell you how big a fiscal disaster that would be for this campus. It’s almost unimaginable what that would entail.”

If the campus does open, which Hefner is counting on, in-person classes will finish physically by Thanksgiving, giving students no breaks before then, and a week of virtual class after Thanksgiving break, and finally, online finals the week after that.

“A number of campuses are doing that (finishing classes before Thanksgiving) in case there will be a second wave (of COVID-19),” Hefner said. “We are expecting to reopen.”