Cal Poly’s COVID-19 reopening plan has health experts, faculty ‘concerned.’ Here’s why
Typically, new Cal Poly students spend the weeks before they move into residence halls in September booking plane tickets and finalizing travel plans to arrive on campus in time to settle in.
Teachers spend the time putting the final touches on their curriculum to welcome the students back into the classrooms.
But this year, the thought of nearly 6,000 students arriving on Cal Poly’s San Luis Obispo campus early next month brings dread, fear and anxiety to many school employees and students.
“Faculty are very concerned about the reopening plan,” said Lewis Call, the California Faculty Association president for the San Luis Obispo chapter. “It’s not clear that the university is taking sufficient safety measures to ensure the health and safety of faculty.”
In an open letter to students that has gathered more than 250 signatures, faculty members urged students to stay home because of “the significant health and safety risks posed by Cal Poly’s current campus reopening plan,” which will “significantly and unnecessarily jeopardize the health of both the Cal Poly campus and the wider San Luis Obispo community,” according to the letter.
Health experts say Cal Poly’s reopening plan is “unwise” and advocate for stricter safety and health protocols to be put in place.
Other universities have moved classes online and urged students to stay in their local communities to avoid bringing the coronavirus to the university communities after several outbreaks occurred in on-campus residence halls and after student parties.
Cal Poly, however, remains firm on its plan to fill on-campus housing to 70% capacity and hold more than 550 classes in person, according to the university’s director of media relations, Matt Lazier.
“We have worked closely with our local and state public health experts and with the CSU (California State University system) to develop what we believe is the most robust educational experience, while bearing in mind the ever-evolving COVID-19 situation,” Lazier wrote in an email to The Tribune. “The health and safety of all of our campus community members is, as always, at the forefront of our decision-making process.”
The university has had 27 students and six employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 since March.
COVID-19 outbreaks at universities prompt online classes, students moving
When talking about the anxiety that Cal Poly faculty are experiencing as the clock ticks down to the first student move-in day on Sept. 3, Call referenced recent events at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The East Coast university recently experienced outbreaks among students that forced the school to transition to online-only instruction and asked students to leave the on-campus dorms as soon as possible, according to student-led newspaper The Daily Tar Heel. UNC reported 135 new positive COVID-19 cases in the first week, a positivity rate of 13.5%, according to The Daily Tar Heel.
Most of the COVID-19 clusters occurred in on-campus residence halls, the Daily Tar Heel reported.
A similar situation occurred at the University of Notre Dame, which abruptly moved classes online for at least two weeks after 147 cases were reported since the school began in-person classes on Aug. 3, according to the South Bend Tribune.
Harvard University, Michigan State University, Stanford University and hundreds of other colleges also backtracked earlier plans to reopen campuses, citing the worsening coronavirus health crisis.
Cal Poly to bring thousands of students to live in on-campus housing
With other universities moving to fully online and asking students to stay home, Cal Poly has pushed forward with its plan to bring students and employees on campus for the fall term.
University residences will be filled to 70% capacity, according to a recent email sent to the campus community by President Jeffrey Armstrong. That means of around 8,500 usually housed on campus, no more than 5,980 will be allowed to live in dorms and apartments for the fall term.
Cal Poly has five residence halls for first-year students, and four additional housing units for continuing, transfer and year-round students for those who stay when classes are not in session.
The first move-in date is Sept. 3, and continues through Sept. 13, according to the university.
“Our intent is to strike a balance that accommodates the needs and desires of students, while also seeking to minimize risk to them and the broader San Luis Obispo community,” Armstrong wrote in the email.
Some students, such as incoming freshman Eliza Luo, said she wants to live on campus to meet new people and have the normal social experience of college, but added that she is still concerned about safety in regards to the coronavirus.
“They (Cal Poly officials) haven’t really said much about how they’re going to regulate and try to minimize students exposure to COVID,” said Luo, who hails from Fremont. “And I’m not sure how strict RAs (resident advisors) and housing’s going to be about meeting up and who’s going places.”
Alameda County, where Luo is from, had 16,184 positive COVID-19 cases and 231 deaths from the virus, and a positivity rate of 5.3% as of Thursday. That’s compared to San Luis Obispo County, which had 2,847 positive cases and 20 deaths, and a positivity rate of 5.1% as of Thursday.
Another incoming freshman who plans to move on campus, Matt Lu, is from Orange County, which had a positivity rate of 6.6% as of Thursday. He said he feels safer moving to Cal Poly because San Luis Obispo County has fewer cases.
“To be completely honest, I’m not too worried about COVID,” Lu, an Irvine resident, said. “Like yes, I’ll be concerned as a whole and I’ll wear my mask and do all the safety precautions, but I’m not too concerned because it’s not too bad over there (in San Luis Obispo County).”
Emily Smith, an assistant professor of global health at George Washington University, said students coming from areas with greater numbers of cases and higher positivity rates puts others at risk.
“That means their risk of having COVID when they arrive is even higher than someone who’s coming from a county where there are no cases,” said Smith, the founder and editor in chief of COVID-101.org.
“It’s not as if you can put people in shared, small spaces — which we all know dorms are — and expect the virus not to spread,” Smith added. “It behaves in a very predictable way. And so student housing clearly is a high-risk place for spread of the coronavirus.”
Currently, Cal Poly’s plan does not call for surveillance testing for COVID-19 — where students would be required to have a negative test result before coming on campus — and instead will only test students who show symptoms of the virus or come into close contact with someone who has tested positive.
Lazier said that this is because the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department do not require the higher level of testing.
Smith said this is “unwise,” and other Cal Poly professors mirror her sentiment.
Candace Winstead, a professor in Cal Poly’s Department of Biological Sciences who teaches medical microbiology and immunology and sits on the County Public Health Department’s Health Commission, said the lack of surveillance testing essentially blindfolds the university and prevents it from detecting the early signs of an outbreak.
“Much of the spread (~20-40%) of SARS-CoV-2 occurs before symptoms start,” Winstead wrote in an email to The Tribune.
“So not testing students before they arrive, and not planning to test students at regular intervals thereafter, together with the number of students congregating on campus, means that we will likely see disruptive outbreaks and spread to the community at large,” Winstead said, noting that models suggest testing two times a week for best results.
Students who had already signed a housing agreement and paid their fees can be fully refunded by Cal Poly if they choose to no longer live on campus, according to the university.
Most Cal Poly classes will be held online
Along with those living on campus, hundreds of students will be returning to campus to attend in-person classes at Cal Poly every day.
About 13%, or more than 550 classes of the 4,300 offered, will be in person, according to the university’s plan.
For students who cannot or choose to not take the in-person classes, fully virtual options will be available, Armstrong wrote in the email outlining Cal Poly’s plan. Teachers are also able to opt out of in-person instruction and can choose to instead teach their class virtually.
“The number of in-person classes that we have scheduled has gradually been dwindling over the course of the summer as more and more faculty decided that it would be better to teach virtually,” Call said.
Call added that the university has a lot of old buildings on campus with no air conditioning and little ventilation. Typically, he said, this just means hot classrooms during September.
But now, it’s a health and safety concern, he said.
“It’s gone from being just uncomfortable because it’s poorly ventilated, to being potentially unsafe because it’s poorly ventilated,” Call said. “And we know that increases the risk of public transmission.”
In an open letter to students, faculty members said that, though they want to see students again in the classrooms, they cannot do so safely right now.
“We know that living and studying remotely is not ideal for most of you,” the letter said. “Many of you indicated in the early part of the summer that you would come to SLO regardless of the housing or virtual class situation. Many of us shared your optimism, but we now have a clearer indication of the risks involved.”
“If and when outbreaks occur, there is a strong chance of spread to custodial or housing staff, to their families, and to the larger community,” the letter continued. “Additionally, we now know that even some otherwise healthy young people can be susceptible to negative health consequences of the virus. The stress and anxiety from these conditions could affect your ability to focus on your classes.”
Students have said the university has been open and helpful in lending as much information as it can, but it has been frustrating nonetheless.
“I have been looking forward to moving in, and now that’s not gonna happen for god knows how long,” said incoming freshman Mason Montoya, who decided to defer living on campus to the winter because of coronavirus-related concerns. “It’s very frustrating as the situation not only for Cal Poly but throughout the state and country is very fluid and no one truly knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
