I have a friend in Oriental who was, until his recent retirement, Provost at a Div I university in NC. He and I had the following conversation via email:
Me:
If you were still sitting in your office on campus, what would you be doing right now to prepare for the Fall?
A- Plan for a normal semester of on-campus classes and resident students?
B- Online classes and no resident students?
C- Some melding of A & B?
He:
Good question, and a decision will need to be made soon. The dilemma is in the absence of a vaccine, any relaxing of social distancing carries risks, but a vaccine is probably a year or more away. A long time to continue the current disruption of normalcy. My guess is universities will do A, with safeguards in place (e.g., no large lecture classes, perhaps single person dorm rooms), but administrators tend to be risk averse (imagine the press coverage if a student or faculty member dies) so they may go with B. In NC, that decision will be made at the system level with a uniform policy at all state schools.
I think within the next month, one of our social institutions that relies on social proximity to function (e.g., universities, sports leagues) will make a decision to continue to postpone activities or to open. Then others will follow suit. That’s the pattern we saw with the decision by most governors to impose social distancing policies.
Me:
I agree with you in theory because I have no experience with university decision making. One question that seems to be lingering in the midst of all this discussion about the Fall semester is about football. Your caveat for A in my list, is "no large lecture classes, perhaps single person dorm rooms." A Div I program has over 100 men on the football team. Plus trainers, managers, coaching staff, doctors, etc. Yet, I am reading that the money generated by football may be the lead dog in this process. Even if you do not have fans at the game, does this work? Can most colleges afford to play football without the ticket, concession, parking, etc revenue?
Last, if the NC university system goes with B in my list can there be football in any form?
But, to flip this around, could football drive the university system to go full bore with A?
He:
The rich alums who love their football do put extraordinary pressures on administrators. It’s why Appalachian is now in the Sun Belt and UNC-Charlotte has football. And you are correct, to play football, the decision would need to be A.
