POSTED BY MARTIN KICH
Several weeks ago, Tom Rooney, the treasurer of the Wright State chapter, spoke at an event inaugurating the UD Solidarity effort at the University of Dayton, which is focused on insuring that the university carefully weighs the pros and cons of re-opening.
Tom made the following remarks:
As I stand before you today, COVID-19 continues spreading exponentially through our nation. And I believe we are closer to the beginning than the end.
The American Association of University Professors, the AAUP, has for over 100 years defined fundamental professional values and standards for higher education and higher education’s contribution to the common good.
In its guidance for reopening campuses, the AAUP insists that the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff must be the primary consideration, THE PRIMARY CONSIDERATION, in decision-making about when to reopen a campus.
AAUP agrees that the question of how to reopen must be driven by guidance from the CDC and state public health officials. And even in times of crisis, the faculty have primary responsibility for fundamental areas as methods of instruction and all aspects of student life that relate to the educational process.
Here and across the country, college administrators want some face-to-face instruction on campus. Face to face?
Imagine the classroom of students in face masks, sitting six feet apart, one part of their brain focused on school, another on grandparents or parents or friends dying, and still another on the uncertain future that awaits them upon graduation.
Our students are learning from a place of dislocation, anxiety, anger, and trauma. It is our responsibility, as professionals, to meet students where they are, and not concede power to those that would deepen their trauma. In teaching this fall, we are preparing our students for a world beyond Fall 2020. Our students deserve as much.
UD Solidarity includes faculty, staff, and students. The group has a petition posted at https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ud-solidarity-petition-regarding-campus, which I encourage everyone to sign and share.
That petition begins:
To: President Eric Spina
On June 18, 2020, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine cited Montgomery county as a COVID-19 “hotspot” for “worrisome” increases in infection. One week later, the University announced its plans for re-opening in August. Recognizing the unpredictability of public health variables and the contingent nature of plans for the fall semester, we write to share our concerns regarding the University’s decision-making process thus far and to provide recommendations for principled actions moving forward.
In so doing, we acknowledge the tension between health risks and the financial impact of reopening. Balancing these factors may require changing plans before Fall semester or after classes resume. We also express our support for the guiding principles recently established to inform the campus COVID-19 response. These principles shape the proposed actions detailed below, which result from sustained conversations among employees across units. We, the undersigned staff, faculty, and graduate students, therefore implore you to act in the following ways: . . .
Here is a link to a video of the press conference held on July 14: https://dayton247now.com/news/local/ud-solidarity-discusses-concerns. (Tom Rooney is not the initial speaker.)
And here are links to several other related news stories:
https://dayton247now.com/news/local/group-pushing-for-better-plan-to-reopen-ud-campus-this-fall
This letter expresses perfectly why parents and students are increasingly exercising options to higher education, rather than risk exposure to its virus. That virus is cognitive. And worse. It transmits the precise obverse of intellectual enlightenment and self-directed Aristotelean maturity. The man speaking in this above letter, has surrendered his rational mind, if not to hysteria, then to the easy opportunism and cultural solidarity of politics. Parents with the pocketbooks, checkbooks, donations, credit cards, and loans, are the ones increasingly in solidarity, and saying “No thanks.” The New AAUP: American Association of United Parents.
Regards, ’96, The University of Chicago; ’84, The University of Texas at Austin; and a college parent.
Re.: “I believe we are closer to the beginning than the end.” Unfortunately, since this individual does not appear to have an M.D.after his name, I am not obliged to accept what he “believes.”
In fact, even doctors, including Dr. Foccacio, the CDC, and many other “experts” have been providing contradictory information for months now. What constitutes a “hot spot” may only apply to the elderly or at-risk citizens — and masks and social distancing should minimize the danger for college students, profs, and staff.
Of course, if you want to insure that NO ONE catches the virus, then I hope you’ll go to work on the flu when this Plague goes away. It calls tens of thousands every year.