Faculty appeals to UNC system leaders – don’t risk lives to reopen campuses
On July 7, 34 faculty and staff representing 10 campuses across the UNC system sent a letter of urgent concern to our chancellors and provosts. In this time of record-breaking COVID-19 rates, hospitalizations, and deaths, we asked for three things: that our universities default to online instruction; that campus leaders establish better communication with staff, faculty, and students; and that campuses do more to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of everyone in our community through rigorous testing and contact tracing, and by avoiding layoffs and furloughs.
I was proud to be one of the signers of this cross-campus document; in fact, I forwarded the letter myself, holding my breath as I pressed “send.”
We have yet to hear from our chancellors, but I expect that when we do they will point us to the damaging and manipulative new Immigration and Customs Enforcement rule, ending visa stays for non-immigrant international students not enrolled in face-to-face classes, that has tied their hands. They may tell us that campus jobs will be lost if we do not resume face-to-face instruction.
Yet, to ask faculty, staff, and students to make the choice between lives and livelihoods is deeply unfair and, we think, unnecessary.
There is a better way.
“Default online” does not mean that 100 percent of classes will be online. Some classes – say, in medical or veterinary schools – cannot be taught that way. They will continue face to face, with safeguards that can work better on a less-crowded campus.
International students may end up with smaller hybrid classes, or independent studies that are safer – a professor and a few students meeting outdoors.
And the university will still need staff to serve the varied needs of our students, some of whom will still live in dormitories, eat meals on campus, and use our socially distanced computer labs and libraries.
For those students who choose to live at home? They will be safer than they would be in a half-full or even one-third full campus – and so will their families and communities.
On the day we sent our letter, Tuesday, we also posted a petition asking any member of the UNC system community to sign on. We encouraged signers to comment. They did.
We’ve heard from students and parents, professors and staff, from elderly neighbors who live near UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central and N.C. State. . A word often repeated in these comments is “experiment.” As in, please don’t experiment with my life, with my mother’s life, with my grandmother’s life.
There is so much we don’t know about this virus, or what the return to campus will bring. Will students socially distance? And if we shut down mid-semester, unexpectedly, will our brilliant international students ever return?
We believe that the core requests we made – default online, keep faculty and staff informed and included in decisions, and conduct rigorous testing and tracing – are essential to preserve the mission of our universities. They are the best way of allowing faculty to teach, students to learn, and staff to provide the many essential services that keep our universities running.
And, crucially, these three requests will help our most vulnerable friends, neighbors, colleagues, and family members to survive.
Belle Boggs is an associate professor of English and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at N.C. State University.
