• Universities across the country have been flying blind, with limited federal guidance on how to reopen, even though more than 6,300 coronavirus cases have been linked to college campuses.
  • Just 40% of colleges have committed to having students on campus in some capacity, according to Davidson College’s College Crisis Initiative, which has been tracking 3,000 schools along with the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  • Now, with loose reopening plans in place, university leaders have to consider what kind of outbreaks or events would shut schools down again, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
  • Texas A&M University would shut down again if a considerable number of professors get sick, President Michael Young previously told the Journal. “We can’t lose 20% of our professors and continue to run the university.”
  • Syracuse University presented a five-tier plan for what to do in the event of an outbreak. Level four addresses roughly 100 simultaneous infections: campus life would “pause” and all programs would move online. Students will not be asked to evacuate campus until level five, when “the situation has escalated to the point where ongoing campus or community transmission is occurring at a significant rate” and there is “no realistic strategy to contain or control the situation.”
  • Cornell University, like other colleges, is also reserving the right to send students home due to widespread transmission. Its reopening plan did not provide an exact infection rate or number of infected students that would enact a shutdown, but did say evacuation could happen at a day’s notice. It previously decided to reopen because of “counterintuitive” evidence that doing so would result in fewer coronavirus infections.
  • Many colleges have shutdown plan specifics, but aren’t publicizing them. Luis Toledo, a data and policy analyst at Davidson’s College Crisis Initiative told the Journal: “If you release [that plan] and acknowledge there is a possibility of students dying, it begs the question: Why are you bringing students back in the first place?”
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