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Some RA's Quit Over Coronavirus Housing Plans At LSU

Courtesy: Chuck Smith / Red River Radio News

LSU RA’S WALK OUT - As college students move into dorms for a fall semester starting as early as next week questions are being raised about whether Louisiana’s largest campus is ready to handle problems if students start testing positive for COVID-19.

For most of the 7,000 or so incoming students at LSU, their first and most frequent point of contact for services will be fellow students hired as residential advisers, called RAs. As reported in THE ADVOCATE, three of the roughly 250 RAs abruptly resigned in the past week,  one who quit said  LSU officials couldn’t answer real-world questions about how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic housing plan and were told specifically not to inform fellow students, and particularly the media, if their charges tested positive for COVID-19. Instead they were told that handling infected students was up to the campus health office and privacy rights prevented any mention of a student’s health status.  Last week an RA tested positive for Covid-19, other RA’s only learned of this via group chat and weren’t informed by school administrators.
 

Chuck Smith brings more than 30 years' broadcast and media experience to Red River Radio. He began his career as a radio news reporter and transitioned to television journalism and newsmagazine production. Chuck studied mass communications at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia and motion picture / television production at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has also taught writing for television at York Technical College in Rock Hill, South Carolina and video / film production at Centenary College of Louisiana, Shreveport.