Officials find plans depend on how well students follow them
Penn State University calls it “Mask Up or Pack Up,” a campaign to drive home the importance of safely reopening the sprawling University Park campus in a pandemic.
But after crowds of largely maskless students — who apparently were not social distancing — gathered outside the East Halls complex Wednesday night, Penn State President Eric Barron on Thursday put out a different kind of message:
“I ask students flouting the University’s health and safety expectations a simple question: Do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?”
In this case, “everyone” would be University Park’s nearly 50,000 students — the largest campus of Pennsylvania’s flagship public university system. Fall classes there begin Monday.
Penn State is the latest highprofile university to warn students that reopening plans are being jeopardized by students partying and otherwise shunning social distancing rules. A day earlier, the University of Pittsburgh’s dean of students, Kenyon Bonner, said as much.
Each instance adds to a national debate about the importance of restarting campuses for the educational benefits versus risks to students, employees and the surrounding community and whether such plans are realistic given the highly unpredictable spread of the coronavirus and young people’s behaviors.
One Pennsylvania campus, Kutztown University, was the site of a quiet protest Thursday. A handful of faculty members held
signs outside the president’s residence and wore “plague doctor” masks, reflecting concerns about the university’s reopen plan.
Other schools, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have seen cases spike on and near campus as students arriving for fall were drawn to fraternity and other gatherings. UNC Chapel Hill this week abruptly moved the undergraduate semester online, sending many students home little more than a week after they arrived.
West Virginia University officials Thursday said they had identified six students in an investigation into parties in the Downtown areas near campus last weekend, and the individuals face sanctions. The university said an initial infraction will bring probation and education, and a second offense could mean suspension or expulsion.
At Penn State, officials did not specify the size of Wednesday night’s crowd but said student affairs staff and university police responded and students complied. “We intervened, and the crowds dispersed,” Mr. Barron said.
“This behavior cannot and will not be tolerated,” he added. “We have said from the beginning health and safety is our priority, and if the university needs to pivot to fully remote instruction, we will.”
He noted many on campus and in the State College area are wearing masks and adhering to social distancing. He alluded to judicial sanctions that await violators but added, “Ultimately, this is not about sanctioning. It is about protecting individual and community health.”