Posted on 04/29/2020 6:27:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
'Even a phenomenon as menacing as COVID-19 is one of the inevitable risks of life,' writes Purdue President and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.
While other education leaders are waiting for politicians to release their students from the lockdowns suspending their futures, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, now head of Purdue University, is making plans to reopen his campus for fall.
“We have every intention of being on campus this fall,” he told the faculty senate on April 20, according to USA Today. “We are sober about the challenges that will bring. We believe in the value of the on-campus experience, and we’re determined, if we’re permitted to do so by the public authorities and medical circumstances. If at all possible, we intend to be open and operating.”
Daniels was appointed president of the highly ranked public research university in 2012 after a cost-cutting, no-nonsense governorship that sparked fruitless attempts to get him to run for president. As president of the Indiana university, he has frozen tuition, deployed innovative online programs, and increased enrollment by about 6,000 students to nearly 45,000. During that timeframe, college enrollment nationwide declined 11 percent.
On April 21, Daniels issued a publc letter detailing the university’s initial plans for reopening campus after Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb in March banned in-person education due to coronavirus fright.
“Closing down our entire society, including our university, was a correct and necessary step,” Daniels wrote, diplomatically. “It has had invaluable results. But like any action so drastic, it has come at extraordinary costs, as much human as economic, and at some point, clearly before next fall, those will begin to vastly outweigh the benefits of its continuance.”
Daniels noted the serious costs to students of degrading their education through the international stampede into online coursework. These include “Interrupting and postponing the education of tomorrow’s leaders,” “permanently damaging the careers and lives of those who have made teaching and research their life’s work, and those who support them in that endeavor,” and damaging learning, since “all the evidence reveals that students who live and spend more of their time on campus succeed academically at higher rates.”
Daniels acknowledged that about 20 percent of the Purdue community is at higher risk from coronavirus due to age or pre-existing conditions. He said he is serious about keeping them and lower-risk student and faculty safe while not sacrificing the other 80 percent of students’ futures.
“At least 80% of our population is made up of young people, say, 35 and under. All data to date tell us that the COVID-19 virus, while it transmits rapidly in this age group, poses close to zero lethal threat to them,” he wrote. Studies have found that, primarily because of these factors, school shutdowns are one of the least effective ways to “flatten the curve.” In fact, shutting down schools likely puts the elderly and sick at greater risk of death because it delays the herd immunity from healthier people necessary to protect them.
So reopening Purdue could be a way to make it safer — if state and federal officials allow. Daniels suggested some “preliminary” safety steps the campus is considering in order to open in the fall while protecting all students and staff. These include, as summarized by USA Today:
- Spreading out classes across days and times to reduce their size;
- More online instruction for on-campus students;
- Allowing – or requiring – people more at risk to the virus to work remotely;
- Pre-testing students and staff for infection and post-infection immunity and using the Purdue laboratory to ensure fast results;
- Tracing contacts for those who test positive and asking contacts to self-quarantine for 14 days.
“[T[hese concepts are preliminary, intended mainly to illustrate an overall, data-driven and research-based strategy, and to invite suggestions for their modification or exclusion in favor of better actions,” Daniels wrote. “They will be augmented by a host of other changes, such as an indefinite prohibition on gatherings above a specified size, continued limitations on visitors to and travel away from campus, required use of face coverings and other protective equipment, frequent if not daily deep cleaning of facilities, and so forth.”
This is what leadership looks like, and it will make Purdue even stronger long-term. Students at all levels and their parents have been forced into emotionally destabilizing holding patterns over their futures, and Daniels is providing them a place to safely land. Providing stability is crucial for parent and students’ trust in his university, which is key in a down market for higher education.
He’s making Purdue the place to be for smart students who want as few education disruptions as possible and will select his high-quality university, instead of their competing options, to get it. This will attract smart kids who are comfortable facing controlled risk — precisely the kind of graduates who will go on to make Purdue proud and burnish its reputation in the years to come.
As Daniels wrote, teaching the world and especially the young people under his leadership what it means to be a Boilermaker, “a return-to-operations strategy is undergirded by a fundamental conviction that even a phenomenon as menacing as COVID-19 is one of the inevitable risks of life.”
Higher education, like much of American elite institutions, was already rotting before the Wuhan virus arrived. Before the shutdowns, college enrollment had already dropped 11 percent, and not due to fewer available young people, but to doubts about academia’s true value that Covid-19 only exacerbates.
The wake of our coronavirus panic is likely to erase countless institutions in the long-term, regardless of whether Congress prints them stacks of cash like it is every other interest under the sun. Purdue was already less likely to be one of these lost universities, given its strength going into the crisis, and Daniels’ clear, bold, and anxiety-assuaging leadership during this crisis is keeping it that way.
It’s an absolute win for Purdue to present itself in uncertain times as the strong horse for smart and gutsy young Americans.
If I were an incoming freshman at a university that had not yet declared they were opening in late August, I would take a gap year.
Why pay full tuition, at a new school, for which you will only get online courses?
One of our grandsons is finishing his freshman second semester on line. He still doesn’t know if his Cal State branch will be open or not. That is negatively impacting an internship and a job this summer.
He has two younger friends supposedly being graduated from high school in May with pending athletic scholarships. They and their parents are having a lot of sleepless nights and loud discussions during the day. Of course their potential colleges have no idea if they will have football, basketball or baseball this school year. They were tendered big buck scholarships before the CV storm hit.
My daughter is a Boilermaker, entering her junior year this fall. We are very glad that Mitch is leading, when it comes to getting this country back on its feet.
I've seen a lot of this on various social media.
Of course, that will impact other states that play CA teams. Gonzaga announced plans to reopen the campus for the fall semester, and the Zags play in the WCC, where 7 of the 10 members are CA schools.
So Gov Gruesome is not only going to $crew California kids who are good enough to get scholar ships, but the kids from other schools re no shows by Cal teams.
“California is going to play a major role in sports. IIRC, Governor Newsom has put a halt on sports in CA for the rest of the year.”
“Of course, that will impact other states that play CA teams. Gonzaga announced plans to reopen the campus for the fall semester, and the Zags play in the WCC, where 7 of the 10 members are CA schools.”
We've got two road trips planned later this year (November-December): Austin (U of TX), and Phoenix (Texas Tech). We're showing up in the top-5 in everyone's too early top-25. We have 3 announced for the NBA draft, none of whom have hired an agent. We're expecting 2, if not all 3, will return for one more year.
It's more difficult to schedule games with Power Conference teams, as the trend has been for these conferences to expand their conference schedules.
If the delay is only until 12/31/2020, the WCC can schedule accordingly, by starting the conference season in 1/2021. Social distancing is usually not a problem for CA schools, with the exception of St. Mary's. The only game that guarantees a sell out for the CA schools is when Gonzaga comes to town. (chuckle) For most of these schools, to buy a ticket for the Zags, you must buy a package of 2-3 additional games.
Jocks, artists, business people are starting to revolt out here in California as well as beach people and hikers.
We have counties with zero to maybe one case of CV and no fatalities. Why should they go into bankruptcy because of an elite out of touch governor.
I would love to see such a matchup, just because 'Zaga has a rather storied program--one of the West Coast elites. We rarely get to see that kind of a game, and I hope that whoever schedules such things will strongly consider it.
Still a far cry when I was a UTEP season ticket holder in the 80s. The WAC schedule was ferocious, the equation to win the league was "win your home games, split your road games." There were many nights when my ears were ringing from the crowd noise.
Other problem is that the Zags play in a top preseason tournament every year, such as Maui or the Bahamas. Those cupcakes give the coaches the opportunity to develop their team, albeit against lesser competition.
Living in Texas, I haven't seen a Zags game on campus since 1976. We make it a road trip when they play within a day's drive of Dallas. Our trips over the past 5+ years have been to Stillwater, Wichita, Omaha, College Station, and (my favorite) Nashville.
The trip to Nashville was my first trip with "my boys": 2 sons and grandson, who had just turned 6. Nana wasn't thrilled, but his mom trusted me. We spent 4 days in Nashville, and he was plucked out of the stands to participate in the halftime "entertainment", a slam-dunk contest.
Next thing I knew, he had his own thread and moniker on the GU hoops blog...lol.
Last November's trip to College Station was special, too. After the game, he had his picture taken with most of the players, including his favorite Zag, Killian Tillie. He also reconnected with Corey Kispert, who gave him personalized instruction during our trip to Spokane. It was heart warming to see how Corey remembered him, and they spent a great few minutes together.
Back to your comment, I suspect Illinois may be our next B1G opponent. One of their assistant coaches spent a few years at Gonzaga before rejoining Brad Underwood.
Daniels will be 75 in 2024. Too late.
Dammit! Plus, being a president of a major university has far fewer headaches, and more pay, than being POTUS.
I really enjoyed your post, even though long it was very informative and told of many good times/stories for you.
I was a baby boiler in 1980. There was a universal class everyone was required to take: Communications 101.
Hopefully it is still there and has only been refined to be even better. Every college and university should have a class like this that makes it so very clear how easily bias and bad reporting enter into the comm process. How much of our comm is non-verbal.
That comm class alone showed the great need for students to be active and present in class. Online should be optional - esp. for elective / easy type classes but there are at least 50-75% of classes that truly need interactive face-to-face interactions, online will never equal this imho.
If anyone could handle being POTUS at that age it would be Mitch Daniels!
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