Why a return to campus is a bad idea

“It might be time for parents to get into the conversation about reopening college campuses. University administrators are deciding they’re going to go for it, which is exactly the same thing as saying, ‘We’re going to do what we can, hope for the best, and gamble that infection rates will be low enough to justify the unavoidable threat to the students.’

“For sure, the data tells us that the health threat of COVID-19 increases the older you are. So in aggregate, across the broad sample set of students, the laws of large numbers might work out to the advantage of the university.

“Not so for the students who become victims of reopening decisions driven by economics over the well-being of the people paying for the privilege of becoming subjects of a large, uncontrolled laboratory experiment in the age of pandemic infection.

“So far, university presidents are suggesting that they can create safer classrooms, and therefore, provide a safe campus. That’s a dangerously flawed premise, which willfully ignores everything we know about social distancing.

“Parents, you know this. Human nature is an irresistible force. The inconvenient truth is that the public health issue has very little to do with safer classrooms. Adjusting classroom instruction is the easy part. What about the other 21 hours in the day of every student on campus?

“Even if every other enterprise in America can reopen with some semblance of reasonable social distancing in place -- a sketchy proposition, at best, given the rising infection rate spikes in states that attempted aggressive re-openings and tried to pretend that the threat is behind us -- even that limited logic simply doesn’t apply to a college campus.

“Let’s assume that the schools will do a stellar job on what they do with big lecture halls and labs, how they space out classrooms, stagger attendance, disinfect, teach seven days a week, skip the fall break, shift to smaller class enrollment maximums with more sessions for popular courses and augment with video instruction. That’s a good assumption; entirely necessary -- and not sufficient.

“A campus isn’t a finite bubble that can be sealed, monitored and maintained as a safe zone once all the students show up. It’s an open, undulating sieve of comings and goings – students returning home for family emergencies, to work in the family business, or just because. Boyfriends visit. New friendships and love interests form.

“Students go into town. Staff, suppliers and all manner of service providers enter the bubble, exit to live their lives and return, day after day. Across the giant, interconnected system of human movement and interaction known as campus life, almost all of it happens outside a classroom.

“So what's the plan beyond the fractional amount of time any student spends in class? What are the health guidelines for dating? Are the two most effective actions any individual can take on behalf of their own health and that of others -- masks and distance -- mandated in dining and residence halls? Is everybody cool with off-campus housing and apartment complexes with common areas, shared kitchens and other facilities? What's the enforcement plan for the 10 most popular bars in town? Is the Greek system's rush season even a consideration?

“All this optimistic talk about getting back to school in the fall violates the foundational promise made by all institutions of higher education -- to provide a safe, secure, nurturing environment of learning and maturation. The compact with students and their parents includes spectacular learning outcomes, but it starts with the campus as a safe zone.

“Delivering on that promise entails solving for the limitations on testing and the logistical impossibility of doing real contact tracing in every college town, especially the smaller ones. It acknowledges that there won't be a vaccine in the fall.

“Even without engineering reasonable solutions across all those dimensions, we can reduce the essential question to this: In August, will we be prepared to blow up everything we know about the efficacy of social distancing? If not, what are we even talking about?

“Until that fundamental promise -- that my kid will be safe in your hands -- is as accurate as it was pre-pandemic, the answer has to be remote instruction.

“So, let’s prepare for that, and stop pretending that the solution is a less crowded and periodically disinfected classroom.

“Instead, it’s time to see the new normal, reassess the economics of tuition and fees, rethink residential life and figure out how to transform the distance learning experience to make it worth whatever price students and their families will be asked to pay. That, we can do. And we can do it without a rush to a situation that inevitably and unnecessarily exposes the next generation to the threat of this virus.

“In the meantime, parents might want to become part of the process. You’re the customer; and more importantly, you’re probably not in the habit of experimenting with the health of your son or daughter” (Why a return to campus is a bad idea by Mark Harris, Board of Advisors, Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations).