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Findings

01 Civitas— the social responsibility that each person has for the welfare of the whole

• Safe in-person learning will only be possible if all citizens of this community abide by rules that guard health

• Education is especially vulnerable to the transfer of the virus due to high density

• Student responsibility is critical to the welfare of elderly faculty, high risk students, and family members when leaving campus.

02 Systematic Response to Managing Infections

• The virus is a bad actor. To contain it in the open environment of a educational campus, a systematic response is required

  • Testing. Test early and often, test daily. Today, test for symptoms, tomorrow, test for the virus.

  • Positive test for virus results in interview for tracing and isolation. Tracing is implemented using an app on a smart phones.

    • MIT Private Kit - Location Tracking App
      Three US Local Governments to Adopt Coronavirus Contact Tracing App, Reuters

• Manage activities that really need contact with facilities differently than ones that do not.

• Maximize the ability to deliver as many essential functions as possible

• Protect employees, teachers, researchers, and students. Quarantine plan that meets the needs of the entire school community.

03 Transformations of Campus Culture DNA

• Some innovations will emerge that take hold

  • Possible curriculum shifts to the block system or hybrid online and in-person learning
    6 Ways College Might Look Different in the Fall, npr

  • Classrooms shift to outdoor tents to allow for more classroom space
    Curl la Tourelle Head has Designed a Concept for Tent Classrooms, Dezeen

• Teaching a class has just shifted

  • Large Lecture Classes-- significant shift to online. Technology creates new tools for engagement. Everyone is in the front row.
    What can Covid-19 Teach us About the Education Systems, Brookings

  • Seminar Classes (8-20)-- Temporarily remote, but returning to in person. Limits to number of people in same room will complicate finding a solution.
    What Might College in Colorado Look Like in the Fall?, Denver Post

  • Office hours-- Students’ enthusiasm for face to face meetings is understandable. Alternatives to in person meetings or physical improvements to faculty offices are required.

• Social interaction has just shifted to smaller circles of interaction and more virtual interactions
  A Teacher Predicts What His Classroom and Others Will Look Like in the Fall, Washington Post What Might College in Colorado Look Like in the Fall?, Denver Post

• Increased consciousness of health and wellness

04 Maintaining Voluntary Choices

• As institutions shift from Pandemic to normal and back, individuals need to make their own choices for all forms of participation.

  • Is Testing Voluntary?
    Its Eyes on the Fall, One Campus is Conducting a Public Health Dry Run, Chronicle

  • Increasingly, students will explore the option of a gap year or to defer enrolling.

• High risk faculty and employees offered extended opportunity to work remotely.
  AFT and AAUP Principles for Higher Education Response to Covid-19, AAUP

05 Connection to Community and to Others is Important

• Student Success is significantly improved by purposeful educational engagement

• At all levels, students who are engaged with their academic communities, both inside and outside the classroom, have both increased academic success and personal growth. A major focus of responding to a virus should be maintaining student engagement.
  Unmasking the Effects of Student Engagement on First-Year College Grade and Persistence, George D. Huh, Ty M Cruce, Rick Shoup, Jullian Kinzie, The Journal of Higher Education, 2008

  • Engaged college students have a 13% higher GPA compared to other students.

  • Students succeed when they are engaged outside the classroom including co-curricular activities, collaborative work outside of class, studying and campus activities; committees, orientation, student life activities.

  • Student’s investment in social interactions, directly influences the degree to which they are integrated into college life
    Astin, 1999

  • Three Hallmarks of liberal arts education build on the idea of human connection, generating and testing knowledge, unleashing creativity and fostering a new generation of thinkers and problem solvers
    Together at Last: We must reimagine what community looks like after fundamental disruption by G. Gabrielle Star

• On campus housing increases success by supporting new friendships and connection to the institution. Through testing, personal protection, and sound public health policies, allow campus housing to safely fulfill its important role in student life.
  What’s New in Campus Housing? Buildings that Help Students make Friends by Lawrence Beinmiller

  • Located on-campus close to centers of activity encourage students to leave their rooms and engage in activities in shared spaces.

  • Robust Wifi in all student life spaces.

• Social Isolation has a physiological impact in humans
  Effects of Social Isolation on Glucocorticoid, by Louise Hawkley, Steve Cole, et al

  • During pandemic isolation only amplifies impact including reduced response to vaccines

  • Benefits of socialization make it a priority when returning to “normal” state.

• We can and must replicate online the vibrancy of campus life
  More than Bricks and Mortar by Joseph E Aoun

  • Students learn outside of class in a myriad social settings, off campus through internships, community service and experimental opportunities. Young musicians “play” together. Undergraduate research in virtual labs

  • Some students want residential experience, Now with new options.

• Social shifts to zoom interactions and parties
  Inside the College Coronavirus Parties of Zoom, The Atlantic

• Athletics and Club Sports are good for morale and wellbeing but come with extra health risks

06 Certain Education Areas Need In-Person Solutions

• Prioritize continuing laboratory research

  • Some research will be in the line of solving the crisis, They are a generating source for insights, tools and protocols to keep the population healthy.

  • Some research requires hands on bench research. Investigators are motivated to have researchers in the lab. Safety protocols will need to be ready for implementation.

  • Group Meetings--Essential for idea review and critique of work and exchange of ideas. Remote initially but high priority to reestablish

  • Establish significant temporary health protocols-- Current practice is to limit number of people in lab which is not sustainable
    Extension of 'Stay Home, Stay Safe' order and an update on U-M's future plans

• Campus Housing and Dining

  • For some students, staying on campus is safer than other options

    • Institutions that accept International students have an obligation to provide an option to depart or safely stay on campus

    • Some students have high risk home/apartment arrangements. These students should be able to safely stay on campus.
      AFT and AAUP Principles for Higher Education Response to Covid-19, AAUP

07 Inventive Flex Spaces

• Digital Video Lab

  • A space or series of spaces enable lab research merged with tele presentation/data sharing tools. Better yet, conventional labs that can flex to digital capabilities

• Video Lecture Space

  • Flexible, sanitized. Better than broadcasting from your kitchen

• Housing Designed to Flex

  • On campus housing that can flex to single occupancy rooms/bathrooms

  • Keeping students who cannot depart safe and allowing for early return

• Research Labs designed to Flex

  • Shifts from conventional to space that can be partitioned to provide sanitary separation between workspaces

  • Parallel to office work environments that shift

• Prefabricated virus test zone

  • Where you pick up your test kit or get tested on the fly

  • Perhaps modular testing enclosures can be deployed at the entrances to campus or distributed throughout campus at entrances to buildings, spaced at some distance apart.

  • Testing outcomes and tracing data uploaded to a powerful central data system.

08 Supply Chain of Resources is Critical

• How to keep people nourished

  • Establish protocols that anticipate disruptions

  • New strategies to:

    • Eliminate waste.

    • Locally source food.

    • Promote on site food gardening.

• Medical Equipment Supply

  • Not enough test kits or masks out there?

  • Prepare protocols for mass vaccination

• Supply of Volunteers

  • People in high risk roles need maximum support for health and well-being

    • Health Service employees

    • Researchers working on a cure

    • Staff who prepare the campus facility for return