Elise Riggle leads a care team here at Ashland University which is a group of faculty that helps any student that is being assigned to isolation if they are showing signs of COVID.

Ashland University hired Elise Riggle back in fall of 2020 to be the new Coronavirus Response Coordinator. “This is the one thing that I’ve had to explain to parents and students when they get upset with me because of decisions we make. I listen to what the president and his team say. I am just the executor of their decision,” Riggle said.

Now, in 2021 she is balancing the difficulty of dealing with mandatory mass testing, helping students through quarantine, all while receiving and giving context to students and parents about how Ashland is handling Covid-19.

The percentage of students testing positive has decreased to less than 1% campus wide which caused AU to put a pause on mass testing.

“It’s way less than 1% of the students some weeks,” Riggle said. “That number was low enough for the executive leadership team to merit putting everyone through the weekly testing.”

Riggle said she was not shocked about the lack of positive tests despite Ashland County going into the RED in recent months. “Unlike Ashland Country, we have the mask mandate inside all buildings….so I think that Ashland community is in a worse spot than we are in,” Riggle said talking about Eagle Nation.

All students, vaccinated or not vaccinated, will be required to take a COVID test when they come back from Thanksgiving break on November 29th and 30th. Even the students who have been exempt from previous tests will be required to show up.

The mandatory tests had repercussions if students did not attend the weekly mandatory testing for the three weeks they had it. The first missed one was a warning, the second missed test was a $100 fine and third offense was a $150 fine with disciplinary probation.

“Somehow people don’t get the memo….we’ve had to fine people more than once and some students have missed their tests for three weeks straight,” Riggle said. “We gave out 120 first warnings the first week, the second week we gave out 76 first warnings and 50 second warnings.”

Students have been reported to consistently fight the warnings and refuse to attend mandatory testing, but the punishments still stand.

The amount of students that were required to go to the last mass testing was 545 students. That is all students that do not play a sport and are not vaccinated.

Ashland University also offers the Covid vaccine clinic on campus in Redwood Hall twice a month.

“When we did the clinic on September 1, we had 32 people attend.” Riggle said she could not go in depth what specific number of those were students or faculty due to privacy.

“I thought that if people wanted to get the vaccine that they would have got it before September 1, but we did use incentives like the drawings for the parking passes and other things to draw students,” Riggle said. “There were approximately 40 people that showed up to the clinic in late September at Redwood Hall, the incentives continued with people getting $50 VISA gift cards if they are getting the first dose of their vaccine.”

The incentives stayed the same for the clinic that happened on October 27.

When the college surveyed the students and asked if they were vaccinated, approximately 75% of 2,000 students said they were. Truth is, AU student’s health records showed that only 100 students were vaccinated before starting the Fall 2021 semester. Riggle said something didn’t add up.

“I think one of the reasons we (Ashland University) started the mass testing is to find out an accurate number of vaccinated students,” Riggle said. She also believes the incentives and clinics on campus would be a motivator for students to be vaccinated.

Elise Riggle just wants students or faculty to know that if they are sick or are not feeling well, report your information and symptoms to the Health Center. If anyone has questions or concerns with testings or vaccines, contact her for further information.