Behind the spring planning

University leaders announced updated plans for spring semester last week, outlining the intention to bring a limited number of students back to campus, a variety of in-person and remote instructional methods, and mandatory testing for students, faculty and staff.

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Robert A. Blouin, who leads Carolina’s Roadmap Implementation Team, spoke to The Well about the thinking behind the planning, how campus leaders are working with neighboring communities and lessons learned from the fall.

The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How will spring semester be different from what we’ve seen the last two semesters?

Bob Blouin: Spring is going to be different in several ways. First and foremost, we will put a great deal of focus on COVID-19 testing. We will have mandatory reentry and rigorous, mandatory surveillance testing for the spring. We will have more details soon on specifics related to testing. We also will be starting the spring with a lower population of students in Campus Housing than we had at the beginning of the fall semester. We envision that we’ll likely have approximately 3,500 students in the residence halls. [Editor’s note: In most years, on-campus residence halls and Granville Towers house around 9,500 students. After de-densification this fall, around 1,000 students are still living on campus.]

As we plan our modes of instruction for spring and as we think through how those will be delivered, there will be greater clarity and transparency so that students can better understand what to expect in the form of instruction.

We’ve learned a lot, not only from our own fall experience, but also from the experiences of large universities across the country. We’ve also developed very strong working relationships with our community — with the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. I think this all bodes well as we continue to coordinate and integrate our efforts for spring.

Planning for spring has been going on for quite some time. How has this planning process been different from the ways that you planned for fall?

BB: I think the biggest difference is the way that the Chancellor has organized the process in response to concerns that we heard from our community. The Roadmap Implementation Team, which I chair, is working in concert with the Campus and Community Advisory Committee. Although the Roadmap Implementation Team worked hard last summer to bring forward its best thinking and planning for fall, we would have benefited from more diverse viewpoints.

And so, both groups are making independent recommendations to the Chancellor and to the Chancellor’s leadership team for spring. At the same time, these recommendations are highly integrated. The Roadmap Implementation Team and the Campus and Community Advisory Committee share information and outcomes and collaborate closely on deliberative processes. The Chancellor is getting well thought out recommendations, with many different perspectives and voices being heard.

It sounds like there will be a larger focus on testing for spring and that you’re still determining the specifics of how that will work. What are you taking into consideration as you’re thinking about testing and what policies to enact?

BB: Taking on a larger testing strategy carries with it a lot of challenges. With the thousands of students, faculty and staff that make up this campus community, mandatory testing is going to require a much more robust platform for collection and analysis of specimens. The communication of the results back to the user, to the Orange County Health Department and to North Carolina Health and Human Services will be a significant operation. And this is not an inexpensive proposition.

There are many testing platforms out there, with some rapidly emerging. We are learning about less expensive point-of-care testing strategies that can be done on site. The problem with those, as of this date, is that they lack sensitivity and specificity. And so, as a result, there are a very large number of false positives and false negatives, and that makes it difficult to employ and rely on that kind of a test.

On the other hand, there are testing platforms that are more rigorous but also considerably more expensive. And then there’s the question of whether to use a saliva test sample or a nasal test sample. Depending upon the instrument that you use and the technique that might be employed, you may be inclined to do one versus another. All of these details have to be considered.

Of course, once you have a positive test result, you have to have protocols to properly inform the individual. If it’s a student, they need to be directed to an isolation area. Obviously, then their contacts need to be traced and those individuals need to be placed in quarantine. We learned a lot from the fall when we didn’t allocate enough quarantine and isolation beds, so we’re significantly increasing that capacity for spring. We’re also, as I mentioned earlier, bringing fewer students back to Campus Housing. And part of that reasoning is that we want to ensure that students are living in single dorm rooms, to reduce the probability of sharing the virus in close proximity.

Are you considering testing only students or are you also talking about testing faculty and staff?

BB: We plan on testing faculty, staff and students. The issue of who will be mandatory has not yet been determined.

We believe that all students should have mandatory testing because experience has taught us that they are at the highest risk of contracting the virus. We also believe that staff — particularly those on the front lines, who are working in housing and dining and other service areas — are at higher risk of contracting the virus, as well, so certainly we would expect to have mandatory testing for them.

University leaders have talked a lot about trying to give individuals choices for how they approach work and learning. How are you thinking about preserving flexibility for community members for spring?

BB: We will apply very similar approaches as we did in the fall. While we want to bring a portion of the community back to the campus, we also want to make sure that we’re not including people who have successfully, safely and effectively worked remotely. It’s not going to be a mandatory return to campus. We will probably have a similar approach to approvals for faculty, staff and graduate students to work remotely if they are still able to do their job away from campus.

In recent months, the community has heard about the University’s budget challenges as a result of the pandemic. Have you started to project how spring may affect the budget? And how are you thinking about addressing those challenges?

BB: Interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Nate Knuffman has discussed this publicly on a few occasions, and of course, these are still somewhat hypothetical numbers. We’re not sure what the final numbers will look like. A lot of it will depend on how this spring plays out.

Testing will be a new financial variable. We didn’t do widespread surveillance testing in the fall, so superimposing what we did in the fall to the spring, that is certainly a change.

We are not yet sure exactly how many students will come back to live on campus this spring. We’re hopeful, but we don’t yet know whether there will be any enrollment melt in the spring semester. We’ve been very fortunate that students remain highly committed to a Carolina education, even in these circumstances.

In the event of any cuts, we will be very strategic in how those are implemented. Sometimes you see cuts made across the board; those tend to be a bit easier to implement and people tend to think that’s a fair way of doing things. On the other hand, to be more financially strategic requires making difficult decisions in terms of ranking priorities. My guess is that there will be some combination of these. We are concluding our annual budget review cycle, so we are taking an honest look at all of our programs and asking that question: Are the resources that we are using right now doing the maximum good for the University as we stay faithful to our mission — the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research and service, as well as our global ambitions.

There has also been a lot of talk about the importance of community standards to a successful on-campus experience. Will the community standards for spring look different? Will there be any differences in how they’re enforced or communicated?

BB: Community standards will not be terribly different in the spring. I do feel that the way in which we communicate to the community will be different. We’re working with University Communications and with several faculty members who have great expertise on communications and influencing public behavior to educate our population.

Partnering with our off-campus leaders is going to be very important. This cannot be a top-down approach. We are working with the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and with Orange County to make sure that we’re doing the kinds of things that will instill confidence in our approach and ensure that we’re all on the same page.

This is about engaging all members of our community: our faculty, our staff, our students and our community citizenry, as well. We have a historically strong partnership between the University and our neighboring communities. We count on each other; we have to work together. We’re getting feedback on what we can do differently and what we can do better. We are having frequent conversations with our community partners to make sure that everybody understands what we’re trying to do.

You’ve personally worked through a constant evolution of circumstances over the past several months. What have been the most valuable lessons in all of this?

BB: We are constantly learning in real time and having to make adjustments. That’s challenging, especially when so many people have strong, passionate views about how to move forward. Trying to garner support to be successful in a project like this is sometimes difficult because of differing points of view.

The Campus and Community Advisory Committee has been a great partner to the Roadmap Implementation Team. We learned that it’s critical to have more campus and community voices involved in these difficult decisions. There are many decisions, and not having broad representation can create uncertainty and conflict. It is far better to get those thoughts, opinions and viewpoints early in the decision-making process.