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The New York Times
Colleges Face Rising Revolt by Professors
Most universities plan to bring students back to campus. But many of their teachers are concerned about joining them.
By Anemona Hartocollis
July 4, 2020
College students across the country have been warned that campus life
will look drastically different in the fall, with temperature checks at
academic buildings, masks in half-empty lecture halls and maybe no
football games.
What they might not expect: a lack of professors in the classroom.
Thousands of instructors at American colleges and universities have
told administrators in recent days that they are unwilling to resume
in-person classes because of the pandemic.
More than three-quarters of colleges and universities have decided
students can return to campus this fall. But they face a growing
faculty revolt.
“Until there’s a vaccine, I’m not setting foot on campus,” said
Dana Ward, 70, an emeritus professor of political studies at Pitzer
College in Claremont, Calif., who teaches a class in anarchist history
and thought. “Going into the classroom is like playing Russian
roulette.”
This comes as major outbreaks have hit college towns this summer, spread by partying students and practicing athletes.
In an indication of how fluid the situation is, the University of
Southern California said late Wednesday that “an alarming spike in
coronavirus cases” had prompted it to reverse an earlier decision to
encourage attending classes in person.
With more than a month before schools start reopening, it is hard to
predict how many professors will refuse to teach face to face in the
fall. But schools and professors are planning ahead.
A Cornell University survey of its faculty found that about one-third
were “not interested in teaching classes in person,” one-third were
“open to doing it if conditions were deemed to be safe,” and about
one-third were “willing and anxious to teach in person,” said Michael
Kotlikoff, Cornell’s provost.
Faculty members at institutions including Penn State, the University of
Illinois, Notre Dame and the State University of New York have signed
petitions complaining that they are not being consulted and are being
pushed back into classrooms too fast.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus is known for its
lively social scene, says a faculty petition. To expect more than
50,000 students to behave according to public health guidelines, it
goes on, “would be to ignore reality.”
At Penn State, an open letter signed by more than 1,000 faculty members
demands that the university “affirm the autonomy of instructors in
deciding whether to teach classes, attend meetings and hold office
hours remotely, in person or in some hybrid mode.” The letter also asks
for faculty members to be able to change their mode of teaching at any
time, and not to be obligated to disclose personal health information
as a condition of teaching online.
“I shudder at the prospect of teaching in a room filled with
asymptomatic superspreaders,” wrote Paul M. Kellermann, 62, an English
professor at Penn State, in an essay for Esquire magazine, proclaiming
that “1,000 of my colleagues agree.” Those colleagues have demanded
that the university give them a choice of doing their jobs online or in
person.
University officials say they are taking all the right precautions, and
that the bottom line is that face-to-face classes are what students and
their families — and even most faculty members — want. Rachel Pell, a
spokeswoman for Penn State, said the petition signers there represented
only about 12 percent of the 9,000-member full- and part-time faculty.
“Our expectation is that faculty who are able to teach will return to
the classroom as part of a flexible approach,” she said, noting that
those who are at high risk or live with someone at risk can request
adjustments.
Driving some of the concern is the fact that tenure-track professors
skew significantly older than the wider U.S. labor force — 37 percent
are 55 or older, compared with 23 percent of workers in general — and
they are more than twice as likely as other workers to stay on the job
past 65, when they would be at increased risk of adverse health effects
from the virus.
Many younger professors have concerns as well, including about
underlying health conditions, taking care of children who might not be
in school full-time this fall, and not wanting to become a danger to
their older relatives. Some are angry that their schools are making a
return to classrooms the default option. And those who are not tenured
said they felt especially vulnerable if they asked for accommodations.
Many professors are calling for a sweeping no-questions-asked policy
for those who want to teach remotely, saying that anything less is a
violation of their privacy and their family’s privacy. But many
universities are turning to their human resources departments to make
decisions case by case.
Anna Curtis, an associate professor of criminology at the State
University of New York, Cortland, asked to be allowed to teach remotely
from home so she could care for her 4-year-old son. She said she was
worried about what she would do if he were sent home from day care for
ordinary things like sniffles and a fever that could be seen as
possible signs of Covid-19, and she did not want to constantly be
scrambling to find child care during a pandemic. Her request was
denied, she said.
The university’s human resources department, she said, told her that
caring for a child did not qualify as a reason to stay home under the
federal Americans with Disabilities Act, and that she would have to
take family leave.
“But that doesn’t happen until the sickness happens,” she said. Going
in and out of virtual mode will be disruptive to both her and her
students, she said, adding, “It’s a parent penalty, and most of the
time it’s the women doing the primary care.”
Stephanie Silvera, 45, an epidemiology professor at Montclair State
University in New Jersey, said she withdrew from a planning committee
in frustration after she could not get the other members, who were
administrators, to focus on deciding which classes needed to be taught
in person and which ones could be done online.
Many students at the university are commuters, and work in the health
care industry, Dr. Silvera said, heightening the risks of their
contracting the virus and passing it to the faculty.
Joseph Brennan, a spokesman for Montclair State, said that another
group was looking at pedagogical issues, and that the university was
making getting back to in-person classes a high priority.
“Our students generally feel that they learn better in person,” Mr.
Brennan said. “We do not want to be a 100 percent online university.”
Instructors at Georgia Tech said they were told last week that they
would either have to be 65 or older or have one of seven specific
health conditions, like diabetes or chronic lung disease, to qualify to
teach remotely.
Professors at the university are being urged to help “achieve our
objective to have a fall term that approximates normal residential
instruction and is cognizant of public health requirements,” according
to a PowerPoint presentation circulated among the faculty.
“I don’t feel safe, personally, going onto campus to teach,” said
Alexandra Edwards, an instructor at Georgia Tech, who is worried that
the school will not give her clearance to teach remotely.
Alexandra Edwards, who teaches first-year writing at Georgia Tech, had
planned to teach from home, and thought her request to do so would be
“just a formality.” Now Ms. Edwards, 35, who says she has a disability
that is not on the exemption list, is concerned that she will not
qualify to teach remotely. “I don’t feel safe, personally, going onto
campus to teach,” she said.
Joshua Stewart, a spokesman for Georgia Tech, said the university’s
high-risk categories were based on guidance from the federal government
and the Georgia Department of Public Health. “If that guidance evolves,
our plan will evolve along with it,” he said.
Other universities have been more open to letting professors decide for
themselves what to do. “Due to these extraordinary circumstances, the
university is temporarily suspending the normal requirement that
teaching be done in person,” the University of Chicago said in a
message to instructors on June 26.
Yale said on Wednesday that it would bring only a portion of its
students back to campus for each semester: freshmen, juniors and
seniors in the fall, and sophomores, juniors and seniors in the spring.
“Nearly all” college courses will be taught remotely, the university
said, so that all students can enroll in them.
Cornell plans to make clear to students before each semester begins
which classes will be offered in person and which will be online, so
they are not surprised, said Mr. Kotlikoff, the provost. He said the
university environment would be safer than the outside world because
students would be tested even when they did not have symptoms.
Still, campuses are not fortresses, and professors in states that have
seen recent spikes in coronavirus infections are particularly worried.
Hundreds of cases have been linked to universities in Southern states
in recent days, including clusters among the football teams at Clemson,
Auburn and Texas Tech, and outbreaks tied to fraternity rush parties in
Mississippi and to the Tigerland nightlife district near the Louisiana
State campus.
“We’re all holding our breath to see what the policies will be,” said
Terrence Peterson, an assistant professor of history at Florida
International University in Miami. Professor Peterson, 35, said he had
respiratory ailments and a 6-month-old daughter at home.
Joshua Wede, 40, a psychology professor at Penn State, argued that it
was not possible to maintain a meaningful level of human interaction
when students are wearing masks, sitting at least six feet apart and
facing straight ahead.
“The value that you have in the classroom is totally lost,” he said.
“My style of teaching, I’m walking all over the room. I wouldn’t be
able to do that.”
Professor Wede said a survey of his department found that one out of
five faculty members would not be comfortable teaching face to face.
But people fear speaking out, he said: “If the university knows they
are high-risk, and they have to go remote, are they not going to renew
their contracts?”
At Pitzer College, Professor Ward said that whether to go back into the classroom to teach is a hot topic among the faculty.
“Nine out of 10 are worried,” he said, especially with the recent rise
in cases in California. He is not scheduled to teach until spring, he
said, but he expects to sit out that course for health reasons and on
principle, because he does not think it is fair to promise students
something they will not get.
“It’s not possible to replicate an in-class experience,” he said. “It’s a kind of bait and switch.”
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