“At no time, however, will we sacrifice the health and safety of our faculty, staff and students,” UO’s President Michael Schill affirmed as he announced plans for fall 2020. “As I stated back in March and repeatedly since then, it remains above all our top priority.” Even with his reassuring voice, Lane County continues to see an “exponential increase” in COVID-19 cases. With cases soaring each day, UO’s high touch points, such as the Rec Center, dining halls and EMU, should not be open.
UO’s health plan paints a glistening picture of rationality and safety, but behind the sparkle is a plan focused on maintaining the money stream coming from students. I understand the want to give first-year students a conventional college experience. College should be filled with new experiences with new people.
But we can’t ignore the fact that our environment has drastically changed. We are living in a world where a highly contagious virus is controlling how we interact with others. It’s irresponsible not to adjust with the environment. It’s dangerous and hypocritical to ignore the health crisis.
Saul Hubbard, UO’s media relations and communications manager, said, “Individual departments and facilities, including the Student Rec Center and Erb Memorial Union, have developed and implemented their own safety plans for re-opening.” And that’s true. Many elements of the EMU and Rec Center are limited or online, and indoor seating areas, both in the EMU and dining halls, are closed. But even with those guidelines, student and faculty safety is still in jeopardy.
Students who work in these facilities continue to risk their health. The mask requirement in the Rec Center follows state guidelines, requiring masks in common spaces but allowing the absence of them when using equipment. All we can do is trust that employees sanitize the equipment as many times per day as required. But even when following state guidelines, individuals who refuse to wear a mask are met with no immediate repercussions. Instead of employees being able to ask them to leave until they can get a mask, a behavior report is filled out while they use the facility.
Although seating areas in dining halls and the EMU are closed, the areas are still filled with students who wait in long lines to get their food. COVID-19 symptoms don’t always appear immediately, and negative tests can turn positive in just 24 hours. UO allows students who cannot be 100% sure if they have the coronavirus to converse all over campus. All this does is increase the chance of the spread of COVID-19 and allow students to feel the illusion of safety.
If the school wants to promote being a community and helping its students stay as safe and healthy as possible, it needs to consider how leaving these facilities open is inviting just the opposite. The UO community saw 64 new cases among on- and off-campus students and employees just last week. Bringing back a sense of normalcy can’t be the driving factor for opening up campus. Students’ safety needs to truly be put first, not just used as a slogan. The one thing Schill needs to understand is that actions speak louder than emails.