begin quote from:
Universities Wave the White Flag in the Face of Campus Coronavirus Outbreaks
Colleges and universities are returning to remote learning as students contract the coronavirus and overwhelm school safety plans.
THE NUMBER OF COLLEGES and universities reversing course and returning to remote learning is growing as clusters of students contracting the coronavirus – largely through off-campus social activities – overwhelm school safety plans just days after they return to campuses.
Notre Dame University, Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill all walked back or delayed reopening plans this week after infection rates spiked.
"The virus is a formidable foe," Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, said, announcing the suspension of in-person classes for undergraduates until Sept. 2. "For the past week, it has been winning. Let us as the Fighting Irish join together to contain it."
Editorial Cartoons on Education
Since classes resumed Aug. 10, Notre Dame has recorded a steady increase in positive rates among students, it reported, mainly among seniors living off-campus. As of Tuesday, 147 people had tested positive among the 927 tested since Aug. 3.
"Our contact-tracing analysis indicates that most infections are coming from off-campus gatherings," Jenkins said. "Students infected at those gatherings passed it on to others, who in turn have passed the virus on to others, resulting in the positive cases we have seen."
"For your sake and the sake of our community and for continuing our semester on campus," he said, "please observe health protocols and avoid behavior that puts yourself or others at risk."
Meanwhile, Michigan State University asked undergraduate students who planned to live on campus in residence halls this fall to stay home, reversing course ahead of reopening in person.
"Given the current status of the virus in our country – particularly what we are seeing at other institutions as they re-populate their campus communities – it has become evident to me that, despite our best efforts and strong planning, it is unlikely we can prevent widespread transmission of COVID-19 between students if our undergraduates return to campus," Michigan State University President Samuel Stanley said Tuesday in a statement to the campus community.
Classes were scheduled to begin in person on Sept. 2, but Stanley pulled the plug ahead of most students returning to campus as he watched schools like UNC and Notre Dame unsuccessfully beat back clusters of infections, largely because of students attending parties and other social gatherings off campus.
"We have seen that it is difficult for colleges and universities, and other areas of education such as K-12, to be open successfully right now given the prevalence of the virus," he said. "While I have faith in our students and all of the members of the campus community, we know that this virus is relentless and is easily spread. We're seeing on our campus and in other areas of the country that a few mistakes by some are having large impacts on many."
[ MAP: The Spread of Coronavirus ]
The announcements from Notre Dame and Michigan State follow a similar one from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which announced Monday a return to remote learning after just one week of in person instruction during which the school's COVID-19 positivity rate catapulted from 2.8% to 13.6%, according to the campus health center. As of Monday morning, the school had tested 954 students, had 177 in isolation and 349 in quarantine, both on and off campus.
The sudden shifts to remote learning come as no surprise to faculty members who have been sounding the alarm for months, trying to build a case that changing student behavior would be a nearly impossible task.
College and university leaders got a preview of the risks involved with welcoming students back to campus earlier this summer in June, when state health officials traced a COVID-19 outbreak in Oxford, Mississippi, to University of Mississippi fraternity parties held in violation of the governor's executive order that indoor gatherings where social distancing can't be enforced be limited to 20 people or less.
Less than a month later, similar outbreaks occurred at the University of Washington as members of fraternity and sorority houses returned to their residences, fueling an outbreak that infected at least 137 people, and at the University of Southern California, where a similar scenario propelled an outbreak of 45 cases.
[
MORE:
Poll: 6 in 10 Oppose Reopening Schools ]
The success of colleges and universities reopening in person this academic year always hinged on the ability of students to adhere to campus restrictions at the level required to prevent new COVID-19 infections. At Purdue University, for example, where students began moving into residence halls last week ahead of in-person instruction beginning Aug. 24, students were required to sign the sign the "Protect Purdue Pledge," which asks them to commit to "at least a semester of inconvenience," including forgoing concerts, convocations, fraternity parties and more.
The majority of colleges and universities were realistic about the risks of reopening in person, despite enormous pressures from boards of governors, students and parents demanding an on-campus experience and mounting financial constraints: Just 22% of universities surveyed by the Chronicle of Higher Education reported plans to bring students to campus for in-person instruction full time, despite the majority of them predicting in June that they would almost certainly reopen in person for the 2020-21 academic year.
Those that did are already playing defense, and it's likely that more colleges and universities announce reversals in the coming days and weeks.
At least two schools in Oklahoma have reported a number of cases, including Oklahoma State University, where an entire sorority house is under quarantine after 23 members tested positive for COVID-19, and at the University of Oklahoma, where nearly a dozen football players tested positive.
No comments:
Post a Comment