Higher Ed’s Hail Mary Responses Mount Up

We are counting down the weeks until colleges students return to classes. Some students will be taking classes remotely from home. But many more will be returning to their campuses to resume some combination of in-person and remote classes, in what now what has been termed a “hybrid” model (that itself has several variations). Millions of college students are expected to return to, or start at, traditional residential colleges and universities in the weeks ahead. In fact, many will start their on-boarding in the pandemic very soon as many colleges are requiring a 14-day isolation period before participating in college activities and are adopting a phased strategy of bringing students back to campus.

There has been so much written about strategies, plans, precautions, and concerns leading up to the return of college students. Everything from how faculty will teach to how students will maintain social distancing has been detailed and debated in the press and by the media. But in this time of uncertainty about the pandemic and the concerns about the discovery, production, and distribution of a vaccine; which coincides with a time of declining trust and confidence in both science and the mainstream media; which coincides with a Constitutional crisis and indeed a crisis of democracy in the US; which coincides with the politicization and even suggested weaponization of the Covid-19 pandemic in the run-up the 2020 US election; the pressures on universities – their presidents, their boards, and their leadership teams – are coming from many directions.  

As I predicted in a previous article, and has been predicted by many others, the last two weeks in July and this first week in August would be filled with decisions by colleges and universities to change course from a planned and announced fully on-campus fall semester to a hybrid model, with many universities going so far as to recommend students remain home if they can. Indeed, the number of schools that have pivoted back to a hybrid or even fully remote model is significant. What remains, schools that are holding fast to their commitment to an on-campus fall semester (even in a hybrid mode, as most of these have now adopted), are likely to be challenged early by quick spread of the virus as students do what they do, and campuses are unsuccessful in persuading them to do otherwise. Many agree it is simply to realistic, or even reasonable, to expect college-age students to follow the student conduct codes, posted guidance, or even well understood best practices 24/7. 

University leaders and their leadership teams who have been forced to lead under these circumstances should be commended. It’s hard to see a winning pathway. There is great uncertainty and the stakes are enormous. They must simply make the best decisions they can, with the best information possible, under the very real and very significant constraints under which their institutions must operate, and with the most comprehensive plans to both keep students, faculty, staff safe and respond effectively if there is an outbreak on their campus or in their community. With no federal guidance, and with states scrambling themselves to set policies, colleges universities (and in some cases, systems) have been left to their own devices. As a result, we are not seeing a coordinated higher ed response. Rather, the response can be perhaps best be characterized as institution-by-institution, with considerable looking-over-the-shoulder at one another’s decisions and announcements. It has been likened to the falling of dominos. Just as the decision by most of higher ed to pivot last March can be traced back to the first major campus to do so, decisions about returns to campus, hybrid learning, and even this latest pivot (snapback) to remote learning seem to occur as a swarm response, particularly within a geographic region or athletic conference, to one or more schools announcing their decision.

The same is happening, even as this is being written, in college athletics. Most Division II and III schools have postponed or cancelled fall sports in the last month or so. Division I schools waited longer to announce their plans. In broad terms, many Division I mid-major conferences modified their fall sports schedules to conference-only games, while the Power-5 conferences held out even longer. In the last week we’ve seen announced conference-only (or otherwise modified) schedules for the ACC, SEC, and most recently the BIG 12. In addition to releasing their schedule, Pac-12 student-athletes have just released a statement that links their return to sports to commitments by the conference and member institutions to address concerns around racial injustice, health and safety, and exploitation of student-athletes. In addition to announcing their schedule, the Big Ten Commissioner has also said, “We may not have sports in the fall. We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten.”

Conference Commissioners and campus Athletics Directors, too, should be commended for their leadership under very difficult circumstances. They, too, are facing pressures from many directions. The public wants the return of college sports. Communities need the return of college sports. But plans must be made responsibly, placing student and public health and safety and the top of their list of considerations, and must be sufficiently flexible to respond to changes in circumstances among any of the member teams and on any of their member campuses. We already are seeing reports of outbreaks among university football teams. And Opening Day for the college football season is just weeks away.

As the window to the start of the semester closes, decisions and announcements seem more erratic and to be coming at a more frenetic pace. Some suggest an air of panic, some futility, and others desperation. They may be well-considered and well-intended, but some seem quite disconnected from what any reasonable person might consider likely to be effective, enforceable, or even sensible. CNN’s Anderson Cooper would call this the fall 2020 “Ridiculist.” But that would be to make light of what are very serious decisions with very serious health consequences to students, faculty, and staff, and both short and long-term financial consequences to the institutions, even if the steps are successful.

Consider some of the campus plans announced just in the past two weeks:

·     Like many other universities, Michigan students are being required to spend 14 days in a semi-quarantine before they come back to campus. That includes not going to work or social gatherings.

·     Syracuse has determined a threshold of 100 students testing positive for the virus, after which all students will be confined to their rooms.

·     U. Penn is requiring students “to refrain from organizing, hosting, or attending events, parties, or other social gatherings off-campus.”

·     Boston University has announced plans to use vacant rooms in graduate student housing as quarantine spaces for students who have been exposed to confirmed COVID-19 cases.

·     The University of Texas at Austin will not allow students to hold parties on or off campus during the fall semester.

·     At Villanova, “Each student will be provided with a portable chair to facilitate moving classes outside when feasible.”

·     Caltech is recommending that returning students bring two weeks of clean clothes to avoid having to use coins in laundry machines.

And in the final minutes, some new twists:

·     New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling for the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University to postpone fall contact sports, including football.

·     Faculty at UNC have written letters to students urging them to stay home, despite the campus’ plans to re-open.

·     Faculty and staff at the UNC System’s 16 campuses are preparing a lawsuit to postpone the start of classes this fall.

While it seems likely we will continue to see changes announced, decisions reversed, plans augmented, requirements on movement and social gatherings strengthened, and both academic and athletic schedules modified in the days and weeks ahead, one thing is certain. The time for these Hail Mary calls is winding down.

Recognizing the challenges facing campuses and their leaders, athletics programs and their staff, and students and their families as the fall semester quickly approaches (and time runs out for colleges to announce further tweaks to their re-opening plans), we should all take a deep breath, do our best to play our part, not judge harshly those in impossible positions, and be grateful for the thousands of higher ed professionals who have been working behind the scenes to prepare for the fall semester, whatever it may look like.