What’s Behind Colleges’ Bullish Statements on Their Fall Plans?

Two months into a nationwide social-distancing effort that emptied dormitories, sent classes online, and canceled sports tournaments, it’s hard to imagine ever going back to normal. But in the past week, presidents and chancellors at residential campuses have begun weighing in on what reopening might look like amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In campuswide emails and FAQs on their colleges’ websites, they’ve attempted to answer the question on so many people’s minds: What will happen in August when the fall semester is supposed to start?

One type of response has seemed to gain currency as more institutions announce their fall plans. The University of North Carolina system said on Wednesday that it intends to reopen for the fall semester, while acknowledging that plans may change, and that some precautions to stem the spread of the virus may be necessary. The Universities of Oregon, Illinois, Georgia, North Dakota, and Alabama have all sung similar tunes.

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.

• Covid-19 Is Pushing University Hospitals to Their Limits
• Colleges Are Canceling Spring Break. In Its Place: ‘Wellness Days’
• The Real Covid-19 Enrollment Crisis: Fewer Low-Income Students Went Straight to College

As thousands continue to die nationwide, and many businesses, offices, and civic institutions remain shuttered, the statements carry the unmistakable ring of optimism — especially when stacked up against what we know about the virus. Without a Covid-19 vaccine or reliable testing for either antibodies or the virus itself, a near-term return to normal life looks almost impossible. The virus spreads when people come together, cough in the same space, and touch the same surfaces, making college campuses petri dishes for the disease. And more infections inevitably mean more sickness and death.

As Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, said on Twitter: “No one wants to say the simple truth: College campuses are the perfect breeding ground for COVID-19. Therefore, America, we cannot bring your sons and daughters back to our campuses until we can keep them safe. Safe=a vaccine and wide-spread testing.”

But decisions have to be made, and students, faculty, and families have a right to know what to expect. So leaders are faced with a stark choice about what to say: Open campus and risk the health and lives of your entire community and beyond, or remain mostly closed, possibly forgoing tuition revenue, a loss that Christina Paxson, president of Brown University, called “catastrophic” in a widely criticized op-ed in The New York Times. “It’s not a question of whether institutions will be forced to permanently close,” Paxson wrote. “It’s how many.”

Given those choices, it’s not surprising to see university leaders struggling to find the right words, said David Karpf, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. There has never before been anything like this in the modern history of higher education.

“We don’t really have a playbook for how to do crisis communications in this kind of scenario,” he said. Usually when presidents write carefully worded emails about a bad situation, it’s about something that’s happened on their campus. The playbook is, “Do an honest internal assessment of what is the nature of this problem,” Karpf said. “How bad is it really?”

But in this pandemic, “university principals know no more than the rest of us” about what the coronavirus will be like in September.

Most of the resulting statements can be roughly broken down into three types: colleges that plan to reopen in the fall, like Purdue University, which was among the first to bullishly announce its intention to reopen if testing allows; those that say they will make a decision by a certain date in May, June, or July; and those that have signaled that at least some online instruction is likely. The University of California at Berkeley, for example, told students that “some or all instruction for all or part of academic year 2020-21 may be delivered via remote instruction.”

From a communications standpoint, Karpf said, setting a date by which campus leaders will make a decision is a good strategy. That gives students, parents, faculty, and staff members some framework by which they can make decisions in their own lives. It also encourages people to prepare for several different scenarios.

Holden Thorp, editor in chief of Science and its associated journals, and a former university administrator, said colleges “want to keep the people who are committed to their university on board.”

It’s important not to assume that all colleges should do the same thing, he added.

“We have such a diversity of different kinds of institutions and different kinds of college students,” he said. “As always, the high-profile residential colleges will get a lot of attention.” But they tend to represent one type of student.

A lot will depend on how well colleges feel they can enforce social distancing on their campuses.

“The time line for the vaccine is very uncertain,” Thorp said. “It’s a reasonable assumption that we’re going to have to start a whole lot of things before the vaccine is here.”

Thorp added that he understands why university leaders would project optimism about fall prospects now. “If I were still doing university administration,” he said, “I guess where I would come down on this is: We’re planning for the fall. We’re planning to be in-person. But we’re going to make a final decision about that based on facts on the ground as late as we can.”

Even if you have to pull the plug, the plans will already be in place, and they can be used in January or whenever the campus does in fact open fully.

Nell Gluckman is a senior reporter who writes about research, ethics, funding issues, affirmative action, and other higher-education topics. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.