The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday backtracked plans to reopen its campus for in-person learning, saying that it will shift to remote learning amid a surge of coronavirus cases among students.
The announcement came just one week after the university – one of the largest in the country to resume in-person learning – began classes for the fall semester.
The university said Monday that it has recorded a more than 10% jump in coronavirus cases among 954 students tested.
The school said it will switch to remote learning starting Wednesday and offer students the opportunity to cancel residence hall requests with no penalty.
“We understand the concern and frustrations these changes will raise with many students and parents,” UNC-Chapel Hill’s chancellor, Kevin M. Guskiewicz, and provost, Robert A. Blouin, wrote in a statement. “As much as we believe we have worked diligently to help create a healthy and safe campus living and learning environment, we believe the current data presents an untenable situation.”
Several clusters of coronavirus cases were reported in at least three residence halls and a fraternity house at UNC-Chapel Hill in the first week of the new semester.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defines a “cluster” as five or more cases that deemed “close proximity in location.”
The mounting cases prompted calls from some faculty to reassess its plans for the fall semester.
“The fact that it is happening this early in the school year, just a week into classes, has everyone quite concerned and quite alarmed, quite frankly,” said Mimi V. Chapman, a professor of social work, told 360aproko Post.
Later Monday, the Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus newspaper, published a scathing editorial that blasted university leadership for ignoring the warning signs.
“University leadership should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless. Reports of parties throughout the weekend come as no surprise. Though these students are not faultless, it was the University’s responsibility to disincentivize such gatherings by reconsidering its plans to operate in-person earlier on,” the editorial said.
It added: “The administration continues to prove they have no shame, and the bar for basic decency keeps getting lower.”
The paper then accused the administration of ignoring the county health department’s recommendation that the university “restrict on-campus housing to at-risk students and implement online-only instruction for the first five weeks of the semester.”
“They chose to ignore the guidance of the CDC, which placed the University’s housing plan in the ‘highest-risk’ category,” the editorial said.
The university is likely to be closely monitored throughout the country as a test case for schools reopening for the fall semester amid a resurgence of coronavirus cases.
