UNC assessing omicron impact, won’t ‘rush’ into spring semester decision
UNC-Chapel Hill leaders promise they’ll let students and faculty know as soon as possible whether plans for the spring semester will change due to the resurgence of COVID-19.
The omicron variant is causing COVID-19 cases to rise in North Carolina at a time when UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students will return for classes Jan. 5 with undergraduates beginning Jan 10.
Robert Blouin, the university’s executive vice chancellor and provost, said Thursday that the school is working through the holidays to give people an answer on spring semester plans.
“Obviously if we can get a plan that our infectious disease experts feel is well thought out and consistent with the science and we can get that to everybody prior to Jan. 3rd, then we will do that,” Blouin said at Thursday’s special meeting of the UNC-CH Faculty Executive Leadership Committee.
“We certainly know that faculty need to plan for their courses. We also know that students are anxious, particularly around moving in.”
In the meantime, UNC-Chapel Hill announced Wednesday mandatory COVID testing for all unvaccinated students and students living in residence halls prior to their return, The News & Observer previously reported. Testing is “strongly encouraged” for those living in the area, regardless of vaccination status, the university said.
UNC hadn’t planned for omicron
Students and faculty are waiting as nearby schools such as Duke University in Durham have already announced plans to delay the start of in-person classes to the week of Jan. 10. Duke students will have online classes instead starting Jan. 5.
“We do ourselves a disservice if we rush to a decision when we can maybe wait another day or two days or three days and perhaps have greater confidence that it’s the right decision for us,” Blouin said. “We’re not here to judge what other institutions are doing,”
N.C. State University and N.C. Central University haven’t announced any changes yet to spring semester due to omicron.
Blouin said UNC-Chapel Hill needs more time because the spring semester COVID plan had been based on the less contagious delta variant.
Thursday’s special faculty meeting comes as state health officials warn that the omicron variant could trigger 10,000 COVID-19 cases a day in January, echoing a post-holiday surge seen earlier this year, The News & Observer reported.
“We all agree omicron has changed the landscape,” Blouin said. “We owe it to ourselves, to our community to take a fresh look at what impact omicron can have.”
No ‘Wild West’ scheduling of classes
Faculty members from the graduate schools asked Thursday for flexibility to start spring semester classes on Jan. 5 online. Blouin said the university may give that flexibility but isn’t yet ready to provide it to those programs.
Blouin said the university leadership wants to present a unified approach for spring semester rather than leaving it up to individual professors.
“We would rather it not be so faculty dependent without any guidance from us because then it will become the Wild West and students won’t know what to expect, faculty won’t know what to expect,” Blouin said.
UNC not looking at shutdown
Deb Alkat, a journalism professor and member of the faculty committee, asked about delaying all classes, in-person and online. He said a complete delay would give faculty “the gift of time” to prepare for a potential switch to remote learning.
“If you were planning to teach a class in-person and then suddenly you’re asked to do things remote, it creates burdens on the faculty,” Alkat said. “We have to be sensitive to that.”
The problem with a delay, Blouin said, is that they’ll have rolling COVID infections all semester.
“This could change, but the sentiment of the infectious disease team this morning was that would not offer us really much advantage at all and the delay would simply create more anxiety, perhaps, than it would relieve,” Blouin said.
Blouin also said Thursday that they are in a world where there will be more COVID variants coming.
“What I don’t think we can do is just categorically without too much consideration just say that we can shut things down,” Blouin said. “I don’t think anybody wants that. I don’t think the faculty want it. Certainly I don’t believe our students nor our parents want that.”
UNC can’t require COVID shot
Some private universities like Duke have required students and employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine and now the booster. The UNC System has not issued a vaccinate mandate for its schools but has strongly encouraged the shot, The N&O previously reported.
Marty Kotis, a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill board of trustees, typed in the meeting chat that it’s up to the state Public Health Commission to mandate the COVID vaccine. He said the UNC System lacks the authority to require the shots.
“I personally would support a vaccine (FDA approved) requirement for all members of the campus community,” Kotis said.
Blouin said a booster mandate “would be an enormous advantage for us if we could do it.”
This story was originally published December 23, 2021 at 4:49 PM.
