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On the first day of the fall 2021 semester, history professor Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn taught an in-person lecture to nearly 200 students. She loves her students, and when she’s able to teach in-person, she’s “in bliss.”

But this semester, she’s terrified, too.

Lasch-Quinn, who taught online last academic year, has two children with underlying health conditions and an elderly mother. She doesn’t want to bring COVID-19 home to her family. She wants to be able to visit her mother if her health declines. She wants to ensure that her students remain healthy and that the virus doesn’t spread from her classroom to vulnerable community members.

Though the university has transitioned to a mostly in-person semester this fall, she would have preferred having the choice to continue teaching online.

“I have been extra good throughout the entire pandemic of just following every single rule and guideline, being very safe. I taught online all last year. I was very grateful to the university to make that possible. I was hoping to be able to continue to do that now,” Lasch-Quinn said. “Personally, it feels at-risk.”

The Daily Orange spoke with a dozen faculty and staff members, four of whom requested anonymity, about SU’s return to mostly in-person learning and its current COVID-19 policies. Several expressed concern over themselves or their colleagues bringing the virus home or spreading it to vulnerable people, particularly unvaccinated children. And some felt that current academic and public health policies are at odds with the discretion of individual faculty members. 

On campus, 98% of students are fully vaccinated. Employees self-attested their vaccination status, and 95% have said they are vaccinated. Vaccines reduce one’s risk of contracting the virus, including the highly transmissible delta variant, and are very effective at preventing hospitalization and death.

But since July, pediatric cases of the virus have risen about 240% nationwide, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. People who are vaccinated and have symptomatic breakthrough infections of the delta variant can spread the virus to others, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 148 active COVID-19 cases among students, staff and faculty as of Friday. Between then and the start of the academic year on Aug. 30, SU has reported 25 infections among employees. The majority of infections have been breakthrough cases, and most have been among students.

The health and safety of the campus community and its neighbors will remain SU’s first priority, Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie said in a press conference on Sept. 9. With that in mind, the university is also acknowledging that the country is now in a different stage of the pandemic, and it’s seeking to provide a greater academic, student and community experience than it could last year, he said.

“I get the anxiety,” Haynie said in an interview. “But I also know that there’s a lot of people working each and every day, just like we did all of last year, to ensure we do the very best to keep this campus safe.”

SU offered online, hybrid and in-person courses in the 2020-21 academic year. That year, the university allowed “at-risk” faculty to choose their course modality, and many worked from home out of necessity, according to an April report from SU’s Fall 2021 Academic Planning Group, composed of 24 administrators and faculty members. Interim Provost John Liu led the group.

But for the fall, faculty “were told point-blank, ‘You will not be teaching remotely, all classes will be in-person,’” said Harriet Brown, a professor of magazine, news and digital journalism. “And then, of course, you can file for an accommodation through the (Americans with Disabilities Act).”

SU expects faculty to teach in-person courses and conduct research on campus due to the widespread availability of vaccines, according to the planning group’s report, which outlines the university’s guidelines for the fall semester. 

The group’s recommendations were crafted with “broad input” from faculty, a university spokesperson said in an email. The University Senate’s Committee on Academic Affairs and the Graduate Faculty Council were among those involved in discussions.

The approval of the provost and appropriate dean is required for on-campus classes offered exclusively online or in a hybrid format, and decisions about course modality for the fall should be based on curricular priorities, per the report. 

Those with chronic health conditions or disabilities that affect their ability to carry out essential job functions can request accommodations, as they could before the pandemic. The spokesperson said in an email that faculty who are immunocompromised or have family members who are can request accommodations through the ADA coordinator. 

At the start of the semester, there were 106 students across the four in-person classes Brown teaches this fall. She has a medical condition, and she thought she likely could go through the process of receiving an accommodation. But she’s been hesitant to do so, partially because of the university’s emphasis on in-person learning. 

“I don’t want to let my students down,” Brown said. However, she’d like to move her classes online if she feels unsafe this semester. Administrators told her she could do so for only a week or two, she said. 

The university spokesperson did not directly respond to a question from The D.O. regarding whether faculty would be able to move their classes online now if they wanted to, instead referring to the planning group’s report.

Having small classes of masked students, Spanish professor Kathy Everly feels comfortable teaching in person. She is concerned, though, about the spread of the virus and for those with unvaccinated children and older people in their lives.

“If (faculty are) comfortable in the classroom — and many people are, and that’s great — then they should be in the classroom with all of the protections,” Brown said. “If they’re not comfortable in the classroom, they should be allowed to take their class online.”

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For Biko Gray, an assistant professor of religion, the faculty’s inability to determine their teaching modality without accommodations is an issue of academic freedom. Gray received an accommodation, which he said was in part related to health, to teach online this fall. But many colleagues he deeply cares about have not, he said.

“Give us the capacity as teachers — the freedom as teachers — to determine, given class size, given whatever the dynamics are, to determine the modality,” Gray said. “If I’m teaching 200 kids in a lecture situation, I may not want all of those students packed in that space. Not because I’m wanting to deny a student experience, but because that’s just too many people in one space.”

Haynie, who teaches on Mondays and Wednesdays, said he feels anxious about COVID-19 everyday on campus. But he feels that same anxiety at Wegmans and other public places in central New York. 

In terms of public health policy, the university is now in the position of looking at the whole of the campus community — while considering the university’s educational mission, as well as student development, health and wellbeing — to make decisions that are in everyone’s best interest, he said. 

“Last year, each of us — faculty, staff, students, everyone on this campus — was at an equal and high risk as it related to COVID, prior to the vaccine,” Haynie said. “That’s not necessarily the case, or the same case, today.”

David Larsen, an associate professor and epidemiologist on SU’s public health team, has four unvaccinated children. He also shares the concerns of faculty who are or who live with someone more vulnerable to COVID-19. His children, though, aren’t going to contract COVID-19 from him returning from a masked and almost fully vaccinated university, he said.

SU has been at the “RED” level of its four-tier masking framework — the highest level, which coincides with a high risk of transmission on campus — since the start of the semester, requiring masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. 

But Matt Huber, an associate professor in the department of geography and the environment, is concerned that faculty aren’t able to independently require masks in their classrooms should the university reduce its COVID-19 alert level to “YELLOW” or “GREEN.” 

At the “YELLOW” alert, masking is recommended indoors for vaccinated people due to a moderate level of transmission risk. At the “GREEN” level, masking is optional for vaccinated people due to a low risk level.

Liu, the interim provost, said in an SU News release on Aug. 20 that faculty are not allowed to deviate from the classroom masking guidelines “to reduce confusion and ensure universal observance of our public health policies.”

Huber, who also has an unvaccinated daughter, is the president of SU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an organization that advocates for academic freedom and shared governance.

“One of (the AAUP’s) big things is faculty should have primary control over the classroom, and it’s actually the faculty who know their classroom spaces better than anyone,” said Huber. 

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Jackie Orr, an associate professor of sociology and a member at-large at SU’s AAUP, also believes faculty should have the ability to require masks in their classrooms. Seven students in her class of 49 have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the semester, she said in an email on Sept. 16. She doesn’t want to bring the virus home or have her students contract and spread it to vulnerable people.

“Looking out on a classroom, with 49 students filling 49 desks, sitting on top of each other, masked, at this point,” Orr said in an interview, “I feel responsible for having the highest protections possible so that no unnecessary risk of COVID transmission is happening to students in my classroom.”

SU is looking precisely at the amount of transmission in classrooms and whether there could be an outbreak in class — but that hasn’t been seen at this university or others, Larsen said. The university announced Friday that none of its COVID-19 cases can be linked definitively to a specific classroom exposure.

The four-tier masking framework, following CDC guidance, is implemented to appropriately respond to local levels of transmission in a way that maintains the community’s trust in the public health response, Larsen said. 

“If a public health response is overly heavy-handed and not tailored to the actual local risk, then that jeopardizes the trust of the community in the public health response,” Larsen said. 

Nearly all faculty members who spoke with The D.O. for this story were among the more than 150 signatories of a letter publicized in August that called on SU to implement more stringent COVID-19 protocols for the fall. Some signed the letter out of direct concern, others out of solidarity.

In response to the letter, Chancellor Kent Syverud said in an email to faculty that “to suggest the university has in any way abandoned our commitment to public health is wrong.” Larsen told The D.O. that the letter “reflects the anxiety of professors on campus, and it reflects their ignorance.”

Gray, who has lost loved ones to COVID-19, found it disconcerting and disheartening to hear that the group’s concerns were “misplaced, or misinformed or wrong.” Lasch-Quinn viewed the chancellor’s response as a surprising dismissal. Orr felt Larsen’s response was a “symptom” of a lack of respect and understanding from the administration and public health team when communicating about safety concerns.

“I don’t want to dismiss anybody’s concerns,” Larsen said. “You’re all human. We’re doing the best we can. But at the same time, you have to put faith in people who have dedicated their entire lives to this, and that they might know a little bit more.” 

Brown understands that there are many employees at SU, and hearing all of their concerns may be tiring. But for the university to work best, people’s concerns and opinions should be heard and valued, even if they aren’t agreed with. 

“The messaging around this needs to change. It can’t subtly and slyly put the onus on faculty and staff anxiety. It has to be a clear acknowledgment that we are still in a pandemic. People are still getting sick,” Brown said. “For some of those people, there are lifelong consequences or long-term consequences. For some of those people, there are immediate negative consequences.” 

“This is not anxiety, this is reality,” she added. “We do have to live in the world, and I suspect we are just going to have to find ways to live with COVID. But I think people’s concerns are not negligible.”

Published on September 20, 2021 at 12:29 am

Contact Emma: esfolts@syr.edu