7/6/2020 Cornell Mail - Plans to reactivate Ithaca campus for fall semester

Adam Neuwirth <ajn79@cornell.edu>

Plans to reactivate Ithaca campus for fall semester

President Martha E. Pollack <president@cornell.edu> Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 10:00 AM
Reply-To: Strategic Communications <stratcomm@cornell.edu>
To: ajn79@cornell.edu

 
Dear Cornellians,

It was just over three months ago, in the wake of the emerging
pandemic, that we needed to swiftly deactivate our campus and shift –
mid-semester – to online instruction. Since then, the question I have
been asked the most is whether we will reopen for instruction this fall.
Today I am writing to tell you that the answer for our Ithaca campus is
yes, we plan to have an in-person semester with hybrid instruction
and opportunities for remote learning for those who cannot return.

Please note that the information in this message applies only to the
Ithaca campus and Cornell AgriTech in Geneva. Given the varying
impacts and progression of the virus in New York City, Cornell Tech
has already announced an online-only fall semester, and Weill Cornell
Medicine is developing a hybrid (part online/part in-person) fall
semester. In addition, we are in the process of completing our
required reopening plan for New York state. That plan will be posted
and made available to the entire community once finalized, and it will
provide important details beyond those contained in this message.

Today’s decision builds on the incredibly hard work of the faculty, staff,
and students who developed the detailed recommendations in the
reactivation reports that we have previously released; the input that

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we received from members of our community in surveys, emails, town

halls, and Assembly and Faculty Senate meetings; the thoughtful and
extremely valuable insights of our Board of Trustees; the guidance
that we have received from New York state; the close, ongoing
interactions with local medical authorities at Cayuga Health System
and the Tompkins County Health Department; and epidemiological
modeling done by Cornell experts.

The key consideration in our decision to reopen is public health, and

so I would like to take a moment to explain, in particular, the findings
of the epidemiological modeling. The analysis, done by Operations
Research and Information Engineering Professor Peter Frazier and
his team, showed that residential instruction, when coupled with a
robust virus screening program of the form we intend to implement, is
a better option for protecting the public health of our community than a
purely online semester. This counterintuitive result stems from the
expectation, borne out in our student surveys, that a large number of
our students would choose to return to Ithaca even if we were wholly
online; and they would live together and socially interact without the
mandatory virus screening tests and behavioral requirements
(described below) that Cornell can impose if students are enrolled as
part of a residential semester.

There are, of course, limits to the predictive power of epidemiological

modeling, so we will also be carefully monitoring the results of virus
screening throughout the semester, and we may need to adjust our
actions by, for example, tightening behavioral expectations even
further, or even temporarily moving to fully online instruction for a
period of time. There is simply no way to completely eliminate risk,
whether we are in-person or online; even under the best-case
projections, some people will become infected with the SARS-CoV-2
virus, and some will develop the severe form of the COVID-19
disease. But, again, our analyses show that the number of people
infected and/or hospitalized is likely to be markedly lower if we have
an in-person, residential semester with the aforementioned screening
mechanisms than if we are purely online.
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Our commitment, as outlined below, is to implement a broad set of

actions to minimize the risk to all members of our community,
including putting in place steps to protect faculty, staff, and students
with health conditions that require accommodations and special
support.

Let me also speak briefly about the many ways in which the fall
semester will be different, because it will be different from any
semester we’ve experienced before. I am excited by the opportunity to
have our students back with us in Ithaca, learning and sharing
experiences and engaging as Cornell students. We will be offering
hybrid teaching, with some classes online and some in-person. We
will be developing and offering different types of co-curricular
activities: ones that still allow important interactions among students,
but that provide for necessary physical distancing. We will change our
approach to dining on campus, offering both take-out options and
physically distanced, in-person options using a reservation system. An
enormous amount of work is already underway to implement all of
these changes and more – changes that are mandated by public
health requirements; and the work will continue over the summer so
that we are ready to welcome back our students this fall.

But in addition to institutional changes, it will be critically important for

each of us to adjust our individual behavior. Until there is an effective
vaccine for COVID-19, we will live in a world of significantly enhanced
community and personal health risks. The university cannot eliminate
those risks, even with the best of planning. We can, however, work
together to reduce those risks, and I am asking all of our returning
Cornell community to adopt a culture of shared responsibility for our
safety and well-being. That will necessitate behaving, both on campus
and off campus, in ways that at times will be difficult and may feel
constrained, but are crucial both for Cornell and for the greater
community in which we live. I will be calling on all of us – students
(and their parents), faculty, and staff – to help ensure that every
person behaves in ways that are responsible and caring.
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I hope that you will take the time to read the rest of this message
carefully, as it provides further details about many aspects of the fall
semester. I recognize that this long-awaited information will spur
numerous questions. Next week, we will announce a series of town
hall meetings for faculty, staff, students, parents, and members of the
broader Ithaca community where we will do our best to answer those
questions. We ask for your patience, as not only are many of the
details still being worked out, but also we may need to adjust our
plans even before the semester starts depending on the progress of
the virus. We will, of course, continue to share with you additional
details and updates, via email communications as well as through our
COVID-19 website, as they become available over the coming weeks
as we continue the important work of preparing for the fall.

With the above considerations as our guide, here, then, are the major
elements of our plan, organized as follows:

2020-21 Academic Calendar

Classes and Academic Activities
Virus Screening Program
Behavior Modifications
Modifications to Residential and Student Life
International Students
Campus De-Densification (Remote Work/Travel/Visitors)

2020-21 Academic Calendar

Fall Semester
Residential instruction for the Ithaca campus fall semester will begin
on Wednesday, September 2. Detailed instructions and other
information regarding New Student Orientation and move-in days
will be provided over the coming weeks. Move-in will take place
over an extended period, to allow for virus screening and initial
quarantine of all students.

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In order to mitigate the risks of students leaving Ithaca and then

returning from many different places, students will return to their
permanent residences for Thanksgiving break (the last day of on-
campus classes will be Tuesday, November 24) and finish the
semester with just a few weeks of classes and final exams online. On-
campus accommodations will be available to those students who
request and receive waivers to remain in student housing. The final
day of the fall term will be on Monday, December 21.

Spring Semester
Following a longer-than-usual winter break, the spring semester will
begin on Tuesday, February 9, 2021 and conclude on Tuesday, May
25. Our plan at this point is to have a full residential spring semester,
though we might have to adjust our planning depending on pandemic
conditions at the time.

Commencements
Also pending the progression of the pandemic, Commencement
festivities for the Class of ’21 will be held over Memorial Day
weekend, Saturday-Sunday, May 29-30, 2021. This is unchanged
from our pre-pandemic planning.

Our plan is for December 2020 graduates to celebrate their

Commencement with the Class of ’21 on Memorial Day weekend.

And we are planning to have our postponed June 2020

Commencement celebration for the Class of ’20 during a special 5th
Reunion weekend, June 3-6, 2021, hosted by young alumni classes of
2015 and 2016.

We will share with you the full 2020-21 academic calendar over the
coming weeks.

Classes and Academic Activities

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We will be modifying our approach to classroom teaching to offer two

primary modalities: all online; and in-person, with remote accessibility
into the classroom for students who are off-campus (national or
international) or in quarantine. Faculty also will have the option of
embracing a hybrid approach where some elements of a course are
delivered online and others in-person, or where student cohorts take
turns participating remotely versus in-person. Students will be
provided with information in advance about the modality of each class
and can use that information in selecting their courses.

In classrooms, all students will be required to wear face masks and to

sit in assigned seats; classroom capacity will be reduced; seats will
have appropriate distances between them; and faculty will be required
to wear masks or face shields. In-person enrollment caps will be
strictly enforced, and student organizations will not be permitted to
begin booking classroom space until late September or October.

As noted above, we are committed to putting in place steps to protect

students, faculty and staff with health conditions necessitating
accommodations and other special support.

Virus Screening Program

A robust virus screening program will be critical to controlling the

spread of COVID-19 in our community. More details around this
testing program will be provided over the coming weeks, but the
protocol will include screening prior to and upon arrival to campus,
and ongoing, frequent screening, with isolation/quarantine/contact
tracing as needed. Our goal will be to identify infected individuals and
quickly isolate them and those with whom they had close contact.
Compliance with the testing program will be an absolute
requirement for all students, whether living in on-campus
housing or in the local Ithaca community.

Behavior Modifications

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There are a number of public health measures that can significantly

reduce the spread of infections. It will be important for all members of
our campus community to be aware of and follow critical, public
health-driven behavioral expectations around the wearing of masks,
physical distancing, daily health check-ins, hygiene/cleaning, and
social gatherings. While we will be mounting a public health education
campaign aimed at reinforcing these expectations among our
community, it will be the responsibility of each member of our
community to embrace these behavioral requirements. As noted
earlier, we must establish a culture of shared responsibility, and each
of us must take steps not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect
others in the community. All students living on campus and in the
Ithaca community will be required to sign a student behavioral
agreement.

Modifications to Residential and Student Life

On-campus housing will be limited to singles and double occupancy

rooms, and a shared commitment to health and safety behaviors will
be added to residential agreements. Bathrooms will be monitored in
order to reduce the number of people sharing. While kitchenettes and
lounges will remain open, they will have visible, public health-focused
signage and physical distancing markings throughout.

Consistent with New York state guidelines for dining, and to ensure
proper physical distancing, all dining halls will provide to-go service,
and tables will be properly spaced, with overall sanitation an utmost
priority. In-person dining options will be available using a reservation
system.

The university will be suspending in-person concerts and lectures that

involve outside guests. And we will promote innovative approaches to
socializing while distancing.

International Students

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Our international students have experienced numerous challenges

due to their immigration status and location. Sadly, we recognize that
because of ongoing travel restrictions and visa processing delays,
many international students will not be able to return to Ithaca this fall.
To accommodate these students, we have worked with academic
partners at more than a dozen locations worldwide to create an on-
site, in-residence Study Away option for eligible international students.
These international students will live and study at a local campus in
their country or region while taking a mix of online and in-person
classes. They will share co-curricular activities with their Cornell peers
and have access to local facilities and services.

Campus De-Densification

The successful implementation of our plan will depend on new

approaches aimed at keeping our campus from becoming too densely
populated beyond our core community of faculty, staff, and students.
To that end:

Remote Work
Even when cleared to return to campus, individuals who can work
effectively while remote should continue to do so.

Campus Visitors
Visits to campus by individuals not part of the residential Cornell
community are strongly discouraged and will be significantly
restricted, at least through the fall semester. Further details regarding
a campus visitor policy will be forthcoming. While we cannot hold an
in-person Homecoming this year, we will soon be sharing information
about a special StayHomecoming virtual celebration. Campus tours
for prospective students and their families will continue to be virtual.

Travel
All non-essential business travel will be prohibited. We will be
developing detailed guidance to assist the planning of personal and
essential business travelers, particularly on steps to be taken upon
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their return to campus. Travel is also likely to continue to be highly

regulated by New York state. The university will work to support the
local quarantine requirements imposed by the state on travelers from
states with high infection rates, including students who will be arriving
for the fall semester.

In one of the first messages that I sent to the Cornell community about
this pandemic, I likened our situation to a bad hand of bridge: We
can’t change the hand we’ve been dealt, but we can decide how to
play that hand. I believe that our plan, informed by our reopening
committees and based on scientific analysis, is the best possible way
to play the hand this pandemic has dealt us. But we have to play it
together: All of us will need to be vigilant, and to make decisions
about our activities each day that are rooted in shared concern for
community well-being. Our experiences over the coming months will
also depend, in large measure, on the patience and kindness with
which we treat each other and ourselves. The year ahead will be
different, it will be difficult, but it will, I believe, still be a year to
treasure – a year of exploration and discovery, a year of friendship,
and of growth. I look forward with all of you to the return of our
students, and to finding new ways to learn, teach, and move forward –
despite the challenges – together.

Best,

Martha

 
© Cornell University
 

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