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US Colleges Struggle to Balance COVID-19 With Classes
Colleges and universities are seeing an increase of cases of COVID-19 as students return to campus, with some seeing rapid increases while others are keeping a lid on the spread of disease.
Four sources are compiling information about colleges and COVID-19, including case-tracking maps: The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Davidson College’s College Crisis Initiative (C2i), and Inside Higher Education.
So far, there is no unified national coordinated plan from higher education on how to handle the spread of the coronavirus on university campuses across the United States, say experts, including Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), and Frederick M. Lawrence, former president of Brandeis University and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, in separate interviews with VOA.
Tracking COVID-19
In early August, before the fall semester started at many schools, nearly half (48%) of more than 1,275 colleges and universities planned for an in-person semester, while 35% proposed a hybrid model and 14% online, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which has been tracking colleges since spring 2020.
But as of October 1, only 4% of nearly 3,000 institutions were “fully in person” for the fall semester, 23% reported a “primarily in person” teaching situation, and 21% offered a hybrid of in-person and online courses for students. Thirty-four percent were “primarily online” with 10% fully online. Eight percent remained undecided or “other,” according to data from the Chronicle and Davidson.
Some of those closures came after students returned to campus or nearby, and COVID-19 cases spiked. James Madison University in Virginia halted in-person classes completely, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison saw an increase in cases that forced the school to enter a two-week lockdown.
State University of New York-Cortland, with 6,800 students, converted to all online classes October 6 after a spike in cases. At SUNY-Oneonta, nearly 700 students tested positive for COVID-19, and the university moved to online-only classes for the rest of the semester. SUNY-Oswego returned to in-person learning on October 5 after a two-week closure begun when more than 100 cases were confirmed on campus.
Most U.S. colleges and universities are not conducting widespread coronavirus tests despite the rise of cases on campuses, according to an NPR analysis.
Data of more than 1,400 colleges compiled by the College Crisis Initiative at Davidson and analyzed by NPR show that more than 2 in 3 colleges with in-person classes have no testing plan or are doing limited testing for only students at risk.
Universities with high numbers of COVID-19 cases and “no clear plan” include Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (29,300 undergraduate students enrolled), Troy University (12,995 undergraduate students enrolled) and Southeast Missouri State University (9,524 undergraduate students enrolled).
The University of Alabama has the highest average number of daily cases with 82.6 per 100,000 in the county containing the college. The university is conducting random surveillance testing, according to its website.
Student reactions
Despite measures to keep schools safe, many students and staff raised concerns before campuses reopened.
“So you’re telling me that we can't control the spread of covid between 42 people on campus during orientation, but we’re going to bring 20,000+ students to that same space in 3 weeks?? I want to be back @MissouriState. But we need more than a vague plan to get us there,” tweeted Jasmine Crawford from Missouri State University.
“Friday night in State College, PA. @GovernorTomWolf we need another lockdown. @pennstate you may be able to enforce social distancing on campus, but students in State College = students in bars. Take that into account,” tweeted Sage McKeand, an undergraduate student at Penn State University.
In June, more than half of 7,234 Purdue University faculty and staff reported they “felt unsafe about returning to campus for a fall semester with in-person classes,” according to The Indianapolis Star.
Over 90% said they were “not confident students would ‘socially distance appropriately outside the classroom (e.g., on weekends, at bars and parties).’ ”
Sherry Pagoto, a clinical psychologist at the University of Connecticut, surveyed college students about returning to campus in July, and found that the students that responded to their survey agreed that the required 14-day quarantine before the semester started was “not realistic” and “will likely fail.”
Pagoto and research assistant Laurie Groshon interviewed seven focus groups of four to seven students each.
Students said they were “pessimistic” about wearing masks during social events, although they said it would depend on the “social norms” of groups and stated they were unsure about how to hold one another accountable.
Students also stated that the threshold for closing campuses should be “based on several weeks of increasing cases on campus and should not wait until someone dies.”
The status quo
The University of Alabama (UA) and the University of Georgia (UGA) have the most cases, according to a New York Times case tracker. As of September 25, 2,690 confirmed cases had been reported at UA and 3,532 confirmed cases had been reported at UGA.
Some students say their universities have not been careful with containing cases.
At UGA, Max Appelbaum, a fourth-year atmospheric sciences major from Trion, Georgia, lives in off-campus housing with two roommates. He is taking two online classes and two in-person classes.
Appelbaum said in a message to VOA that he was “disgusted” and that it was “incredibly irresponsible to come back to campus at all.”
“Basically, the administration isn't listening to its own researchers who are studying coronavirus and are telling them that their plan is inadequate and that it was not safe to reopen campus,” he messaged VOA.
Greg Trevor, executive director for marketing and communications at UGA, disagreed.
Trevor said the university consulted many health experts before deciding to resume in-person classes. The health experts included a medical oversight task force, composed of the dean of the College of Public Health, the executive director of the University Health Center and the campus dean of the Augusta University/UGA Medical Partnership.
"From the outset of the pandemic, the University of Georgia’s primary commitment has been to the health and safety of our faculty, staff and students. We worked diligently — with the engagement of faculty health and medical experts — to prepare our campus for the resumption of in-person instruction this fall in a manner consistent with federal and state health and safety guidelines,” he wrote in an email to VOA.
Other large universities have had a relatively small number of coronavirus cases.
California State University-Fullerton (CSUF) has had three cases among its 35,169 undergraduate students.
CSUF laid out a six-step plan for readmitting students to campus and ensuring the safety of faculty and students. The plan is now in its third phase, according to its coronavirus website.
“For those who will be on campus in the fall, it will be each person’s responsibility to adhere to all safety protocols to reduce the risk of infection among our campus community members and their families. This includes using face masks, practicing good hygiene and maintaining social distance,” it wrote.
If anyone is exposed or comes in contact with someone exposed, this person “must remain off campus, self-quarantine, and follow all applicable public health orders,” it continued.
Crucial practices
The University of Wisconsin-Superior has had only one case of coronavirus out of its 2,259 undergraduate students and, according to Jordan Milan, director of strategic communications and special assistant to the chancellor, this case was not linked to the 54% of classes that are on campus.
“We recognize that the success of this model is dependent on our on-campus community engaging in social distancing, wearing a mask and keeping hands sanitized. We have reminders of these practices posted throughout campus,” she wrote in an email to VOA.
In addition to signs about social distancing and wearing masks on campus, there are three different flow charts of procedures that students should follow if they contract coronavirus living on campus, off campus or in a distance-learning environment.
As Milan mentioned, the spread of coronavirus on campuses depends on student behavior and whether they obey social distancing guidelines and other policies laid out by their universities.
Appelbaum noted that if he saw students disobeying rules UGA laid out, he would ask people to put their masks on and observe social distancing. “I just want to be as safe as I can be in a bad situation,” he said.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly included Michigan Technological University among institutions that do not have a clear plan to deal with the coronavirus.
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US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
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5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
