‘I Don’t Trust My University.’ Readers Share Their Fears of Returning to Campus in the Fall.

Most colleges have started to announce their fall plans now that the spring semester, sprung into chaos by the novel coronavirus, is winding down. After months of uncertainty, while students, faculty, and staff were kept away from campus to slow the virus’s spread, some institutions are planning a return to in-person instruction.

The Chronicle is tracking colleges’ reopening plans, and about 73 percent of institutions in our sample say they plan a face-to-face fall semester. Several leaders have made rather confident statements. Their employees and students seem less sure about a homecoming anytime soon.

Coronavirus Hits Campus

As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses.

• Here’s Our List of Colleges’ Reopening Models
• Why Is Gettysburg College Giving Up on ‘The Gettysburg Review’?
• Fall-Enrollment Trends in Distance Education: a Snapshot

We asked readers to tell us how they felt about returning to campus. More than 300 of you responded. Our survey was anonymous and not scientific. Still, the responses paint a picture of educators’ fears and the decisions people are weighing.

Here’s what some of you told us. The responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Are you comfortable returning to work on your campus this fall? Why or why not?

“College campuses are the white-collar version of meat-packing plants: people living and working together, packed into the smallest places possible. Poor air circulation, poor hygiene and cleanliness, sitting in a room and talking for an hour. It’s everything necessary for the spread of this disease. I’m high risk. Going to campus, with no real mitigations in place? Death sentence.”

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“Yes. College students are not a very high-risk group, and distance learning is a disaster.”

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“No. We are prioritizing revenue over public health. We won’t have jobs to come back to if we don’t keep our students, faculty, and staff healthy.”

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“Yes. We belong on campus with our students.”

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“Not at all. Classrooms will become incubators, and no amount of desktop cleaning will prevent it.”

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“No, because I don’t trust my university to provide what we need to stay safe.”

What are you most concerned about?

“That the university will make rash decisions in attempts to get staff back too quickly, thus putting me and my family at risk. That I will be forced into unnecessarily deciding between my family’s health and putting food on our table.”

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“The larger impacts of large institutions’ reopening if there is a second wave. Think about how much disinfectant, hygiene products, personal protective equipment, and general maintenance is going to be required to maintain safety. Think about how difficult it is to get these products now.”

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“Administration using coronavirus as a shabby excuse to substitute online teaching for in-person teaching.”

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“Dying and killing others.”

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“Losing my job if we don’t return to campus in the fall.”

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“Our students’ ability to continue their programs if faced with the loss of employment, continuation of home-schooling young children, and most importantly, illness.”

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“Enrollment deficits in 2020 that we may not be able to recover from, putting us at great risk of not having a 2021. It is not sustainable for us to stay home another semester or year.”

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“What the decision to reopen will do to the local community, which has been hit hard. It doesn’t seem fair to residents to risk their health by bringing in students and employees to reopen the campus if there is no treatment or vaccine. September might be when they have just recovered from this wave, and then we’re risking them getting hit again.”

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“Draconian steps being taken to protect people from themselves. At some point we have to realize that adults can make their own decisions and live with the consequences.”

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“That my choice will come down to either losing my position or being forced to work on campus in dangerous conditions.”