For the first time this semester, University of Maryland students living in dorms will be allowed to invite guests into their rooms.

Students living in traditional and semi-suite rooms will be allowed to host one guest at a time, and students living in suite and apartment-style housing will be allowed to host up to two guests at a time, according to an email from the Department of Resident Life Monday. Guests invited into dorms must be students at this university.

[With more than half of quarantine housing filled, UMD prepares to add three more dorms]

Initially, the university planned to allow students living in dorms to start hosting guests on Sept. 12. But in a campus-wide email Sept. 10, university President Darryll Pines wrote that the guest restrictions would remain in place.

In an interview with The Diamondback Monday morning, before the university announced the updated guest policy, Pines indicated that the school was likely not ready to lift the guest restrictions. He cited concerns that lifting the restrictions could lead to too many students being inside a room, but he said that the university may look at the policy in the coming days.

The university recently lifted restrictions on in-person dining at on-campus dining halls — a move Pines said was part of the university’s “phased reopening process.”