St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill is moving into phase two of its reopening and is welcoming all students back to campus.

When the STAC opened, it brought back only 500 students to campus - including freshmen, foreign and former students - less than half of the total student body.

Now that it's moved into phase two, the rest of its students are welcomed back for a hybrid of in-person and online courses. In the time since reopening, the college has had nine coronavirus cases - though six never made it to campus.

"You get more of a better experience with the professors and it's more intimate in a sense, so I feel like I'm excited," says senior Anabel Garcia.

STAC made everyone take a test before they were allowed to return to campus, so it started with a clean slate. As for the three cases found on campus, they were isolated and all but one have since recovered.

"For the freshmen, we really thought it was important that right from day one they were here on campus. For the rest of our students we took a slight pause, two weeks only, in order to make sure we were ready and had low density the first two weeks. Now as you can see we have more and more students on campus and they're keeping themselves safe and we really think it's so important as part of their education process that they're back here," says President Ken Daly.

Daly says having a small student body has helped in the mitigation of the cases.

If all goes well, the college will enter phase three Oct. 13 with larger in-person classes.