Colleges as test cases for a new way of life
Campuses show the path to coexisting with COVID
As colleges and universities resume face-toface instruction for the first time since early 2020, Bay Area campuses are emerging as laboratories for learning whether people can push forward with normal life while coexisting with the risk of COVID-19.
Students are packing into college dorms. They’re dining in the student union and partying at the frat house. They’re also required to be tested for the coronavirus, wear masks indoors and upload vaccination cards to the school databases to show they got their shots.
The balance reflects a new reality of college life, as inevitable as a midterm exam, public health experts say.
But will it work?
“I don’t believe college campuses will become
hotbeds” of disease if colleges enforce safety protocols, said Michaela George, an assistant professor of public health at Dominican University in San Rafael, which returned to classes Monday. The school has taken a hard line on rule breakers, she said, with students at risk for removal from campus if they aren't vaccinated, and employees possibly fired. Other campuses say students could face conduct charges for noncompliance.
Without such enforcement George said, “There will be problems.”
With COVID-19 likely to be around for years, and as many people continue resisting vaccination while new virus mutations emerge, colleges are the places to watch.
“I think we'll learn a lot from what happens with reopening college campuses for in-person instruction,” said Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. “Delta is not the last variant we'll see, and new variants that are even more resistant to the current vaccines will emerge at some point.
“Masks, social distancing, vaccines, and switching back and forth between in-person and remote instruction will become the norm on college campuses,” Riley said.
Campuses are ideal proving grounds for evaluating the success of that interplay because they draw students and faculty from around the world to a controlled environment with rules, while being vulnerable to the unpredictability of human nature — notably the kind on display at frat parties and game nights.
Stanford, the University of California and California State University require all students who are on campus to be vaccinated except those with religious or medical exemptions. While all students are tested for the coronavirus upon arrival, weekly testing is required for unvaccinated people at UC and CSU campuses. Stanford, where undergraduates don't return to classes until Sept. 20, says every student — even those who are vaccinated — must be tested each week. UC Berkeley requires that only every few months.
At UC Berkeley, where more than 42,000 students from around the world resume classes Wednesday, freshman Leif Liu, 18, said he isn't exactly nervous about breathing the same air as dozens of other students in class. “But I doubt whether this is 100% safe.”
Standing in a long line of students waiting for mandatory coronavirus tests Monday, the student from Liaoning, China, had already been tested, but was helping guard four large suitcases for two friends newly arrived from China while they got tested.
“Back in China, even when there are one or two cases, this kind of large-scale congregation is banned,” Liu said. Yet he decided to risk coming to UC Berkeley because “if I just stay home and do online, I don't feel like a real student.”
Since the pandemic began, UC Berkeley campus testing has identified 1,295 positive coronavirus cases in 51,638 people, the vast majority of them undergraduates.
Those cases surfaced when instruction was remote. That's about to change: Nearly 90% of undergraduate classes will be in person this fall, although lecture courses with at least 200 students will stay remote. And thousands of students are pouring back into dorms, nearly filling the 7,200 available beds.
As the world enters a new phase of coexistence with the deadly virus that has killed nearly 5.5 million people and infected 214 million, colleges are at the forefront of the new era.
“Whether we like it or not, students, instructors and their households are all about to take part in a giant public health experiment,” says an opinion piece running Wednesday in the student paper, the Daily Californian, and signed by leaders of the Berkeley Faculty Association, two labor unions and the student government. The piece questions whether the campus is adequately prepared to keep everyone safe, and gripes that the administration never asked their opinions about safety and reopening.
UC Berkeley administrators, like those at many campuses, said they've looked at the science and know what to do.
“As we've learned more about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and how it spreads, we've been able to resume in-person activities while mitigating the spread of COVID-19,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and interim Provost Catherin Koshland announced Aug. 12 in an open letter explaining campus safety rules and why the university is reopening even though the virus has yet to be vanquished.
The transition back to classrooms “won't be over until 100% of courses are held in person,” they said, adding: “We recognize that some of you are nervous.”
In spite of campus precautions, “there will be cases,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert and professor emeritus at UC
Berkeley's School of Public Health. “But I think the barriers have been built to prevent superspreading events.”
UC Berkeley says it's prepared to discipline students who violate public health directives, from barring students from certain parts of campus to deregistering fraternities and sororities.
At San Francisco State, 11 students tested positive for the coronavirus in 4,352 on-campus tests last week, even before classes began Monday.
Yet, even though half of the roughly 26,000 students are taking at least one class in person, and 3,600 students now live on campus in the southwestern corner of the city — that's 75% of capacity, up from 15% last year during pandemic restrictions — campus President Lynn Mahoney said she doesn't worry too much about an outbreak.
“But I check the numbers every day,” she said. On campus, 98% of students have uploaded proof of vaccination, perhaps responding to the $3,700 tuition breaks and other prizes the campus offers in lotteries as enticements to submit the document.
Those compliance numbers outpace other campuses, most of which are in the 80% range.
“Without vaccinations, we know what would happen,” Mahoney said. “A public university like San Francisco State is a better test case than a private university like Stanford, which is a little bubble. Of the 13,000 students taking in-person classes, they're coming from all over the Bay Area, on BART, Muni.
“If we can stay in person the whole semester with relatively low case numbers, then I think the university will have shown a path forward in a controlled environment,” she said. “Campuses are not meant to be empty places.”
Across several Bay Area campuses, students and faculty reported varying levels of satisfaction with remote instruction. Administrators at several of them — especially commuter campuses like Cal State East Bay, where 40% of classes are in person or hybrid this semester — said last year's experiment taught them how essential it is to be flexible for students and employees. Meeting with academic advisers online has proved wildly popular, for example, said Mahoney at S.F. State and Cal State East Bay President Cathy Sandeen.
“I want to make sure we have a robust palette of options” into the future, Sandeen said.
George, the public health professor at Dominican University, said her students' grades dropped by an average of 10% last year when every class was online. By spring, she had successfully petitioned to bring her students back in person.
“I believe it made a huge difference,” she said. “Risk is a spectrum. Students need to be in the classroom.”