Should U.S. Universities Reopen Campus this Fall and Welcome Students Back Into the Live Classroom?

Welcome to Tuesday’s Avocado Toast, a platform for us to explore a particular topic that looks obvious to one side, but particularly ludicrous to the other. Just like avocado toast, most topics today seem polarized as good versus evil and once labeled as the other, there is no going back. Our mission is to present perspectives on opposite sides of a particular topic and analyze key differentiating opinions in order to spurn thoughtful dialogue and push others to critically think about their previous sentiments.

As one might expect, most of the topics we will address are related to education, however as individuals who believe education is connected to all facets of society, it will be quite diverse. In addition, be sure to check out our Thursday postings, Thursday’s Big Three, to learn about an article, organization, and book detailing a particular topic or agenda. 

With that being said, let’s take a bite ~

Well, might as well start with a topic that everyone has been talking about in education. There are many hesitations and “what if” scenarios that exist now and only increase in the coming months as the nation wrestles with Covid-19. However, as we slowly move into July, schools must start answering this question and can no longer give vague answers. 

Should University campuses reopen this fall and welcome students back into a live classroom?

Surrounding this question are a few different implications that need to be considered. These articles bring them up, so indeed pay attention to the considerations of..

Economics | Safety | Technology | Continuity of Higher Education | National Policy

FOR:

Paxson, Christina. 2020.04.26. “College campuses must reopen in the fall. Here is how we do it.” The New York Times, Opinion. Retrieved from: LINK

Brown University’s Christina Paxson frames her NYT op-ed in the context of what it will mean if we don’t reopen campus this fall. Economically, Ms. Paxson focuses on the tired argument of tuition-focused revenue for universities and how the majority won’t survive a 20-30% tuition drop this fall. She, however, doubles down on economics by introducing the angle of higher ed’s contribution to the economy as a whole: 3 million employed, 600 billion into the national gross domestic product, and the propping up of hundreds of small college towns (not to mention seedy bars and trivia nights). 

In addition, Ms. Paxson highlights that while universities were the first to shutter from the virus, they can also be the first to lead the innovation movement for careful planning and advanced digital technology implementation on a wide scale to fight the virus (and future viruses). In the absence of a vaccine (and the grim reality that this is only the beginning of super-viruses), colleges can help implement the model of how to combat this virus by interweaving strategies into our daily lives that utilize preventive measures. None of these measures are especially groundbreaking, but taken as a whole they would indeed be a fundamental shift to how large entities operate. 

Lastly, while these two points are more practical, she wouldn’t be a university president without mentioning the societal costs of young adults delaying their education experience. The financial, social, academic, and psychological implications of delaying traditional higher education for students, especially those more socioeconomically challenged, will prove problematic in the long run and potentially contribute to an ever-increasing gap between the haves and have nots. 

In this sense, our FOR argument centers on the idea that opening campuses this fall to students is an economic and societal necessity in order to help lead the innovation of virus preventative measures on a large scale and maintain a sense of traditional education engagement that upholds the financial status quo. In this sense, she remarks that “the reopening of college and university campuses in the fall should be a national priority”.

Or is it the wrong national priority?

AGAINST

Sorrell, Michael J. 2020.05.15. “Colleges are deluding themselves.” The Atlantic, IDEAS. Retrieved from: LINK

To believe that higher education is just now in a crisis would be foolhardy, as Paul Quinn College’s President Michael J Sorrell writes, as rises in tuition, changes in academic credentials, and socioeconomic situations threaten the majority of universities around the country. However, the pandemic makes these questions more astute for higher education and begs the question, put simply by Mr. Sorrell: “Do we serve the students and families who appear at our doors each fall full of hope and faith? Or does self-preservation come first?”

With that statement, President Sorrell leans heavily on the medical reality that he states as: “Because of the manner in which most residential colleges are operated, these institutions cannot use traditional face-to-face instructional methods and expect anything other than an unacceptable rate of disease transmission” and that being unable to follow this notion is nothing less than a failing of moral responsibility as leaders. Quite the statement; yet it circles back to his original argument (or leaning) that universities need to answer the question(s) of whom exactly they serve. 

Interestingly, he makes his final point, and then enthusiastically so in the conclusion, that this pandemic serves as a test not only for the school, but for the students as well. By accepting the uncomfortable reality that life is going to be hard for the foreseeable future, Mr. Sorrell believes that shuttering on-campus activity this fall teaches both the school community and the individual students the important lesson of how to persevere to become a more resilient society. With that approach, he actually believes that his choice will help advance the continuation of higher education and be better in the future. 

Our Against argument indeed centers on the medical reality that college campuses encourage the continued spread of Covid-19, notwithstanding precautions or not. Interestingly, however, Mr. Sorrell uses an ethical perspective to defend his position: one infection is one too many, colleges serve the students and not themselves, and that if we see the pandemic as a test of resilience, then the choice of not reopening campus will actually strengthen the continuity of higher education. 

A test of ingenuity; only the strong (schools) will survive, making higher education in fact stronger

?CONCLUSION

• Are the economic and psychological concerns too disastrous for higher education and society as a whole, or is this actually the perfect “test” for schools to determine their shining qualities and make higher education more aligned with the market? 
• Is there an acceptable level of infections and possible casualties we, as a society, are willing to tolerate in order for the right to continue on? Regardless of how many precautions you take (and a fair question of if these are even viable), the virus will still have shallow wins. Is that acceptable? 
• What is higher education’s role in society? Should it be a tool to serve the nation as a whole and focus on the community at large, or does it serve the individual students and consider all the implications for each one?

What’s Next?

This debate will continue to rage on for the next few weeks and possibly the next month as schools finally have to face the music with their decision(s). Tragically, most schools have fallen short of communicating with students and faculty about the transparency of their decisions, citing the need for flexibility and an uneasiness of what decision will actually be made. By withholding exact information for scenarios A - D (or maybe even O?), the schools can make their decision at the last minute. Hopefully this isn’t proved to be too problematic, yet we can’t help but wonder, like President Sorrell, how helpful transparency in this whole process might have been. 

One thing is for certain: higher education, and really the future of education, will never quite be the same. While the consequences of this pandemic on higher education aren’t clear today, we will continue to see in years to come changes to the economic, academic, social, and operational models to schools across the country. As President Paxson references, higher education can continue to serve as a leader in research and innovation for the country as a whole. Our only hope, of course, is that this leadership can be benevolent. 

Thanks for reading about today’s topic - we highly encourage you to either comment below, like, or share this article to inspire others to think about this issue and the different perspectives that exist on this story. Conclusions for these topics are rarely simple and like all things in life, usually include bits of sentiment from both sides. In the meantime, have a great week and enjoy (or throw away) your avocado toast!

Inspired By:

AllSides: Creation of the Media Bias Ratings used by us and 100s of other publications, AllSides strives to spotlight and teach how to critically think about fake news, media bias, balanced perspectives, and more through their publications and school programs

Harvard’s Making Caring Common Project: Using school data, student perspectives, admissions research, and education expertise, Harvard’s Graduate School of Education creation and implement of the Making Caring Common project intends to upend the current admissions structure and pathways to university, while at the same time improving the student social and emotional experience while still in secondary school. 

Mastery Transcript Consortium: Trying to measure student development in one class, much less trying to measure student outcomes from state to state, is usually a fruitless task considering differences of socioeconomic situations, values, resources, and definitions of success. The Mastery Transcript Consortium aims to tackle this problem by reinventing the traditional transcript and finding innovative ways for schools to individually measure student outcomes. 

Inspire Taiwan: A non-profit dedicated to the educational development for the island of Taiwan, Inspire Taiwan strives to connect organizations and institutions with the right resources and services to better serve the communities they teach and impact.