August 12, 2020

 

 

Dear members of the University Assembly:

 

Thank you for your memorandum of August 7^th, expressing your concerns over Cornell’s decisions to reopen this fall. We recognize that many members of our community are feeling significant stress and anxiety regarding the return to campus, and we appreciate the time and thought that went into gathering, discussing, and communicating these issues to us. We also appreciate the spirit of constructive discourse with which you have shared your thoughts, and we reply to you in that same spirit.

 

We offer our thoughts on the questions you raised in the categories of equity, mental health, physical health, and transparency and engagement below.

 

1. Equity of quarantine accessibility

 

Earlier in the summer, before the current spike in COVID-19 cases, the University had capacity available to quarantine and support all students returning from restricted states to on-campus housing. Although it would have involved a significant financial commitment, we had allocated the resources to meet, in both on-campus facilities and local hotels, the quarantine requirements of all students living in states where New York state had put in place a 14-day quarantine policy for returning travelers. In July, this situation rapidly changed, as a result of the increase in the number of restricted states and therefore the increase in the number of students requiring quarantine.

 

The university has limited on-campus housing that meets the NYS quarantine requirements (single rooms) and, as you recognize, the number of residential students affected now far exceeds the available hotel capacity within Ithaca. Allowing all students from travel advisory states to quarantine in their contracted residence hall accommodations would not meet the requirements of New York state, and would also put our faculty in residence and their families at unacceptable risk. Our only other option was to house scores of students in hotels as far away as Binghamton and Syracuse with minimal supervision, an option we view as equally unacceptable. Without the ability to accommodate and oversee the quarantine of students in a manner prescribed by NYS, we found that we had no choice but to urge students from quarantined states to remain at home until we can accommodate their entry into our residence halls in a manner that is compliant with NYS regulations.

 

We recognized, of course, the concern about equity that you have raised and have crafted a policy that allows a limited number of students to apply to move in and quarantine in our residence halls. This cohort is limited because of our capacity to house these students in compliant accommodations, which we estimate at 450 units. This group of students comprises those for whom you have expressed appropriate concern, as well as international students with limited travel options; to date we have accepted all applications from students who identified financial, social, or health related needs.

 

Some faculty members have raised the reasonable suggestion that, to ensure greater equity, we either eliminate the possibility of any student from a restricted state quarantining in a non- restricted state before arriving on campus, or that we stagger student entry. There is no legal basis for denying entry to people who meet NYS regulations if we are allowing residential instruction. With respect to staggered student entry, this is not practical given the requirement for quarantine in single rooms with single-user bathrooms. Staggered entry would overlap with our regular move-in into the dorms, and we do not have the capacity to accommodate the move-in of regular students and the individual room quarantine requirements of the state over the same period.

 

Other suggestions have been that we offer our limited stock of quarantine housing to house all students from restricted states who receive financial aid, thereby eliminating the burden of the exemption process. Our process has identified about 450 students (about 1/3 of the students from restricted states); this is the number of students we are able to safely accommodate. While these are stressful times for all of us, we have endeavored to make this process as simple and straightforward as possible. We are also responding to many ongoing requests for recalculated financial aid from students with changed family situations, and are working to address needs associated with access to the internet.

 

2. Mental health

 

We are acutely aware of the need for mental health services and support during the pandemic. In addition to pandemic-related stress (including the related stresses of family job loss and financial instability), recent acts of racial violence, and subsequent local and national events, have traumatized many students. In the coming months particularly, it will be vital for all members of the community to help create an environment supportive of student mental health.

 

Cornell Health is developing online versions of their programs to help faculty, students, and staff to recognize and respond effectively when students are in distress. Prior to the pandemic, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) implemented a rapid access service delivery model which significantly reduced wait times for mental health services and included a swift and successful transition to telehealth visits. When crises occur on or off campus, the university’s Crisis Managers, managed by the Office of the Dean of Students, play a critical role in supporting affected students, and will continue to do so in our current context. Additionally, the Campus Activities office has created virtual programming for students requiring quarantine, and many student support offices are promoting virtual office hours and check-ins with students.

 

3. Physical health (assumptions underlying Frazier model)

 

Any predictive epidemiological model is based on assumptions, and the predictive value of every model depends on the accuracy of the data on which those assumptions are based. Each assumption (parameter value) used in the Frazier model is drawn from the best available research literature, and that literature is cited in the report. The model was further run with a variety of values spanning the estimates from the literature, for the purposes of sensitivity testing. Moreover, in response to suggestions from community members who questioned whether certain parameters derived from the literature were appropriate for our setting, the model was also run with parameters settings that are “worse than” those in the literature, and the resulting analysis released in an addendum. This model was updated again in August in response to requests from State Assembly person Barbara Lifton, to account for the sharp increase in levels of viral spread in a number of states. It is worth noting that incorporating new information about local transmission during the month of July and a more refined targeted testing plan resulted in better health outcomes than the original June 15th report. While the June 15th report’s nominal scenario resulted in 1200 infections (the large majority asymptomatic or mild) and 16 hospitalizations within the Cornell community, the updated and more detailed model results in 900 infections and 9 hospitalizations in the Cornell community. The response to Assemblyperson Lifton also looks at infection rates in the Ithaca community, outside of Cornell, and as you would expect, lower rates in the residential setting within Cornell results in lower rates in the broader community.

 

As noted in last week’s letter to the community, under any reasonable set of assumptions the conclusion remains unchanged: that an in-person semester, with rigorous public health measures including mask-wearing, surveillance testing, and quarantine/isolation in place, results in significantly lower levels of infection than an online semester.

 

The Frazier study has not received formal peer review, as it is a working document designed specifically for our circumstances, and is continually updated as these change. However, we sought and received favorable assessments of the model from scientists both within and outside of Cornell and have received positive feedback on the approach, as in the recent comments from several Stanford faculty members in the Stanford Daily.

 

In all of our processes and decisions regarding our plans for the fall semester, we have maintained a rigorous commitment to doing what the best available science suggests would yield the best outcomes for public health. In contrast, the assertion that it would be safer to conduct a non- residential semester is not backed by any data or scientific analysis, and many of the comments that urge this course do so based on concern about behavioral compliance of our students, which applies equally to a non-residential semester with thousands of students living off campus in the Ithaca community.

 

4. Transparency and engagement

 

We share the frustration of everyone in our community at the extreme difficulty of planning for the upcoming semester when the parameters for that planning are constantly in flux. In deciding what plans to announce, when to announce them, and when to seek the engagement of the community, it is often necessary to balance the need for community input with the sometimes pressing need to make a decision quickly. In the case of our decision regarding the return to campus of students from states requiring quarantine, we agree that we should have let the faculty know first where we were headed; this omission was made as we were making urgent decisions and we regret it and apologize.

 

In most cases, however, we have been scrupulous in consulting with as many stakeholders as possible before making decisions significantly affecting our community. As just one example, on the salary/benefits issues, we discussed options with the board during the May meeting, as was necessary and appropriate, per our established cycle of Board meetings and budget planning. However, we made the deliberate move to delay any final decisions on the budget at that point, moving instead to speak multiple times with the Faculty Senate Financial Policies Committee, meet with the full Faculty Senate and the Employee Assembly, and hold a faculty and staff town hall. The input that we received from that entire process ultimately shaped our final plan—which resulted in my returning to the board to ask for excess endowment spending to ameliorate the impact of the retirement contributions cut, precisely in response to feedback received at those meetings.