The Wall Street Journal has published a special feature for college students nationwide to offer opinions on the prospect of campuses reopening for the fall semester. Unfortunately, no perspectives from students at historically black colleges and universities were among the published responses.
The Digest is proud to offer this thread to students, faculty, alumni, and executives at HBCUs to create a national conversation around public health, economic, and social considerations for campuses opening in the fall. Feel free to submit responses that are no more than 300 words in length, and they may be published here on this official thread.
HBCUs should open. But they should so in consideration of this pandemic as an opportunity to demonstrate their long legacy of extraordinary value and innovation in the toughest of times. Always undervalued, underfunded and under-appreciated, HBCUs have always over-performed. This time is no different than any previous era in which HBCUs have been forced to find innovative ways to cultivate the talent inherent in our nation's Most Vulnerable Populations (MVP).
The doors of HBCUs should never have to open because they should never close. MVP students typically come from generational poverty, lack strong resource networks and require greater considerations that PWIs often relegate to individual students and families. That said, HBCUs establish unique family environments wherein students are cared for holistically: mind, body, spirit, skills, talent, ambitions...developed on a core foundation of mentoring.
That said, HBCUs can be the pilot for a new HBCU DATA CAMM, under development by my team. By distributing an in-home early symptom testing kit with app-connected smart devices to every enrolled student, HBCUs can Collect, Analyze, Monitor and Message its community of students, faculty and staff daily. If initiated now, this unique tele-health innovation using smart devices and AI technology can ensure weeks, if not months, of daily monitoring of the HBCU community for common symptoms related to Covid-19 before the fall semester. This includes contact tracing.
Of course, on-campus accommodations and routines will require behavior modifications and innovative logistical strategies for multimedia instruction and long distance learning included in a hybrid plan for student engagement. With health as the top priority, campuses must reimagine, rethink and redesign the role of the institution. We have experience in this arena and stand ready to help.
I’m leaning toward a virtual fall semester for HBCUs, which is the only surefire way to ensure that this virus doesn’t spread through our schools. Yes, a fully virtual semester will impact both incoming freshmen and returning upperclassmen alike, as the immersion into HBCU culture and on-campus connection are very much a part of a student’s educational experience, but our foremost priority should be the safety, health and wellbeing of our scholars, educators, administrators and staff. HBCUs should take this time to make necessary repairs and assessments of on-campus buildings during this pause, as well as temporarily freeze/close accounts with vendors that aren’t necessary to run the colleges virtually.
Disruption is a common and reoccurring event in the business world. It typically shakes production and sales via customer buying behavior, government policies and intervention, economic adjustments, technology, or business competition. The same is true in higher education, whereby enrollment trends, infrastructure, the economy, and funding, impact operations and sustainability. As most universities assess their decision on how to deliver a learning environment in August 2020, HBCUs are faced with the same challenges compounded with its unique student population of needs and services. Because of this, I suggest they don’t follow the pack of recent announced traditional “in-person” course deliveries in the Fall semester, primarily because of the tremendous uncertainty of the spread of the virus based on students coming from all over the US and the world, increasing the likelihood of another potential breakout. Instead, HBCUs should become virtualization and institutional leaders by continuing to offer remote learning and transition in Spring 2021, which will allow institutions to conduct better planning and execution for a more stable tech-infrastructure, master remote learning for the faculty and assess learning quality, strategically transition to a more robust institutional and personalized learning market, and avoid the high risk of a Fall term virus spread by re-opening too soon. The repercussions will replicate Spring 2020. Though this will obviously impact operational cost with no on-campus students, it will definitely instigate our institutions to transform and re-examine themselves in what they do, how they do it, and how to do it better.
This pandemic has caught most off guard in the areas of resilience planning and contingency planning. And with other factors such a climate change and potential new issues, it is time for HBCUs to maximize this opportunity to be ahead of the game. Many will be looking at how they operated, but only a few will take the initiative to adapt and strive in the new norm. I would allow strategize how to be a resource for the surrounding areas of HBCUs as a way to garner financial, political, and strategic support. Also, it does not hurt to hire someone with strong compliance experience to help HBCUs manage compliance issues related to federal funding (and yes, I am putting my ‘for hire’ sign up).
There are two major points to this and in my opinion, both lead to solely having online instruction for the fall. The first is safety, as we know this pandemic continues to baffle public health officials and public confidence is low. We lack mainstream testing, treatments, and the spread has continued. To reopen campuses would mean students living in close quarters in dorms, attending courses in small classrooms, and congregating in large numbers for various events. All of these put students at risk and place liability on the university. And to this point, there is no guarantee students will be comfortable with returning. Secondly, financially it's always better to prepare for the worse. Even if our campuses reopen in the fall, enrollment will be down significantly causing major budgetary gaps in revenue. Simply opening the campuses will cause institutions to incur certain large fixed costs that don't reduce because of capacity. A cost that 5000 student enrollment would cover easily becomes a huge hole at 2500 student enrollment. In order to save precious resources, going fully online saves the institutions millions that will hopefully allow them to bounce back from this in 2021. Opening with low enrollment in the fall could mean bankruptcy for some in the spring.
I'm divided on this subject: I'm aware that online instruction hasn't been ideal for many students, and ultimately I would like for our campuses to resume in-person instruction in the fall, but unless HBCUs can partner with local venues to accommodate social distancing, I'm not sure how in-person classes would work, especially if there's a second, harsher wave of the virus this fall. HBCUs would need to consider hosting classes in auditoriums, gymnasiums, and campus chapels in order to maintain safe distances between students and faculty. Many institutions, particularly smaller ones, don't have the physical capacities necessary for spaced-out seating to that degree. Partnering with local churches, community centers, libraries, conference centers, and other potential "substitute classroom" spaces could be a possible way of making social distancing plausible.
If HBCUs can be due diligent in preparing for the safety of students they should open in the Fall. However, mishandling of our students in other scenarios (without a Pandemic) have not been favorable so I would vote No. The preparation should be happening now such as cleaning and preparing for a hopefully return in the Spring. Can you say Gap year?
HBCUs should open. But they should so in consideration of this pandemic as an opportunity to demonstrate their long legacy of extraordinary value and innovation in the toughest of times. Always undervalued, underfunded and under-appreciated, HBCUs have always over-performed. This time is no different than any previous era in which HBCUs have been forced to find innovative ways to cultivate the talent inherent in our nation's Most Vulnerable Populations (MVP).
The doors of HBCUs should never have to open because they should never close. MVP students typically come from generational poverty, lack strong resource networks and require greater considerations that PWIs often relegate to individual students and families. That said, HBCUs establish unique family environments wherein students are cared for holistically: mind, body, spirit, skills, talent, ambitions...developed on a core foundation of mentoring.
That said, HBCUs can be the pilot for a new HBCU DATA CAMM, under development by my team. By distributing an in-home early symptom testing kit with app-connected smart devices to every enrolled student, HBCUs can Collect, Analyze, Monitor and Message its community of students, faculty and staff daily. If initiated now, this unique tele-health innovation using smart devices and AI technology can ensure weeks, if not months, of daily monitoring of the HBCU community for common symptoms related to Covid-19 before the fall semester. This includes contact tracing.
Of course, on-campus accommodations and routines will require behavior modifications and innovative logistical strategies for multimedia instruction and long distance learning included in a hybrid plan for student engagement. With health as the top priority, campuses must reimagine, rethink and redesign the role of the institution. We have experience in this arena and stand ready to help.
I’m leaning toward a virtual fall semester for HBCUs, which is the only surefire way to ensure that this virus doesn’t spread through our schools. Yes, a fully virtual semester will impact both incoming freshmen and returning upperclassmen alike, as the immersion into HBCU culture and on-campus connection are very much a part of a student’s educational experience, but our foremost priority should be the safety, health and wellbeing of our scholars, educators, administrators and staff. HBCUs should take this time to make necessary repairs and assessments of on-campus buildings during this pause, as well as temporarily freeze/close accounts with vendors that aren’t necessary to run the colleges virtually.
Disruptive Events Require Bold Decision
Making for HBCUs
Disruption is a common and reoccurring event in the business world. It typically shakes production and sales via customer buying behavior, government policies and intervention, economic adjustments, technology, or business competition. The same is true in higher education, whereby enrollment trends, infrastructure, the economy, and funding, impact operations and sustainability. As most universities assess their decision on how to deliver a learning environment in August 2020, HBCUs are faced with the same challenges compounded with its unique student population of needs and services. Because of this, I suggest they don’t follow the pack of recent announced traditional “in-person” course deliveries in the Fall semester, primarily because of the tremendous uncertainty of the spread of the virus based on students coming from all over the US and the world, increasing the likelihood of another potential breakout. Instead, HBCUs should become virtualization and institutional leaders by continuing to offer remote learning and transition in Spring 2021, which will allow institutions to conduct better planning and execution for a more stable tech-infrastructure, master remote learning for the faculty and assess learning quality, strategically transition to a more robust institutional and personalized learning market, and avoid the high risk of a Fall term virus spread by re-opening too soon. The repercussions will replicate Spring 2020. Though this will obviously impact operational cost with no on-campus students, it will definitely instigate our institutions to transform and re-examine themselves in what they do, how they do it, and how to do it better.
This pandemic has caught most off guard in the areas of resilience planning and contingency planning. And with other factors such a climate change and potential new issues, it is time for HBCUs to maximize this opportunity to be ahead of the game. Many will be looking at how they operated, but only a few will take the initiative to adapt and strive in the new norm. I would allow strategize how to be a resource for the surrounding areas of HBCUs as a way to garner financial, political, and strategic support. Also, it does not hurt to hire someone with strong compliance experience to help HBCUs manage compliance issues related to federal funding (and yes, I am putting my ‘for hire’ sign up).
There are two major points to this and in my opinion, both lead to solely having online instruction for the fall. The first is safety, as we know this pandemic continues to baffle public health officials and public confidence is low. We lack mainstream testing, treatments, and the spread has continued. To reopen campuses would mean students living in close quarters in dorms, attending courses in small classrooms, and congregating in large numbers for various events. All of these put students at risk and place liability on the university. And to this point, there is no guarantee students will be comfortable with returning. Secondly, financially it's always better to prepare for the worse. Even if our campuses reopen in the fall, enrollment will be down significantly causing major budgetary gaps in revenue. Simply opening the campuses will cause institutions to incur certain large fixed costs that don't reduce because of capacity. A cost that 5000 student enrollment would cover easily becomes a huge hole at 2500 student enrollment. In order to save precious resources, going fully online saves the institutions millions that will hopefully allow them to bounce back from this in 2021. Opening with low enrollment in the fall could mean bankruptcy for some in the spring.
I'm divided on this subject: I'm aware that online instruction hasn't been ideal for many students, and ultimately I would like for our campuses to resume in-person instruction in the fall, but unless HBCUs can partner with local venues to accommodate social distancing, I'm not sure how in-person classes would work, especially if there's a second, harsher wave of the virus this fall. HBCUs would need to consider hosting classes in auditoriums, gymnasiums, and campus chapels in order to maintain safe distances between students and faculty. Many institutions, particularly smaller ones, don't have the physical capacities necessary for spaced-out seating to that degree. Partnering with local churches, community centers, libraries, conference centers, and other potential "substitute classroom" spaces could be a possible way of making social distancing plausible.
If HBCUs can be due diligent in preparing for the safety of students they should open in the Fall. However, mishandling of our students in other scenarios (without a Pandemic) have not been favorable so I would vote No. The preparation should be happening now such as cleaning and preparing for a hopefully return in the Spring. Can you say Gap year?