St. Thomas residential students are now allowed to visit other residents’ dorm halls between 10 a.m. and 2 a.m., Residence Life wrote in an email to on-campus residents.

Residents still may not have non-residential or outside guest visitors, the email said. Students also are not allowed to have overnight visitors.

This alters previous regulations outlined in the St. Thomas COVID-19 Preparedness Plan, which initially stated that resident students were unable to visit other residence halls.

Residential students will continue to only have card access to their own hall, and those who visit will have to be escorted by that hall’s resident at all times.

First-year student Nathaniel Mulder is happy he is now able to visit his friends in other dorms.

“I think that’s awesome because I know a couple guys in some other dorms that I’ve been really wanting to hang out with but just couldn’t do it because of COVID,” Mulder said.

First-year student Joshua Kietzmann believes that this change is tied to the university’s control of COVID-19 spread on campus.

“I did see the email and it made me pretty excited, mostly because that means that COVID is under control for the most part,” Kietzmann said.

First-year student Hannah Christman disagreed with the announcement.

“I don’t think our cases are going down enough to bring in a totally new aspect,” Christman said. “I’m happy they did it, but I don’t know if it is the best decision.”

First-year Henry Schluesche thinks that trusting your friends is important as students begin visiting other residence halls.

“As long as you have enough trust in the people you’re hanging out with, people are wearing their masks, just keeping six feet apart, I think it will be a good idea,” Schluesche said.

At the end of the email, Residence Life reminded students to follow the Common Good Commitment by wearing a mask, physically distancing and following Common Good room capacities by having no more than two additional people in a living space.

Andrés Tejeda, Joey Swanson, Justin Amaker, Nate Schneiderhan, Emily Rudie, Josh Ballou and Sam Larson contributed to this report.