As health care buckled during pandemic, UW students supplied critical help | Opinion
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Editor’s note: This is the fourth chapter of a 5-part series in which former University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and Vice President Jim Langdon reflect on their experience guiding the system though the COVID-19 pandemic. As the health care crisis raged, facilities on the front lines began to have severe staffing issues. Drawing inspiration from the foundations of the UW System, they found ways to help students jump from the classroom to the community to assist.
In 1905 UW President Charles Van Hise said, “I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every family of the state.”
Thus was born the Wisconsin Idea, a high-minded statement that seems to have anticipated campus testing sites, vaccination clinics as well as student health programs during COVID-19 that sent badly needed reinforcements from classrooms into communities to fight the pandemic.
COVID was not unlike another deadly pandemic, the Spanish flu, a century earlier where University of Wisconsin nursing students interrupted their studies to join the fight against the virus.
In 1918 no corner of Wisconsin was spared the ravages of the highly transmissible Influenza Epidemic that claimed fifty million lives worldwide. When seriously ill patients inundated Wisconsin hospitals and strained over-burdened health care workers, UW nursing students jumped into action to treat and comfort those suffering from the disease.
Read part 1: Even as COVID raged, I knew opening UW campuses was right call for the sake of students
Read part 2: UW mobilized to offer free COVID testing in pandemic. It helped keep college campuses open.
Read part 3: Pandemic politics made battling COVID at UW tougher. Masks and vaccines made a difference.
By fall 2020, Wisconsin hospital, nursing home and other health care workers had endured months of long hours treating and caring for seriously ill and vulnerable persons. Nursing deans at UW-Eau Claire, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Stevens Point closely monitored the situation and eagerly accepted an invitation to partner on a solution. Like their great-grandparents a century before, UW System students stood tall to serve on the front lines against COVID-19.
College students took lessons into clinics across Wisconsin
In November 2020, President Thompson announced a UW System incentive for students to work in public and private health care settings during winter break and beyond. Specifically, the system would provide a $500 tuition refund to any student enrolled at a UW System campus who worked at least 50 hours in a Wisconsin hospital, clinic, nursing home, long-term care facility, state or local health care facility, or state veterans home.
The program received support from the Wisconsin hospital and nursing home associations, and thousands of students took advantage of the opportunity to serve. In addition, UW nursing deans worked with students to ensure front line experience translated into academic success in their university careers. The program was so successful that we reintroduced it in spring 2022, this time with funding from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
We also recognized the fight against COVID-19 was not limited to treating the sick, but preventing illness among the well. Again working with nursing deans and now the UW-Madison pharmacy dean, Thompson in 2021 announced a new $500 tuition incentive for UW pharmacy and nursing students to assist in vaccinating Wisconsin citizens. More than 1,000 pharmacy and nursing students took time away from academics to administer COVID-19 shots to the public.
Presidents Van Hise and Thompson recognized the University’s obligation to not only teach but also serve. COVID-19 testing sites, vaccination clinics and the student health worker and vaccination programs represent the Wisconsin Idea at its best.
UW colleges assisted communities during COVID crisis
More than other institutions, universities play central roles in their communities through faculty, students, facilities and technical resources. While a university’s first duty is to protect its campus community in times of crisis, it frequently has the capacity to extend its resources to places where public and private services may not fully meet needs.
The University of Wisconsin stepped up during the COVID emergency to provide safe, accessible facilities for testing and vaccination services that benefited hundreds of thousands of residents. And UW nursing and pharmacy students worked in health care and vaccination settings where overburdened doctors and nurses needed additional support to care for our most vulnerable citizens. These are only a few examples of the Wisconsin Idea at work during COVID-19.
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We recommend future university presidents similarly widen their gaze beyond campus boundaries to serve their larger communities. Public universities routinely request and receive support from taxpayers for their mission; it is right that they return the favor, especially in times of crisis.
Coming next week: Final thoughts for leaders next time we face a COVID-like crisis
Tommy G. Thompson was elected governor of Wisconsin four times, serving from 1987 to 2001. In 2001, he became Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a post he held for four years. He previously served in the State Assembly from 1967 to his election as governor. Jim Langdon served in appointed positions under governors Thompson, Scott McCallum, Jim Doyle, Scott Walker and Tony Evers from 1989-2020, and at UW System from 2020-2022.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW college students treated sick, vaccinated Wisconsin at critical time
