Campus and Community Advisory Committee reaches two recommendations in third meeting

Carolina Housing is only considering single-occupancy dorms for the spring semester, Chairperson of the Faculty Mimi Chapman said Tuesday at a meeting of the Campus and Community Advisory Committee. 

The committee, at its third meeting since its creation, agreed to recommend to Provost Bob Blouin and Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz that the spring semester be delayed and that re-entry testing be mandatory. 

The committee — comprised of students, faculty, staff and community members — is tasked with evaluating the Fall 2020 Carolina Roadmap and providing input on how the University can best move forward this spring. 

Chapman said the assumption that coronavirus testing will improve next semester is a condition of all committee recommendations.

“The baseline that we want to see as a group is robust tracing and testing, much more robust than what we have right now,” Chapman said. 

Spring semester delayed start

The committee will recommend both Jan. 11 and 19 to Blouin and Guskiewicz as new start date options instead of Jan. 6 as currently planned. Most members prefer the later start date. 

The later date is beneficial because it increases the break between the New Year and when students are back on campus, allows more time for the University to set up testing and gives more time to see how the virus unfolds, among others, the committee said.

Members also talked about how a delayed start could affect spring break. They again discussed alternatives to the traditional week-long break like five, separate days of mid-week breaks, to prevent risky behavior like traveling that could spread COVID-19. 

Undergraduate Lamar Richards said he thinks students’ mental health needs to be highly considered. 

“I see the validity in the concern that a spring break may lead to a spike in cases. However, one-day breaks will not cut it,” Richards said.

The committee delayed its recommendation about spring break and will discuss it in a future meeting. 

Mandatory surveillance and reentry testing

The second agreed upon recommendation is to make COVID-19 surveillance and re-entry testing mandatory. Guidelines for this requirement will be dependent on factors like mode of instruction and housing. 

The committee discussed the possibility of requiring testing prior to granting people access to campus. 

“The reason for that requirement of accessing buildings being the mandatory piece is that we just don’t know how to monitor it otherwise for off-campus students,” professor and epidemiologist Audrey Pettifor said. “It has to be in place as long as there’s a significant amount of disease in our community and among our population.”

Spring modes of instruction

Before beginning the discussion about potential modes of instruction for next semester, Chapman presented new information from Carolina Housing Executive Director Allan Blattner and colleagues.

“The only option being considered for returning students to the dorms is single-occupancy,” Chapman said. “Nothing else is on the table. We are not looking at people sharing rooms in any capacity.” 

The maximum number of students living on campus, excluding Baity Hill and Granville Towers, would be between 3,500 and 4,000 students, she said. 

Registration for spring semester classes, which usually takes place during the first two weeks of November, will be pushed back this year, said Chloe Russell, associate dean of the academic advising program. 

“We plan on positioning ourselves just behind the academic plan,” Blattner said. 

Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, senior associate dean for social sciences and global programs, addressed the group and made it clear that the spring curriculum will meet all of the needs of students through its online offerings. 

“The in-person curriculum is the supplement,” Colloredo-Mansfeld said.

The academic planning advisory subgroup presented five modal options for instruction this spring that the committee began to discuss. Two instructional modes are in person and three are remote.

Next week, the committee will focus on grading accommodations and the possibility of using applications to facilitate testing compliance and contact tracing.

@_AnneTate_

university@dailytarheel.com