AAUP COVID response

August 25, 2021 Notice of Action

Dear President Stephens, Dean Mosby, and the Board of Trustees,

We write to inform you of an intended action by faculty at Mount Holyoke College in support of safer and healthier classrooms this fall. Faculty have expressed concerns about the fall health and safety plan since early in the summer. As the local and national COVID situation worsens, we appreciate the extension of the indoor mask mandate, weekly testing, and recent modifications to plans for the large events (like academic fair and convocation) that signal the start of the semester. These measures are helpful, but they are not enough to protect at-risk faculty and families.

How did we get here?

On July 28, the AAUP sent a letter to both of your offices, signed by 90 faculty, in which we called on the leadership to embrace two additional principles to those set out in a July 22 memo on health and safety on campus:

• Recognition that classrooms must be kept as safe as possible for all members of our community, including those with unvaccinated children, and elderly or immune-compromised household members.

• A phased and flexible approach to the curriculum and classroom use that limits the exposure of vulnerable community members while we work towards universal vaccination on campus.

The Faculty Conference Committee (FCC) responded to faculty concerns with a Q&A forum on August 4, in which we heard from a public health expert about the greatly transformed landscape of risk associated with the Delta variant. The following day, FCC forwarded to Dean Mosby a summary of faculty concerns, which included a request that “Options for remote teaching must be offered for those members of the community who are in at-risk categories or who are in households with at-risk individuals. It is against the values of our community to expect staff or faculty to risk the health of themselves or their family members in order to carry out their work.”

Shortly after the first meeting of the Dean of Faculty’s reconvened “Classroom Experience Working Group,” on August 12, four concerned faculty members on this committee wrote a letter stressing the need to adopt a more flexible approach, particularly for those members of our community most vulnerable to COVID risks, either for themselves or for members of their household: “We are not advocating a fully remote start or a remote semester. This flexible plan, in which many classes begin in person and some begin remote, can be messaged in a way that persuades students and their families about its benefits. This plan promises that, in the face of the risks and uncertainties of the Delta variant, Mount Holyoke College is prioritizing safety.” The following day, Dean Mosby responded to faculty concerns with an email reiterating the College opening plans, emphasizing that the vaccine mandate, mask requirement and expanded testing regime offered sufficient protections against the spread of COVID on campus. The Dean reiterated that “The expectation and requirement continues to be that all teaching will be in-person. There is not an option for courses to be taught remotely for students on campus.”

What do faculty think about where we are?

Our recent survey of teaching faculty yielded 162 responses. Some important results:

• 82.5% of faculty in this survey “disagreed” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement: "The health and safety policies currently in place to address COVID-19 offer sufficient security for MHC faculty." Several commenters reminded us that it will take five weeks for unvaccinated students to become fully vaccinated. Many are concerned about breakthrough infections.

• 62.7% believed that all faculty should be given the option to teach remotely for the first 2-3 weeks of class. Faculty who asserted that they will teach in person still support flexibility for faculty who need it. Only 4 faculty felt that all classes this semester should be taught in person starting August 30.

• Recent communication concerning accommodations has left faculty pessimistic about the process and whether it can adequately meet their health and safety needs. College policy to deny remote or outdoor teaching as a possible accommodation for faculty for whom this has been medically advised makes the application process seem pointless. In addition, a severely under-staffed Human Resources Department does not have the capacity to process accommodation applications in a timely and thorough manner. Contingent and tenure track faculty expressed worry that requesting accommodations will jeopardize their tenure processes and overall job security. Although fewer than a dozen faculty identified themselves as immune-compromised, faculty described a number of medical situations beyond immune-compromised status that make in-person teaching unsafe, and the College’s plan leaves them no process for addressing their legitimate concerns. Those situations include eldercare, infants and spouses with serious health conditions, and other personal and family medical vulnerabilities.

• Written statements on the survey suggested that faculty want more clear contingency planning, more transparency about vaccination rates, and more overall flexibility from the administration. Some faculty expressed concern that there has been little guidance about how to adapt our pedagogy to teach in-person safely and how to support students who have safety concerns about the classroom.

AAUP Call to Action

The AAUP Steering Committee opposes a rigid mandate for in-person teaching this semester. On Monday, August 23, the AAUP called for collective action by faculty to show support for a more flexible approach to teaching this semester, one that would allow at-risk faculty to manage their health and safety in the classroom. Our demands are that:

• The College must allow the option of remote teaching for those faculty who apply through the accommodations process and can demonstrate need.

• The College must allow all faculty the option of remote teaching for the first 2-3 weeks of the semester, while we wait for students to be fully vaccinated.

We have been organizing towards these goals. Currently, 93 faculty have pledged their support for collective action; 76 of these faculty will be teaching this fall, and have committed to either teaching fully or partially remotely or outdoors for the first two weeks of the semester. Many of these faculty have been looking forward with excitement and trepidation to the start of in-person classes. Therefore, most of these pledges are in solidarity with at-risk faculty. We are proud to know that so many colleagues, themselves eager to return to teaching in person, are deeply committed to the health of each other and the rest of the campus community.

We acknowledge that taking these actions may be disruptive to teaching and learning. It may cause bandwidth problems for the campus system. It may cause distress for students and their families. It may require more work from us as teachers. It may increase burdens on our already overburdened staff colleagues. We do not desire any of these outcomes. They are the product of poor planning and intransigence on the part of College leadership. We believe that there is still time to avoid these disruptions, should the College wish to take a more cooperative approach.

Furthermore, the AAUP Steering Committee sees that the health and safety risks we face today are the result of the administration's rigid approach to planning. We have been told that tents for outdoor classrooms are no longer available, waitlists cannot be shortened, broadband cannot be strengthened, our campus quarantine cannot be bolstered, and masks cannot be purchased. All of this could have been resolved with better planning months ago; indeed, our colleagues gave their time to work on precisely this sort of planning and were greeted with intransigence by administrators. In particular, college communication has set an unreasonable expectation for a return to full in-person teaching, making it difficult to adapt to changing circumstances. Time has run quite short indeed for the college to communicate clearly and positively with faculty and students about the benefits of a more flexible approach to classrooms at the start of the semester. Faculty who are eager to turn their full attention to preparing their courses, so that Mount Holyoke can continue to be known as a place for excellence in teaching, are instead researching air purifiers for their classrooms and offices and wondering if they can afford to take unpaid leaves in the midst of an over-enrollment crisis. Some chairs are wondering how students will recover from hastily cancelled classes at the start of or during the semester if some faculty take unplanned (and unpaid) leaves rather than accept a forced return to the classroom.

We have been told time and again by the administration that the academic mission, teaching, and the faculty are the heart of Mount Holyoke College. We are demoralized and distressed by the college’s poor planning for the Delta variant and the administration’s inflexibility toward our most vulnerable colleagues. A demoralized and distressed faculty who are concerned for their own health will not keep Mount Holyoke the vibrant and pedagogically excellent institution it is known to be.

Sincerely,

The AAUP Steering Committee, representing the Mount Holyoke chapter of the AAUP

July 28, 2021: Letter on Health and Safety for Fall 2021

Dear President Stephens and Dean Mosby,

Thank you for the communication of health and safety policies sent on Tuesday, July 27th, We are writing because as we return to a fully in-person fall semester, we have additional concerns and questions about the health and safety of our campus community that were not addressed in these recent updates. With the rise of the delta variant we worry that some plans formulated earlier in the summer need to be revised, and we want to take advantage of the short window of time before students begin to arrive to make plans that will make a safe return to campus possible.

Though we recognize and value the College’s decision to mandate vaccination for all students, staff, and faculty, it is clear that universal vaccination will not be possible by the start of the fall semester. This is due, in part, to the decision to allow some unvaccinated or partially vaccinated students to return to campus before completing their vaccination schedules. The College has further stated that it will consider “the campus as students’ home” for the duration of their quarantine period, and that it does this in recognition of the “psychosocial and emotional well-being” of students required to live in isolation.

The well-being of students is undoubtedly important, but we are concerned that this policy of extending quarantine space to the entire campus fails to consider other vulnerable members of our community, particularly those who are immunocompromised, living with unvaccinated children, or those with other high-risk members in their households. We are not a giant pod. We are a large and diverse community that also includes the rest of the Five Colleges, some of whom do not have a vaccine mandate. We feel that the risk to the campus community of having essentially no restrictions in place while students complete their vaccinations fails to provide reasonable protection for the health and safety of our community. This is particularly true in classrooms, where students and faculty will be spending significant periods of time in confined spaces with, as the update from July 27th noted, no physical distancing.

We have a number of questions based on the information we have been given so far.

• If the mask mandate ends on September 10, will unvaccinated members of the community be asked to continue wearing masks after that time?

• What is the plan "B" for when faculty (and members of their households) or students have been exposed? In particular, if a vaccinated faculty or staff member has a household member exposed or infected with Covid, what procedure should they follow?

• Has the College considered a phased approach to classes during the first 6 weeks of the semester, something that would allow unvaccinated or partially vaccinated students an opportunity to achieve fully vaccinated status before joining others in the classroom?

• UMass has not adopted a vaccine mandate. Will cross-registered students be allowed to attend classes in person?

• Has the college considered a limited period of remote or hybrid education in order to establish clearly that the campus is safe after the arrival of students who have just completed so much travel from so many locations?

The update on July 22 listed three “core principles” that would guide operations for the fall semester. These included the goal of getting as close to universal vaccination as possible, personal responsibility and accountability for health and safety practices, and compliance with community compacts and policies. To these we would respectfully request the adoption of two others:

• Recognition that classrooms must be kept as safe as possible for all members of our community, including those with unvaccinated children, and elderly or immune-compromised household members.

• A phased and flexible approach to the curriculum and classroom use that limits the exposure of vulnerable community members while we work towards universal vaccination on campus.

Based on these principles, we would recommend the following additional policies:

• Mandatory testing needs to continue throughout the year for those who are unvaccinated and / or have contact with unvaccinated individuals.

• Testing on campus should be available for those who experience symptoms or have been exposed to the virus.

• Our campus community needs to know what measures are being taken to make classrooms as safe as possible, especially since many of our buildings are old and have pretty bad ventilation, including broken windows.

• We also need to know the vaccination rate at the college so that we can all gauge the level of risk, which is especially crucial for those who are immunocompromised.

• Students traveling from abroad should be required to follow CDC guidelines for quarantine on campus before classes begin. Accommodations for them should be granted accordingly.

We all want this pandemic to be over and for a return to normal College life, but failing to consider the health and safety of all members of our community risks prolonging what has already been an unprecedented and difficult time. Because of the urgency of the situation we are bringing the letter to you now, after hearing from many concerned faculty. We are in the process of gathering faculty signatures that we will share with you soon to show that these are not isolated concerns.

Yours sincerely,

The MHC AAUP Steering Committee

July 3, 2020: AAUP and Concerned Faculty Letter on NTT Job Security

June 9, 2020: AAUP Letter to College Leadership