57 percent of students over all said they felt a “sense of community” while living in on-campus or near-campus residences, the ACC survey report said.
"They want to be here because they have their friends down the hall," Wills said. "Even while social distancing and wearing masks, they want to be with their peer group."
But students surveyed by ACC did show some dissatisfaction with aspects of their college experience this semester, including their ability to maintain "routine, motivation and focus," which about 56 percent said they were "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with and about 38 percent said they were "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with, according to survey results. Respondents were also mixed about their "peer group mentoring, tutoring and collaboration" experience, which nearly 57 percent were satisfied with and about 28 percent were dissatisfied, the survey showed.
"It's hard to really make a transition to full online learning," one student who responded to the survey wrote. "The classes don't seem to be fun anymore as there isn't much social interaction with peers."
Maurie McInnis, president of Stony Brook University, said she and other administrators decided to keep residence halls open -- even in March when the university shifted to remote learning -- because they knew students wanted to maintain their connections with one another. McInnis and other college presidents spoke about the importance of an on-campus experience for students' mental health and sense of "togetherness" during an online discussion with members of the media on Dec. 1.
"For most of our students, it was about that ability, even though altered, to still have that peer support, to still be able to build those peer networks and be able to study with friends," McInnis said. "Being in person was very important to them, even if they had no in-person classes ... That's why they were so open to embracing the public health measures on our campus."
Stony Brook, which is in the State University of New York system, has had only 90 cases of COVID-19 [5] among the nearly 26,800 enrolled this fall [6]. About 4,550 students, or 17 percent of the student body, lived on campus during the
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