While the nation learns more about the outbreak of the H1N1flu virus, college campuses are bracing their students for the worst.

For some years now, school officials at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton say the campus has had plans in place for dealing with a potential flu pandemic, which will come in handy if the H1N1 virus ever reaches that level.

The school's plan is updated every six months and was first started in December 2007, when doctors feared there would be an Avian Flu outbreak.

Dr. Steven Mosher serves as the Director of the Health Care Administration program at MBC. He says all schools should step up awareness on campus and urge students, faculty and staff to take precautions to stay well and protect the community.

Mosher says students and faculty need to wash their hands frequently, avoid touching their eyes, face, and mouth, and sanitize frequently touched areas such as door handles.

The school is preparing for H1N1. According to Mary Baldwin's Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan, an H1N1 flu outbreak "may include unprecedented demands on student health services, relocation of students in residence halls, the establishment of quarantine sites, debilitating sickness among staff and faculty causing severe reductions in the work force, essential services hampered and perhaps unavailable, and significant loss of tuition revenues from closure of the institution, and non-returning students."