Just months before classes are slated to resume, a new task force has been launched to determine how the University of 蜜柚直播 campus will operate come Aug. 24 in the face of the coronavirus.
In addition to taking up on-campus housing and on-campus learning planning, other considerations before the task force include how to regionalize coronavirus testing and tracing efforts in collaboration with Pima County and the city of 蜜柚直播.
Doing so would create a 鈥渦niform message, a uniform process that the average person then has great confidence in and see that everybody鈥檚 working together to protect them,鈥 said Dr. Richard Carmona, former U.S. surgeon general and professor in the UA鈥檚 Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. He also holds dual roles as a professor of surgery at the College of Medicine and a professor at the College of Pharmacy.
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Carmona will be in charge of the task force鈥檚 incident command center.
The mission of the task force is to give students and workers the ability to make informed decisions about returning to campus, said Carmona, who will report directly to UA President Robert Robbins.
Weekly task force updates are planned for the public.
The success of the return-to-campus plan and limiting the spread of the coronavirus is dependent on the cooperation of students and the staff, Robbins said.
CAMPUS LIVING
Campus living arrangements will look different as the administration explores how many students would be in each room, possibly keeping students in single rooms or allowing only two students to a room, according to Robbins.
During the final eight weeks of the spring semester when approximately 500 to 600 students remained on campus, Robbins said there weren鈥檛 many coronavirus cases within the dorms.
鈥淭he data would show that we have not had a lot of cases in the dorms and there鈥檚 no outbreaks that I鈥檓 aware of any dorms across the country,鈥 he said. 鈥淭here will be a lot of disinfecting, there will be a lot of education about good public health hygiene and caring not only for your own health but those that you come in contact with.鈥
Carmona added that 鈥淭here will be masks certainly in the dorms, there鈥檚 going to have to be appropriate spacing, there鈥檚 going to be a lot of hand-washing, all of the regular public health things will still be there.鈥
To educate students on campus, the task force is looking to enlist students within the UA鈥檚 Emergency Medical Services to fill more of a role on campus in the fall.
鈥淚 see them coming in as educators, in other words, being student ambassadors. Every day they help our students who are sick or injured get to the right place, but we can have them do more,鈥 Carmona said. 鈥淭hey care about our university, they鈥檙e passionate, they鈥檙e knowledgeable, they can be educators, they can do a lot of things in welcoming students back.鈥
This could also include Public Health Student Ambassadors within the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health to provide public health education.
CAMPUS LEARNING
Courses are still slated to take some form of a hybrid model.
It means that classes won鈥檛 all be face-to-face given that some faculty members are within the at-risk population under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Those faculty members would be encouraged to not come back, although the university can鈥檛 force them to stay away, Robbins said.
Robbins anticipates that online tuition will be lowered due to more students needing to take courses in the digital, remote mode.
Whichever route is taken by the UA, its students, faculty and staff should plan on the operations continuing for the entire 2020-2021 academic year and know there鈥檚 risk involved in returning to campus.
鈥淓ach individual person has to make the choice whether they鈥檙e a faculty member, a staff member, or a student and their families and loved ones,鈥 Robbins said. 鈥淎re they willing to take the risk of getting this infection by coming back to campus? We鈥檙e going to do everything we can to drive the risk of the virus being transmitted, but we can鈥檛 make it perfectly safe.鈥
Contact Star reporter Shaq Davis at 573-4218 or sdavis@tucson.com
On Twitter: @ShaqDavis1