Spenser Heaps/The Deseret News via AP
A sign encourages wearing a face mask as students move into dormitories during the coronavirus pandemic, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, August 18, 2020.
Universities and colleges are beginning to reopen for some in-person classes around the U.S., despite fears and concerns from students, professors, and staff about the risks of doing so.
The University of Florida in Gainesville, one of the largest single-site college campuses in the U.S. with around 54,000 enrolled students, is set to begin in-person classes August 31.
“There’s no requirement to be tested for students. They take their temperature, and fill out a questionnaire which asks if they’ve been exposed, which is purely voluntary,” said Steve Kirn, a retired business professor and current acting chair of the United Faculty of Florida-UF, which has called on colleges and universities in Florida to transition to remote learning for the fall.
Kirn also noted that the school’s coronavirus tracking system doesn’t date reported cases, but only the totals since the pandemic began.
“We’re very concerned with the high infection rates, limited classroom capacity, and making sure everyone is as safe as possible. This is why we’ve advocated for 100 percent remote learning. We realize we’re not likely to get that, but we’re going to push as hard as we can because we feel people’s lives are at stake,” said Paul Ortiz, UFF-UF president and professor of history at the University of Florida. “We have over 50,000 students in a town just over 100,000 people. I get calls and emails every day from people in surrounding neighborhoods worried about the reopening and the impact it will have on the community.”
A UF spokesperson said in an email that the school has instituted police party patrols to prevent large gatherings, issued a mask mandate for students and faculty, and is conducting contact tracing and testing on campus. Students may face sanctions or disciplinary measures for noncompliance.
In July 2020, the Trump administration pressured universities and colleges to reopen in the fall. Since reopenings began this month, several schools have already shut down or changed their plans in response to outbreaks.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shut down campus in response to outbreaks after its first week of reopening. Notre Dame suspended in-person classes for two weeks after initially reopening. Michigan State reversed course to full online learning after reports of outbreaks at other universities. After a rise in cases on campus, Butler University ordered students to shelter in place and conduct classes online for two weeks.
Other outbreaks have been reported at Georgia Tech, the University of Alabama, University of Dayton, University of Miami, Radford University, North Carolina State University, and several other campuses. Critics have charged that some campuses pushed to reopen to ensure they would get student tuition for the fall semester. Students have subsequently demanded tuition cuts after classes went online.
As other universities and colleges begin to reopen campuses in the coming weeks, professors have been protesting their schools’ reopening plans, frustrated with the lack of safety protections and support for online teaching.
“Onondaga County has a 0.6 percent infection rate. We’ve been very lucky and the question is what’s this moving petri dish of students going to do. That’s a real concern to us,” said Deborah Pellow, an anthropology professor at Syracuse University. “If only they bothered to ask us what we thought and if only, frankly, more energy had been put into organizing virtual classes for the faculty.”
Syracuse University resumed classes for the fall on August 24, and has already had issues with student parties, suspending 23 students for participating. Videos and photos of college students around the U.S. failing to follow coronavirus safety protocols, such as mask mandates and social distancing, are increasingly common.
“No one is safe until there is an effective and widespread use of a vaccine. So all the things put in place, nothing will prevent the spread of the virus among young people who are not taking the virus seriously,” said Arlene Kanter, professor of law at Syracuse University. “Given the fact we have students coming back, I wasn’t surprised there was a gathering of students; I won’t be surprised if there are future gatherings of students.”
A Syracuse University spokesperson shared a statement from the school’s vice chancellor and provost, John Liu, who claimed that more than 30 faculty members were involved on subcommittees for reopening plans and several online engagement sessions with faculty were held over the summer.
The University of Kansas resumed in-person classes on August 24, despite some protests from faculty and students calling for the school to conduct classes entirely online for the fall. Contact tracing at the school is voluntary, and much of the responsibility in adhering to coronavirus protections is left up to students to take actions themselves.
“The students, staff, grad students, and faculty didn’t decide to open the campus. It’s the administration who decided to open the campus.”
“After a time of declaring that public health would be the guiding principle of policy, the University of Kansas administration added that the return of students to in-person classes was equally vital,” said David Roediger, a history professor at the University of Kansas. “The latter priority was based on extravagant over-reading of evidence regarding student desires. It led to rosy assumptions about how masks, plus an inadequate app, could prevent spread of COVID and about students uniformly making healthy choices.”
At the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, as on-campus classes resumed on August 19, the dean of students sent out a campuswide email on August 21, outlining a zero-tolerance policy for violating coronavirus protocols and telling students not to be the reason the school shuts down and fires or furloughs workers.
“The students, staff, grad students, and faculty didn’t decide to open the campus. It’s the administration who decided to open the campus. If it’s not safe to open the campus, don’t open the campus,” said Jasper Conner, a Ph.D. student and spokesperson for the William & Mary Workers Union. “We could be educating people at home and not transporting people from around the U.S., but instead we’re putting a lot of people’s lives at risk, then they are blaming the youngest around for any sort of outbreak that happens. There could be no parties, no violations, and the virus could still spread.”
A spokesperson for the College of William & Mary said in an email, “Our goal in offering an in-person learning experience this fall is to ensure that we provide a range of equitable educational opportunities for all of our students.”
A group of professors at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania protested campus reopening on August 20 outside the school president’s home in masks.
“They wanted to make clear that if this doesn’t work, the consequences could be severe,” said Thomas Stewart, chapter president of the faculty union on campus. “Even with all the protocols at schools like Notre Dame and UNC, there have still been outbreaks because there are so many factors you can’t control.”
