Protecting Students’ Health is Their Focus as They Prepare for Fall Term 2020

Categories: Education, Facilities Maintenance, Janitorial, Library, San Jose

In 2002, Carnegie Mellon established its campus in Silicon Valley, the epicenter of the modern technological revolution. Since its founding in Pittsburgh at the turn of the 20th century, Carnegie Mellon has been educating elite engineers and scientists to meet the ever-changing technological challenges of society. With each passing year, the celebrated alumni of CMU-SV are changing the face of science, technology, and business in the Bay Area. Virtually every local company has a cadre of Carnegie Mellon alumni in leadership positions, and many companies have been founded by this network of alumni.

The Challenge

Not surprisingly, the tech-savy educators and students at CMU-SV have handled the challenges of remote learning easily – many tools were already in place, like video chat rooms for every course. Their focus has been maintaining the quality of student life. The Remote Student Experience course included virtual office hours, career, academic and student services advising and opportunities to attend virtual events like remote mindful Monday sessions and yoga classes.

The well-being of every member of the CMU family is a top priority for the university and planning for a return to in person classes in the fall has already begun. Providing a safe learning environment for educators and students in priority one and they turned to Flagship for guidance and insight into the best practices in protecting higher education facilities from viruses, bacteria and other contaminants.

The Solution

Flagship proposed PUREClean, a multi-layered approach to preparing the campus for returning students:

We installed higher efficiency MERV air filters and proposed bipolar ionization systems to trap and kill up to 99% of viruses, bacteria and mold indoors.K/liL
Electrostatic misting with EPA-approved disinfectants adheres to horizontal and vertical surfaces and destroys up to 99.9% of outbreak-causing viruses like influenza, rhinovirus and norovirus and bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA and Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE).
Once educators and students return to campus, our custodians will concentrate on frequent disinfecting of high touchpoint areas throughout campus like switch plates, door handles, arm rests, stair railings, elevator buttons, break areas and restrooms.

The Benefits

When the CMU-SV family reconvenes on campus in Fall 2020, the school can reassure their faculty and students that every precaution has been taken for their health and safety while on campus from the diligent and frequent disinfection of high touch, point surfaces to the continuously filtered indoor air when combined with other CDC-recommendations such as social distancing, these precautions will provide active protection campus-wide.