Faculty Fellow Daniel Philpott last week urged the University of Notre Dame to continue in-person instruction this semester in “Please don’t give up on in-person teaching, Notre Dame” in America magazine.
“Contact tracing connected the spike to two off-campus gatherings. No question, if students continue to party in packs, efforts to contain the virus will fail. Yet the same pattern evinces the success of Notre Dame’s mobilization efforts. The positive cases by and large did not originate in classrooms, faculty offices, dining halls, dormitories, gyms or locker rooms,” he wrote in the Aug. 27 piece.
He added, “The critics (of holding in-person classes) claim to protect the vulnerable but ignore the economic costs of shutdown, denominated in furloughs and layoffs for workers.”
Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins announced Aug. 28 that Notre Dame would begin gradually resuming in-person undergraduate classes beginning Sept. 2 following a two-week break due to a steep rise in coronavirus cases on campus.