Faculty Express Concerns About COVID-19 Safety, Learning Loss As University Weathers Undergraduate Outbreak

Upper West Side NY

03 October, 2021

1:12 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ZACHARY SCHERMELE SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 During a University Senate meeting last week, Joseph Howley, an associate professor of classics and University senator, questioned Dr. Melanie Bernitz, the senior vice president for Columbia Health, about an apparent change in the University's COVID-19 mitigation strategy. Howley claimed that Arts and Sciences faculty were told during a different meeting that an "absolute prevention of infection" would no longer be the top priority. "I immediately think of all of the ways in which it would still be catastrophic for me to contract this infection," he said in a separate interview with Spectator. "I would pass it on to my unvaccinated children, or because someone else in my position might be even more vulnerable as a faculty member than I am." Bernitz responded to Howley's concern with a line of reasoning that, since the beginning of the pandemic, has been a much-cited eventuality: At some point, COVID-19 will become an "endemic" part of society, much like the flu, for which there are ever-adapting vaccines to mostly prevent against hospitalization and death. The University's vaccine mandate, along with its other restrictive COVID-19 policies, such as masking indoors, would reinforce the safety of most classrooms. "It's unrealistic to expect we will never have positive cases," Bernitz said during the Sept. 24 Senate meeting. "It's unlikely that we will eliminate every case, at least in the near future." As COVID-19 cases continue to spike on campus, some faculty and graduate student-workers have expressed concerns that this mitigation strategy leaves them out of the equation. A lack of clear guidance about hybrid learning options has left some scrambling to adapt their syllabi as students—or the instructors themselves—test positive for the virus. At the same time, an existing "trust deficit," as Howley puts it, between administrators and faculty has been exacerbated by what many claim is limited transparency about the extent of the virus' current spread at the University. "That official data about the positivity rate in Columbia-administered tests is not really giving us a full picture," Howley said. "I'm not accusing the University of dishonesty here, but there is, I think, an open question about, well, exactly what is the state on campus?" Columbia's current testing policy requires unvaccinated affiliates—which make up a mere fraction of the total campus population—to undergo mandatory testing on a weekly basis, while 25 percent of vaccinated undergraduates are selected each week for randomized testing. Some faculty have responded to this by repeating the fact that a select number of Columbia's peer institutions in different communities conduct more rigorous testing. Harvard, whose business school recently moved all first-year MBA classes online due to a COVID-19 outbreak, tests its vaccinated undergraduates three times a week. Princeton tests all its affiliates—including students and faculty—once a week. Just across the street, Barnard mandates all students, faculty, and staff members to test once a week with an optional second weekly test. Columbia administrators claimed that they have crafted their policies with community spread in mind. The expectation that individuals who test positive at facilities outside of the University self-report their status to Columbia Health has also contributed to a sense of mistrust about the University's less-than-punctual weekly case updates. Days-long wait times for testing appointments have forced administrators like Bernitz to encourage individuals to get tested outside of the University if they would prefer. Another source of discontent has been the pedagogical consequences of the undergraduate outbreak. After nearly two years of almost completely remote instruction, the University's guidelines from Provost Mary Boyce calling on instructors to use "innovative and creative ways" to shift to hybrid learning if necessary has left some faculty unsatisfied. Note-taking and recording lectures are among the options that have been floated to faculty by the University after also informing students that they will not be penalized for missing class if they test positive, are contact traced, or exhibit symptoms. Director of American Studies Hilary Hallett said at one point that five of 15 students in a course had reported symptoms, but she felt she was not adequately prepared for hybrid classes. Hallett said the University needs to give more guidance to students and professors about how to conduct class when they are experiencing symptoms. "There is a contradiction in what we're saying about how everything is fully in-person, but technically, to get a green pass, you really can't admit to having any symptoms that resemble a cold," she said. "Are we really saying that? Even if you just have a catch in your throat, you shouldn't go to class, even with your mask on? I don't know. I'm not sure because I had a class where a third of the class, all of a sudden, wasn't there." Johannah King-Slutzky, a member of the Student Workers at Columbia bargaining committee, is a third-year graduate student in the English department. She is also a University Writing instructor who was recently in close contact with a student exhibiting symptoms. She says the experience of navigating hybrid learning when the University's policy is to teach in person has been inconsistent. For example, although the University encourages in-person office hours whenever possible, the University Writing director informed instructors to keep their office hours on Zoom to reduce the number of people in the Writing Center. "This is not an abstract question anymore," she said. "This is something that instructors and TAs and RAs are dealing with on a day-in and day-out basis," Mandi Spishak-Thomas, another member of the Student Workers at Columbia bargaining committee and a fourth-year in the social work department, said a general sense of anxiety has settled in among many graduate student-workers, specifically ones teaching large lecture courses. "It absolutely seems like implicitly, they have decided that we are all just expendable," Spishak-Thomas said. "And if we get COVID, we get COVID. And if not, I guess, then they lucked out." Deputy News Editor Zach Schermele can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @zachschermele. Deputy News Editor Talia Abrahamson contributed reporting. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.