'How many students will have to get sick?': Some University of Alabama faculty concerned as campus re-opens

Some University of Alabama stakeholders are calling for increased transparency and information surrounding the school's decision to re-open campus for classes next week amid ongoing coronavirus spread in Alabama. 

The campus, along with others in the state, will begin in-person classes on Wednesday, Aug. 19. Even as the local public school system has switched to virtual instruction until at least mid-October, the university has maintained its requirement for freshmen to live on campus and is offering a mix of in-person and remote learning in a shortened semester. 

UA requires every campus member to be tested before arriving to campus, will require mask usage inside all non-residential buildings and will continue randomized testing through the semester.

But multiple faculty tell the Montgomery Advertiser they're concerned about the ability to control virus spread at a place specifically designed to foster communal living, in addition to a lack of data about possible spread on campus. 

"I’m not comfortable with the plan they’ve released," said Haley Czarnek, a second year law student.

Professor Michael Innis-Jiménez, a member of the campus' Campus Workers Union, said he hopes the university's plan is successful but doesn't have enough information to be confident they won't be forced to shutter the campus sometime before November.

"The university is not being transparent with what it's going to do under certain scenarios. We're hoping for the best and believe the University is, also. I'd like to be confident about going back. But when we're being kept in the dark, when we're told, "Just trust us," when they're not even wanting to give us the number of positives cases? We don't know what would cause a shutdown. We won't even know if students who have been in our class have tested positive," said Innis-Jiménez, who is active in a new UA employee group called Safe Return UA, which is advocating for increased transparency from administration.

Students will be required to complete online virus prevention training, track their symptoms periodically through a new app and are technically banned from holding off-campus social events.  

The university has maintained its right to shift to virtual learning, as it did in the spring, at any time. Faculty fear a repeat of spring semester, where rumors ran rampant as the virus spread and students, the majority of which are not from Alabama, were forced to leave campus with little warning.

“At what point do they make the decision? What information are they basing their decisions off of?" Tasha Coryell, an instructor in the English Department, said. "We’re getting a lot of words, not a lot of concrete information or sources about where this is coming from. When you’re in academia, that’s really frustrating. All of our work is supposed to based off of reliable sources. What information are they looking at that tells them that it’s safe to come back? What would tell them that things are unsafe?”

The Montgomery Advertiser last week asked UA if there are plans to release public health data — how many cases have been identified among students and staff, as universities such as Troy are providing. A spokesperson said the university has not released that information, but said it would publicly share any future plans to do so. 

More:‘I just don’t see how this can be safe’: Auburn professors, students share concerns about return to campus

'We don't know what the plans are'

In recent weeks, at least two communications from administrators have rankled faculty and students and raised concerns about UA's priorities. 

First, in late July, the dean of the Capstone College of Nursing emailed staff suggesting faculty facing pandemic-related schedule issues, particularly those with "school aged children," should inform administration so they would "have time to hire a new faculty member to replace you.” According to two faculty members who spoke to the Advertiser, the email rattled and angered faculty, who felt it was pressuring instructors, particularly those without tenure, to resign their positions without informing them of their right to paid family leave or trying to work on flexible scheduling options amid a global pandemic.

"It spread like wildfire," one faculty member said, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. 

The dean quickly walked back the email, saying she didn't intend to create the "impression" that she was asking people to resign or threatening to fire staffers. But the faculty member said it felt "threatening" to many in the college and said, amid ongoing concerns about transparency and the ability to maintain in-person instruction, represented a disconnect between front-line workers and administrators on campus.

"We don’t know what the plans are. That’s what puts the fear in the faculty and staff," the faculty member said. "We don’t know if they really have our best interests at heart, or if it’s financial."

Days later, a UA law student noticed a form in the required COVID-19 training all students are required to complete. Haley Czarnek, an incoming second year law student, said she noticed "very specific legal" language — "I voluntarily assume such risk" — and felt UA was requiring students to waive their legal right to sue the university should re-opening go awry.

"It is abundantly apparent why they would bury this information: none of us should sign away our right to sue if the administration plays fast and loose with our lives," Czarnek wrote in a Crimson White op-ed urging students not to sign the form. 

Czarnek said there "no communication from UA" about the form's intent, but liability protection for businesses amid the pandemic is an ongoing debate in Washington. 

"They’d be more likely to bring students back in person if they were able to get immunity," Czarnek told the Advertiser last week. "That’s the problem behind this form. If it creates in them the sense that they are not accountable for anything, they may not feel that pressure to protect students."

Last week, UA revised the form to remove the "assumption of risk" language and allowed students to re-submit the revised form if they wished.

Classroom instruction

For undergraduate students, fall semester will likely be a mixture of in-person, online and hybrid classes, and it will look different for every schedule. 

Coryell, the English instructor, said she's limited to having six students in her classroom at a time, when she typically sees anywhere from 12 to 35 students, so students will be split between two-to-three normal class times. 

In ten Hoor Hall, where Innis-Jiménez teaches American Studies courses, tape marks socially distanced spots on the floor where chairs and desks will be placed. But in one of the older classroom buildings on campus, the professor worries about maintaining distance in cramped hallways and believes the podium in some classes will not be six-feet away from the front row.

"Of course, like everywhere else, the people that are in a much higher risk than faculty are the staff cleaning bathrooms and buildings that have had thousands of people in them per day," Innis-Jiménez said. 

Coryell worries about a repeat of the spring, when a one of her last meetings was with a California student stressed about leaving her belongings in her dorm for spring break, not knowing if she would be coming back. 

"She couldn't afford to fly back and forth between California," Coryell said. "What are those kids supposed to do? There’s so many complications for students from other states."

'Murky' data

Of 32,798 undergraduate students enrolled in the fall of 2019, less than 40% were Alabamians. A little over 16% came from Alabama's surrounding states, many of which are dealing with comparably high rates of coronavirus spread. But more than 40% of 2019 students traveled from further away to attend UA, according to institutional data, the majority from outside the Southeast. 

The years-long recruitment of outside students is a lucrative one: They currently pay a little more than $30,000 in tuition alone, three times the resident rate, before room and board, which are required purchases for incoming freshmen.

The enrollment demographics now mean students could be traveling to Alabama this week from states which are statistically safer than Alabama. Some states, such as Kentucky and New York, still have Alabama on travel "watch lists," requiring people traveling from the state to quarantine due to the rampant community spread in the state. 

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox on Tuesday night told the city council that, due to Alabama Department of Public Health reporting methods, positive coronavirus cases diagnosed in the UA student body will not be counted as Tuscaloosa cases in public data. Instead, ADPH will assign them to a student's home county or in a general "out of state" category, even if the student is was infected and continues to live in Tuscaloosa. 

"The UA students that test positive, ADPH is assigning those cases not to Tuscaloosa County and are being assigned to where their homes are," Maddox said. "We will not see those in the ADPH reports."

On Thursday, Aug. 13, ADPH contradicted this, saying they plan to follow a national epidemiological guideline for reporting college student cases, which "will be the place of usual residence in an academic year such as the city/town where they attend college for most of the year." The Advertiser asked ADPH if this has been the practice since March. 

"I'm concerned for people's safety," Innis-Jiménez said. "Because of the amount of money that is involved here, a lot of us are concerned that money is being put before lives. How many students deaths are going to be OK? How many staff deaths are going to be OK?"

Given the distances many students are traveling, UA is establishing quarantine dorms for infected on-campus residents. The Board of Trustees last week approved a $1.2 million bid to rent out a local apartment complex with 252 beds. 

UA spokesperson Deirdre Stalnaker told the Advertiser the plan is to house upperclassmen in the off-campus apartments, freeing up on-campus space for expected quarantines. UA will have about 450 beds available for quarantine for a little over 8,000 residential students. 

Despite the need for more space, UA still required its incoming freshman class (6,764 students in 2019) to rent on-campus living space. Dorm prices vary depending on the location, but UA on its website suggests students budget $9,000 per school year for rent. Freshmen are required to order a $2,056 meal plan for the semester. 

Stalnaker said any students who are quarantined on campus will be provided meals. 

Directly intertwined with its host city, UA is not an isolated campus. Tuscaloosa's population swells when school is in session, creating dueling concerns between the expected stimulus into the city's economy alongside an anticipated burden on the health care infrastructure. 

Maddox last week moved to limit bars' operations, instituting a rule to halve bar capacity after 9 p.m. Clubs and entertainment venues are limited to 25% capacity, in addition to a previous statewide ban on alcohol sales after 11 p.m. from the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. 

The mayor said the restrictions are necessary as Tuscaloosa's population adds "over 20,000 people" while its health care system is in a "manageable but fragile" position. 

In an interview with al.com, Chancellor Finis St. John acknowledged UA wouldn’t be able to eliminate all risk and said if “faculty and students and staff don’t do their part,” the re-entry plan could fail.

But Coryell and others believe this is an unfair characterization when they’re being asked to return to campus with thousands of others, some of which may not always adhere to the recommended precautions, as the virus continues to spread in Alabama

“I can control what I do in my household, I can make sure that I'm safe," Coryell said. "I can control my classroom. I can’t control what my students do outside of my classroom. The people who are in positions of power, who are making the big decisions, are not taking responsibility. … If your roommate goes out, goes to a lot of parties and is exposed, there’s nothing you can do about that. Are you supposed to barricade the door so your roommate can’t leave?”

The university has touted its comprehensive pre-entry testing plan, in addition to random testing throughout the school year. But it’s unclear if campus members will ever know how many infections have been identified on campus, and if or how many people might be investigating case origins.

"Shifting the responsibility to the students when they haven’t necessarily given us safe options is a huge problem," Czarnek said. 

The Advertiser last week asked UA if it planned to publish statistical data from the university’s testing efforts and if not, why. Apart from its own testing program, UA has required all campus members to report positive cases to campus administration. Failure to do so could result in disciplinary action, UA has told students. The Advertiser also asked how many contact tracers have been obtained to investigate the origins of potential outbreaks. 

Stalnaker said UA has hired staff to assist with “exposure notification and coordination” but did not address how many. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is spearheading an app aimed at monitoring symptoms, which students are required to participate in every day, and contact tracing, which students are encouraged but not required to participate in. 

"If there's no way to look at accurate Tuscaloosa County stats, and see if there's a surge of people living in Tuscaloosa, it's all going to be on the university to be transparent, and that means being transparent with daily numbers," Innis-Jiménez said. "We need to know day-to-day. ... This is not a privacy issue. We're not asking for identifiable information. We're asking for how many students have tested positive."

Coryell said last week she's "scared" to go to work, though she loves teaching, and she worries young students alone will be blamed if cases spike. 

"I hate that it’s like that. I would like a world where it’s not a pandemic, and I can teach face-to-face," Coryell said. "But that doesn’t seem tenable right now. I get frustrated when people place all of this blame and anger on undergraduates alone. I think the focus should be on the people who are making decisions."

Updated on Aug. 13 at 11:00 a.m. to reflect further details on ADPH's method of tracking cases among college students. 

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown at 334-240-0132 or mabrown@gannett.com.