Julia Kane, a rising senior at the University of Maryland College Park, was worried about the lease she had signed in February, before she knew that the COVID-19 pandemic would upend her last semester of college. It was June, and she still had not received a definitive answer as to whether she could cancel her lease and stay at home for the fall semester.

Kane had leased with South Campus Commons, one of UMD’s public-private partnership undergraduate student apartment communities. “Capstone On-Campus Management (COCM) oversees most elements of the operation, while the UMD Department of Resident Life oversees the resident life program,” according to its website.

On June 17, COCM, the private management company, sent an email to all residents living in South Campus Commons and The Courtyards, the other public-private partnership student housing community operated by COCM. In it, they told students that they would have to “review and sign a health and safety addendum” to their fall lease related to COVID-19.

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