Safety last. Dollars first: KU used ‘outright lie’ to bring students back amid COVID-19
A lot of the “COVID goes to college” coverage, ours included, has focused on the irresponsible behavior of those students from UNC to K-State who’ve been packing bars and ignoring pandemic protocols. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, they’ve closed all the bars in town for two weeks as a last-ditch effort to discourage the disinhibited spread of the coronavirus at the University of Alabama.
But there are also student journalists, student athletes and other young adults around the country who do know the right answer, even if their college administrators pretend not to. An editorial in the University Daily Kansan, headlined, “KU must reverse course now on campus reopening,” was deeply reported and right on point. “KU hasn’t been honest in its approach to bringing students back,” it said, detailing dodges on testing and whether concern over enrollment is driving the school’s determination to hold in-person classes and calling out these “evasive-at-best responses, and one outright lie.”
The “outright lie” was a whopper: The Lawrence Journal-World reported that a “student survey at the University of Kansas that officials have touted for weeks as evidence of students’ ‘overwhelming’ desire to return to the Lawrence campus for an in-person fall semester did not actually ask students whether they wanted to come back amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”
That’s no small matter, and it’s sad to have to put the credibility of university leaders on the list of the casualties of this pandemic. Among the lessons they’re teaching by example: Safety last. Dollars first. We are not a family. When it matters most, I won’t tell you the truth.
And maybe worst of all: You can never be too cynical.
KU and other COVID-19 holdouts seem determined to keep students on campus until the checks clear — specifically, until after the add-drop period has passed, and students are locked into paying for classes. Under pressure from students, KU has now extended the deadline for 100% refunds for dropped classes to Sept. 4. The deadline for 50% refunds is still Sept. 21.
You don’t need a college degree to know that the move online is inevitable. At a Monday news conference, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said, “We had a bad weekend,” with new COVID-19 clusters at six universities in the state, and one Kansas college student apparently suffering from the rare, and quite severe, COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome.
Yet the responsibility for delaying the day when classes go back online only as long as possible no matter what apparently rests solely with students. KU’s “ability to remain open for the fall semester and return in the spring rests with you and your choices,” Vice Provost for Student Affairs Tammara Durham wrote in an email to students last week. Chancellor Douglas Girod told them, “We will not tolerate selfish and irresponsible behavior that puts the health and safety of our community at risk; that disrespects staff, faculty and students who have worked to prepare our campuses for reopening; that jeopardizes the long-term viability of the university; and that recklessly disregards the authorities of the university, city and county.’’
Nobody, and of course that includes students, should be ignoring rules on masks, distancing and crowds. Lives do depend on it.
And unfortunately, there’s a reason that Dr. Lee Norman, the secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, has said that fraternities and sororities aren’t improving their reputations any with their COVID-19 insouciance: “There needs to be a significant curtailment of their social activities because they are just not getting it,” he said. “I’ve kind of given up a little bit on the fraternity and sorority members quite honestly.”
But it’s also selfish and disrespectful of administrators to be so cavalier about the public health consequences of keeping students on campus and hoping for the best.
Those responsible young adults who are urging their administrators not to wait for lives to be lost before going online deserve more attention than their partying classmates. They deserve to be listened to.
As at KU and UNC, student journalists at the University of Notre Dame have begged their administration, “Don’t make us write obituaries.”
If this is all about money, and it is, maybe administrators should consider this the pleading of their future donor base.