LA CROSSE, WIS — Staff at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse were able to take a public health crisis and turn it into a hands-on learning opportunity. 

“We’re calling it Operation: Eagle COA,” a UWL spokesperson said.

Operation: Eagle COA (or “Cask Of Amantillado”) invites engineering students from all three area colleges to get hands-on masonry experience and earn real college credit while they seal up quarantined dorms from the outside. They will be tasked with how to properly seal up doorways, windows and any other means of escape properly, using old fashioned brick and mortar.

“This kind of collaborative learning experience is really special,” the spokesperson continued, “These are the students who will build the future – if the future is still around by the time they graduate. We’re really proud to not only give them a real world engineering and construction challenge, but also to be able to use this project to try and protect the community from our growing number of careless bar-crawling and house-partying zoomers.”

Operation: Eagle COA will begin with Coate Hall and gradually add new projects as other dorms inevitably need to quarantine. 

La Crosse Times Staff contributed to this article.