BY MARTIN KICH

In my previous post, I tried to point toward some light in the midst of all of the darkness by highlighting some evidence of the continuing economic value of having a college degree. I would like this post to be considered within the context provided by that data.

I am less concerned that higher education is facing collapse than I am concerned that all of the talk about a coming apocalypse will skew decision-making about the fall and probably make the impact of the virus on higher ed much worse in both the immediate and the longer term.

The lack of preparedness in our response to the initial outbreak of the virus has made the health and economic consequences much worse than they might have been. And now as if to show that our stores of wishful thinking are far greater than our stores of political will or PPE, we are “re-opening” our states in a manner that could not be more disorganized and hasty. Only North Dakota has satisfied the CDC’s first set of criteria for “re-opening,” which were ostensibly endorsed by the Trump administration.

It is not certain that a terrible second surge of the virus will materialize, but there is a high risk that it will occur. And if it does occur, it is a certainty that its medical and economic consequences will be even more devastating than the effects of the initial outbreak have been.

But let’s say that such a second surge does not materialize.

No scientists are predicting that the virus will just disappear or that a second surge will postpone itself until an effective vaccine is widely available.

And so if another surge occurs in the fall or the winter, our campuses will be among the most dangerous “petri dishes” for its spread.

Erin Bromage, an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has justifiably been getting a great deal of air time on cable news. He posted an assessment of the risk factors for exposure to the Coronavirus. If you have not read it, it is well worth reading.

Although he never mentions classrooms or college campuses, the article very clearly suggests the heightened risks posed by both. Beyond the physical conditions that may make an individual more or less vulnerable, the first major element of risk is volume of exposure—with the risk increasing dramatically if people are breathing, or talking, or talking animatedly, or singing. (Little wonder that choirs have become a hazard.) The second risk factor is duration of exposure. And the third is density of exposure, with indoor spaces posing much higher risks than outdoor spaces. (For these last two reasons, a cashier at a grocery store is at much greater risk than a customer, and someone employed in a call center is at much greater risk than a manager with his or her own office.)

On largely residential campuses, social distancing is effectively close to impossible, and if a second surge does occur, students will carry the virus into surrounding businesses. Then, when the campuses close, some to many of those students will carry the virus with them back to their home communities. (The mapping of “snow birds” leaving Florida and other states along the Gulf Coasts, made possible by cell phone data, has already provided a terrifying illustration of the impact of large numbers of people returning home.)

On largely commuter campuses, some to many students will be carrying the virus into the surrounding communities on a more daily and broader basis.

Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University and former governor of Indiana has announced his intention to have on-site classes in the fall, emphasizing that about 80% of the West Lafayette community is under the age of 35 and therefore less vulnerable. It seems very improbable, however, that 80% of the university’s faculty and staff are under the age of 35 or that having a large number of asymptomatic carriers of the virus will be reassuring to anyone in the community who is over 35 or living with someone over 35.

If continuing to do most classes online is deemed untenable even for another semester or two, how tenable will it be if even one in three faculty at any university contracts the virus and has to be self-quarantined for several weeks?

How tenable will it be if even one in six faculty have a more severe form of the disease or even have to be hospitalized for treatment and need to be on medical leave for more than two weeks?

How tenable will it be if even a small number of faculty die from the disease?

And, yes, the death rate among those under 35 is much lower than for the elderly, but recent statistics have shown that one in five of those hospitalized for the virus have been 35 or younger. A large percentage of those requiring hospitalization have worked in hospitals, extended care facilities, meat-processing plants, or prisons, but Bromage’s article suggests that conditions on a college campus are not any less likely to promote the rapid spread of the disease.

How tenable will it be if even a relatively small number students become very ill?

If some students become ill enough to require hospitalization?

If any student dies from the virus?

Jean Clery was murdered at Lehigh University while I was finishing my doctoral work there. Her death and her parents’ determination to address some fundamental issues affecting safety on college campuses have demonstrated how a single, unnecessary death can have an impact far beyond the statistical reporting of even very large tolls.

Those who profess to be concerned about a calamitous disruption of higher education ought to consider more fully and less selectively the risks that they are taking at the institutional level and the potential ramifications that their current institutions may have to contend with long after they have moved on.

And although there may be considerable financial liabilities involved, I am really focusing here more on the impact on the attitudes and morale of current students, faculty, and staff–and on the message sent to prospective students, faculty, and staff.

Both during and following our three-week strike last winter, our administration kept emphasizing the negative media attention produced by the strike, as if the prolongation of the strike were solely due to our faculty bargaining unit. They also conveniently ignored all of the negative media attention, over almost a half-decade, to the mismanagement, cronyism, and irregular or illegal arrangements that, taken together, created the financial crisis that was the immediate precipitator of the contract impasse and the strike. But, all of that said, the negative media attention has undeniably had an impact on our enrollment.

And, despite a great deal of ill feeling, no one required hospitalization or died.

 

Postscript:

This summary of an ongoing data study being conducted at Cornell suggests that hybrid classes may not be significantly more effective in limiting the spread of the virus. The results should be obviously not be taken as definitive in any way.

The Small World Network of College Classes: Implications for Epidemic Spread on a University Campus

Kim A Weeden and Benjamin Cornwell

Date created: 2020-04-11 | Last Updated: 2020-05-13

Description: In March 2020, many universities shifted to on-line instruction to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, and many now face the decision of how to resume in-person instruction. This article uses transcript data from a medium-sized residential American university to map the two-mode network that connects students and classes through course enrollments. The enrollment networks are “small-world” networks, characterized by high clustering and short average path lengths where most students can reach each other in two steps. Although students from different majors tend to be clustered together, gateway courses and distributional requirements create cross-major integration. We find that course networks remain highly connected even if one excludes the largest courses from a face-to-face enrollment network. This implies that a hybrid model of instruction, wherein large courses are taught online and smaller courses are taught face-to-face cannot resolve the challenge of course co-enrollment as a potential means of transmission.