Illinois State University students are set to return to campus in less than two months—and some faculty are raising concerns about the risk to their own health and whether they’ve had enough input in the reopening plan.
ISU administration recently released its draft Redbirds Return plan for the fall semester, answering some — but not all — questions about what life will look like at ISU when classes resume Aug. 17. It calls for a “blended” approach for fall instruction, with some classes on campus and others online, or a little of both. Residence halls and dining centers would be open with new precautions, like limited dorm guests and more spread-out seating. Everyone would be expected to wear face coverings.
Academic Senate chair Susan Kalter said she’s been in touch with more than 100 faculty and staff members who have “expressed concerns or grave concerns about fall semester.” Those concerns are related to their personal health, child care or elder care conflicts, and “the sense that just because they or their students are not in a high-risk category does not mean that they will not die or have lasting medical repercussions should they contract the virus,” Kalter said.
To be sure, much of ISU’s current plan is framed as “recommendations,” implying things could change. For now, many courses with 50-plus students would be moved online. Face-to-face classes could be moved to nontraditional spaces or scheduled at odd times to help de-densify campus. Students may not return to campus after fall break to reduce the odds a traveler brings back the virus.
Some have expressed concerns about how the reopening plan was crafted. There are 18 different working groups, focused on areas such as Academic Continuity (the largest one), Housing, Dining, and International Programs.
Martha Horst, a professor of music composition and theory, said those teams are doing great work, and she praised ISU administration efforts on Redbirds Return. But now she hopes ISU administration shifts away from “task forces that are not faculty-controlled and moves toward a dialogue with a shared governance entity,” such as the Academic Senate.
“We are supposed to have a role in moments of crisis,” said Horst, a member of the Senate. “You’ll get a vibrant debate with representation across the university. So I hope as we move forward, items like the face mask policy, for instance, or the attendance policy, really need to be developed by a task force but then move forward to the Academic Senate.”
Horst pointed to the reopening plan’s reference to face coverings. “Face coverings will be the norm on campus, consistent with the Restore Illinois Phase 4 guidance,” the plan reads. (Phase 4 is expected to begin next week.)
“It says ‘face coverings will be the norm,’ but it doesn’t require face masks,” Horst said. “That kind of decision needs to be made by a shared governance entity like the Academic Senate, which has representation by students and faculty. I hope that at some point some of these major decisions regarding how ISU is going to move forward are passed by the Academic Senate.”
There is “fairly universal concern” about the reopening of Milner Library and safety of librarians, testing and contact tracing (or the lack thereof), and faculty being expected to clean their own classrooms before and after use, Kalter said.
Faculty and staff, she said, are aware of the downsides of not bringing students back to campus in August. That includes the potential loss of revenue—and then maybe jobs or wages—if students don’t want to pay for an online-only experience.
Faculty and staff “weigh the health and fatality risks … as more significant,” said Kalter, also a professor of American literature and Native American studies.
Trevor Rickerd is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in biology at ISU. He’s also a teaching assistant, potentially putting him in more direct contact with students in August.
Rickerd said he is concerned in part because he and his partner are both considered high-risk. He’s asthmatic. His partner is a Type 1 diabetic.
“If we were to catch the coronavirus, we are not sure how well we’d be able to get through that. Not just in a financial health sense. But in a health sense,” Rickerd said.
Horst, the music professor, said she usually has around 15 students in her traditional group classes, which she normally teaches in the Centennial East building (that opened in 1959). The rooms there are small, she said, and she’s skeptical ISU can deliver on its COVID-19 pledge to “increase building fresh air minimums from 10% to 40%.”
“I’m not sure quite sure how safe it’s going to be to teach in Centennial East,” she said.
Rickerd said he understands the “show must go on,” and that the how-to-reopen conversation must happen. He just has a lot of questions. If a TA or professor gets sick with COVID-19, what happens to that course? If a student gets sick, does everyone in that class have to go through contact tracing and self-isolate?
“We don’t know how those things are going to be handled. As a teaching assistant, I’m not really part of that conversation. I’d like to be,” Rickerd said.
ISU is not the only public university facing concerns from employees about reopening strategy. Last month, a faculty advocacy group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said it’s opposed to reopening that campus to face-to-face instruction this fall, and it called on the university to use its financial resources, including its endowment, to weather expected revenue losses.
In response to questions from WGLT about faculty concerns, ISU spokesperson Eric Jome said “planning for fall is a campuswide effort and faculty members have played a role on the university’s working groups throughout the process.”
“The Division of Academic Affairs has held town hall-style meetings with academic departments to provide updates on planning and receive feedback from faculty. University leadership is meeting with the leaders of Academic Senate and other shared governance groups to discuss their partnership in the planning process.”
Jome added: “The safety of faculty, staff, and students is a top priority.”
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