Professors question Penn State reopening as study projects problems

A faculty group at Penn State says the university’s plan to reopen its University Park campus could culminate in thousands of cases of covid-19 and quickly overwhelm its capacity for quarantine.

As students began to move into dorms this week, the Coalition for a Just University at Penn State released a 16-page epidemiological study. The model outlined projections based on three scenarios, one of which predicted two covid-19 deaths. A second predicted up to 15 deaths.

The anonymous study, prepared by faculty from the Colleges of Engineering and Science, was the most recent salvo in a faculty campaign questioning the administration’s plans to bring students back to the sprawling mid-state campus.

The university’s hybrid plan calls for a combination of in-person and online instruction, coupled with testing, contact tracing and surveillance as well as adjustments for social distancing at the campus that typically enrolls about 45,000 students. Along with an early start date, the plan calls for campus to close for the semester at Thanksgiving.

Although students are returning, the football team was benched for the semester after Big Ten university presidents voted to cancel the fall season, citing the public health risks of covid-19.

The continuing controversy over reopening comes amid a mixed bag of approaches at colleges this fall. A number of universities — ranging from Harvard to California University of Pennsylvania — announced plans to remain online, while others opted to take a cautious approach to reopening with a mix of online and in-person instruction.

But in recent days, Inside Higher Education reported that some of the nation’s premier research universities walked back reopening plans. The University of North Carolina sent students home this week when positive rates of covid-19 tests spiked to nearly 14%. Michigan State also did an about-face, notifying students all classes will be online just 10 days before a scheduled reopening.

The University of Pittsburgh, which reopened for a hybrid semester last week, reported Tuesday that two students tested positive in the first round of testing 450 students at its Oakland campus.

A spokeswoman for the Penn State faculty coalition said they opted to release their study after being rebuffed repeatedly by the administration when they requested data supporting the reopening plan.

University officials dismissed the study as the flawed work of a group that “has advocated against any reopening of campuses.”

Sarah J. Townsend, an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Penn State, defended the group and its work.

“We’ve been very careful not to advocate against any reopening of campuses. Our line has been that Penn State has not done what it needs to do to safely reopen. The testing plan is insufficient, and their quarantine policy is insufficient,” she said.

Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the university took great care in developing its plan.

“The university has been transparent about its plans, which have been developed with faculty scientists who are health and supply chain experts, to significantly exceed the Pennsylvania governor’s guidance for return to campuses. The university has developed a model that allows us to dynamically predict, monitor and take necessary mitigation steps up to, and if needed, a return to remote instruction, as was stated in our most recent town hall,” Powers wrote in an email.

“Penn State’s model reflects, with fidelity, the university’s multilevel approach to managing the pandemic, including a layered approach to symptomatic and asymptomatic testing, partnerships with multiple testing partners, contact tracing, provision of quarantine and isolation space, continuous management through a covid Operations Control Center led by a qualified and experienced director, and more,” Powers wrote.

“If they have a model, where is it?” Townsend asked. “We are happy to consider counter evidence, but the assertion that they have some hidden model isn’t very convincing.”