I've spent the last few years trying very hard not to think about what is going on outside the walls of my house. We start up in-person classes again next Tuesday at the worst point in the pandemic, and the administration at my school seems like it is dead-set on opening as if it were last semester, with covid under control locally because everyone has shots. And I think my misgivings about opening in the fall were ultimately unfounded. We were masked and vaxxed. Cloth masks, but that seemed to do the trick. Yeah, I avoided big crowds and met students outside of class online whenever possible, but there was little disease on campus. I know one person who was sick, and those she was in close proximity to did not contract the bug. I don't think that we could expect that to happen with omicron.
A week ago we received an email from our Provost:
Dear Colleagues,
Happy New Year! We are excited to start the Spring 2022 semester.
As we embrace the excitement of returning to campus and engaging with our students, we acknowledge the accompanying concern of how to manage classrooms during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Currently, we plan to start the Spring 2022 semester as per the planned calendar and course modalities. However, please prepare accordingly, should we need to shift to an online modality due to concerns for health and safety related to the pandemic. We are closely monitoring the situation and our policies to maintain the health and safety of our campus community.
A detailed FAQ outlining campus operations is updated regularly to provide the campus community with timely information. We encourage flexibility, as we all navigate this uncertain time, and we remain sensitive to students, faculty and staff who may become ill due to COVID.
We recognize that you likely have more questions but wanted to provide an update and a summary of existing procedures and practices. Please see below.
Thank you,
D. Womblebritches
Provost
This was followed by a handy list:
PLEASE FIND REFERENCE INFORMATION BELOW
As a friendly reminder, current policies provide guidance to manage the classroom. Adherence to State and Federal accreditation standards, and Middle States Commission on Higher Education, as outlined below, ensure [we] can continue to provide students Federal Financial Aid and maintain our accreditation to deliver higher education in the state of New Jersey (see below and references).
CURRENT COURSE MANAGEMENT POLICIES
[...] Procedure 2030: Course Attendance outlines expectations for course attendance, including what to do if a student becomes ill. In the case of contracting COVID, a student or employee should update the COVID-19 Reporting form in the [online] portal. The student would choose the “Student Life” tab, click red "COVID-19 Reporting” button and complete the form. If a student becomes ill and cannot complete the semester, and it is past the drop/add period, the University has a detailed website that outlines the Late or Medical Withdrawal process.
During the semester, if only a few students are absent due to illness or quarantine, a faculty member should continue to offer instruction in the face-to-face modality. However, if the number of absent students becomes significant, the faculty member can choose to temporarily switch to an online modality. Faculty MUST provide an updated course calendar to their Dean’s office to ensure that courses are compliant with applicable standards and to allow the University to track students for health and safety reasons in case of emergency.
If a faculty member/instructor becomes ill or needs to quarantine, they should follow existing practices for course coverage, for example:
· Should the faculty member be quarantined and feel well enough to conduct class, they may temporarily provide online activities.
· Should a faculty member be quarantined and not feel well enough to conduct class, they could use current school guidelines to create alternate course activities or arrange for a guest instructor.
· In either case, faculty MUST provide an updated course calendar to their Dean’s office to ensure that courses are compliant with applicable standards and to allow the University to track students for health and safety reasons in case of emergency.
· The Center for Teaching and Learning Design (CTLD) has some valuable resources and examples of online pedagogy that may be useful should a faculty member/instructor need to transition.
While we fully support faculty discretion in pedagogy and course instruction, we are required to adhere to the State, accreditation, and Federal statutes.
· [We are] registered in the State of New Jersey and Middle States as a residential campus, which requires that students have 50% of their coursework Face-to-Face (see references provided below).
· Thus, faculty are not able to shift their course modality for the entire semester. [We are] relegated to the internal modality definitions provided to Middle States and for Title IV designation.
· The University is temporarily modifying its definition of a Face-to-Face class to 70% of class sessions held in-person (30% may be online), rather than 100% in-person (our current definition). This will give faculty the flexibility they need to ensure continuity of instruction. Meanwhile, the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Media Services revisits our internal definitions.
· If a faculty member needs to temporarily provide online activities due to instructor illness, quarantine, or caring for those who are ill or are in quarantine OR due to a significant number of students being absent due to illness or quarantine, two-thirds of class sessions MUST be held face-to-face.
· In addition to the attached Classroom Management Reference Materials, we also wanted to provide you with additional resources that could be used in the case of a faculty member’s absence from class. For additional ideas during faculty or student absence, view this resource on alternate course delivery on the Center for Teaching & Learning Design (CTLD) webpage and explore creative pedagogy ideas.
OK, so accreditation is important; we don't want to become the University of Austin, after all. I would note, however, that Middle States, our accrediting agency, which does not, to my knowledge, cram hundreds of people into residential lazarettos, has had its annual meeting remotely in both 2020 and 2021 (last month), whereas it had previous held the conference in-person in 2018 and 2019. If it is too risky for the accrediting agency to meet in-person, what's the justification for not suspending in-person requirements for the institutions it accredits?
I thought it was perhaps promising that the Provost left open that little "prepare accordingly, should we need to shift to an online modality," which suggested, yeah, things might be bad. The faculty and staff union clearly has been hearing from concerned faculty. We've looked at sister schools in the state and see that many of them are delaying in-person classes for a week or two while the curve is vertical.
That's not happening at my school. According to an email that I have gotten from my union:
Thus far, the university has failed to implement the following changes to ensure your health and safety in the workplace:
Updating Our Masking Policy and Procedures to Reflect Current Data (i.e., recommend and/or distribute higher-grade masks such as KN95 or equivalents)
Updating all university vaccination requirements to align with new CDC recommendations for students and employees to “stay up to date” on their COVID-19 vaccines, which includes booster(s).
Permitting faculty to teach remote for the first 1-3 weeks of the semester for any reason. We initially requested that the university permit online instruction for any reason for the first 1-3 weeks of the semester (similar to other New Jersey institutions), and later countered with a request to go virtual for the 1st week (through the end of drop/add week) ending on January 25th. Management declined to adopt either of these recommendations, nor did they offer any alternative suggestions that would respond to these concerns.
All of these changes would have been welcomed. However, given that the university is committed to begin in-person classes on January 18th, they should do everything in their power to implement additional mitigation strategies of a) updating mask requirements and b) adding boosters (when people are eligible) to the vaccine requirement.
The university is not only being obtuse and inflexible, but opaque; I have seen no attempt to explain the decision to "let 'er rip." This is the best I can come up with:
So, what can I, a lowly peon do? I introduced myself to my students via email, letting them know who I am and what I'd like to accomplish this semester. (I do this every semester anyway.) I also was upfront with them my concerns about safety and asked them for their suggestions about how to make sure my classroom is as safe as possible. I floated some ideas to them, and having heard back from them I've gone forward and ordered over 300 N95s for my students. That's 3 per student, one for each day of the week we meet. We will be reusing them (yeah, I bought brown paper bags for them to store them in), and I'll have KN95s for students who forget or ruin their high-quality masks.
Someone has to do something. And I swear to fuck if I get sick, I'm going to convalesce in the waiting room of the President's office.
B
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