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Deep Dive
Contracts, masks and apps: Colleges set new rules for campus life
Coronavirus health and safety requirements run counter to what students
may expect, and experts say they could be challenging to implement.
Alia Wong
July 17, 2020
As the number of coronavirus cases surges across the U.S., skepticism
is mounting over colleges' ability to resume campus activity in the
fall. Still, as of mid-July, around 55% of colleges were aiming for an
in-person fall semester while another 30% were proposing a mix of
online and in-person instruction, according to The Chronicle of Higher
Education, which is tracking the reopening plans of roughly 1,200 U.S.
institutions.
Colleges are modifying their physical spaces to enable a safe return,
reconfiguring classrooms and gathering areas, plastering their walkways
with social-distance stickers, establishing grab-and-go meal locations
and installing plexiglass partitions in libraries. They're rolling out
coronavirus testing and contract-tracing initiatives. And some are
postponing fall sports.
But for those measures to achieve their purpose, colleges will also
need to transform how students act and think — to ensure they develop
safe and respectful, if unnatural, habits that help prevent the virus
from spreading.
"We're all investing a great deal and trying to prepare for the return
of students," said David Wippman, the president of Hamilton College, in
Clinton, New York. "Yet I think all of us are aware that, at the end of
the day, we need students to also cooperate with us and to respect the
rules that we're trying to put in place."
Young people are accounting for a greater share of coronavirus cases in
U.S. hotspots, a trend some observers partly attribute to partygoing,
athletic activities and greek-life gatherings.
Pointing to "the much-publicized behavior of students during spring
break in Florida," a recent report prepared for Connecticut's governor
underscores the difficulty of convincing some young people to comply
with new "behavioral norms." Many students, especially young adults,
are tired of sheltering in place and are hungry for social interaction.
Amid public officials' ever-changing and inconsistent directives, many
students could be confused about the best practices for preventing the
virus's spread.
Against this backdrop, higher education leaders such as Wippman say
top-down, punitive enforcement of the norms is fated to fail. Policing
by faculty members and other authority figures can only go so far, if
anywhere. Institutions need to instill in students a sense of
stewardship and community responsibility, experts argue. And for that
mindset to develop organically, schools will need students to help with
— if not drive — the development and implementation of
pandemic-oriented social contracts.
"We're putting in place all these rules," Wippman said, "but we want
the students themselves to be talking to and encouraging each other for
everyone's collective benefit."
Changing students' behavior
Getting students to act and think differently will be a massive
undertaking, especially when it comes to modifying their behavior
outside the classroom. Existing evidence suggests that students will
generally comply with public health protocols when in class, said
Martha Compton, the president of the Association for Student Conduct
Administration. Just as students know not to, say, consume alcohol
during a physics lecture, they will generally understand that wearing a
face covering is a prerequisite for being in the classroom.
But young adults' brains are wired for reward, especially when
interacting with peers. "It's developmentally appropriate for college
students to test boundaries," said Compton, who also serves as the dean
of students at Concordia University Texas. And colleges — particularly
public institutions — have limited legal authority over and insight
into what students do elsewhere, she added.
Myriad op-eds, including one co-authored by Wippman for The New York
Times, predict that if left to their own devices, traditionally aged
college students will continue to engage in risky activities, such as
interacting with one another sans masks or attending parties.
"[S]tudents being students will do what students have always done:
congregate in packs, drink heavily, and comingle," wrote Paul
Kellermann, a teaching professor of English at Pennsylvania State
University, in a June op-ed for Esquire. "That is the nature of college
culture, with campus serving as a petri dish for the spread of the
coronavirus."
Kellermann argues that the university "cannot — and should not —
monitor student behavior twenty-four hours a day," instead calling on
the institution to suspend in-person instruction in the fall.
Kellermann is one of more than 1,100 Penn State instructors who have
signed an open letter questioning the flagship university's decision to
reopen campus in the fall.
Intent on reopening, many colleges are banking on their ability to
influence student behavior. Most schools already have provisions in
their student codes of conduct that can be applied to behavior during
the pandemic. And many schools are planning to leverage those
provisions or otherwise revise or add them to set new norms.
"We're putting in place all these rules, but we want the students
themselves to be talking to and encouraging each other for everyone's
collective benefit."
But some are going a step further in an effort to secure students'
buy-in, creating ad hoc social contracts that outline how campus
constituents are expected to behave and engage with one another in
light of the virus. In response to the pandemic, the University of
Pennsylvania, for example, developed a Student Campus Compact for the
upcoming school year. Among other provisions, it stipulates strict
physical distancing and face-mask usage for the 14 days before students
arrive on campus or in Philadelphia.
Anderson University, a small Christian institution in Indiana, created
a Community Care Covenant, which it bills as "a pathway to help protect
the most vulnerable among us." When students sign onto the covenant,
they commit to habits such as regular handwashing and social
distancing. Students also will be expected to participate in daily
wellness checks, uploading their info to an app being developed by the
biometrics company Daon. The app will be used to determine whether a
student can access classrooms and other community facilities, according
to John Pistole, Anderson's president. The school's residence halls
will also have a closed-off section on each floor where students who
live in the dorm can convene to chat and eat mask-free.
"One of the unknowns … is how readily students will actually accept
(the new social rules) when they come on campus," Pistole said. One
benefit of the covenant, which has already been disseminated among
students and employees, is that it helps to set expectations early on,
he said.
Colleges should focus on helping students understand that new norms
such as mask-wearing and avoiding big gatherings are "how we take care
of each other," Compton said. Schools should "remind folks about the
ethics of care that we have in our campus communities," she continued.
These principles could include students being aware of the risks they
pose to others on campus — including their favorite professor, an
academic advisor or even a classmate with an underlying health
condition.
Creating role models
As part of its norm-setting, the University of Miami, in Florida, is
tasking student leaders with modeling and evangelizing those behaviors
on the grounds that "peers listen to peers," said Patricia Whitely, the
school's long-serving vice president for student affairs. The
university will also be hiring a cadre of 50 students as public health
ambassadors — for $10 an hour — to enforce mask-wearing, six-foot
distancing and so on. The idea is to create positive peer pressure,
Whitely said, "because what students don't want to do is go home." She
has been meeting virtually with student organization leaders and campus
constituents to gather feedback and answer questions.
Student involvement in the development and messaging is "crucial" for
these plans to succeed, Compton said, highlighting schools that have
posted videos, for example, of students touting the importance of
mask-wearing. "There's a lot of power in seeing students stand up to
their peers and say, 'This really is important — I need you to do this
not because it's a rule but because it's the right thing to do,'"
Compton said.
Support from parents will also be key. Whitely has been engaging with
parents on Facebook and in virtual town halls, encouraging them to help
their kids understand that social distancing will be inevitable and
that it will be important to adjust their behavior for the sake of
others.
Still, experts cautioned colleges against subscribing to stereotypes about youth negligence in the coronavirus era.
"I generally am not (a) Pollyanna about student behavior," Compton
said, "but I don't think (college populations) are any less likely to
comply with expectations than is the general public."
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