Harvard, MIT among colleges telling students to stay away

Harvard students hauled brown cardboard boxes across campus and scrambled to book last-minute flights out of Boston Tuesday after the Ivy League school told its students that they should stay away after spring break next week and take their classes online for the rest of the semester.

At MIT, students and faculty practiced using teleconference technology as administrators on Tuesday called off in-person classes and told all their undergraduates to leave campus by noon on March 17. When MIT’s spring break ends on March 30, classes will be held remotely.

Across New England and the United States, colleges and universities stepped up their efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, with more than a dozen transitioning to virtual classes and essentially shutting down their campuses to student activities.