University of Texas’ response to coronavirus

Yesterday, the UT University Writing Center (a division of the UT Department of Rhetoric and Writing) staff meeting was, for the second week in a row, about planning strategically for okay- to worst-case scenarios regarding not just the coronavirus, but the ways that UT might respond. At this meeting we had the Program Coordinator from Athletics, as well as the Program Coordinator for the Digital Writing and Research Lab (our sister in the DRW).

As colleagues at various institutions have said, the notion that there is an obvious response that universities should have and aren’t having is nonsense. There is no obviously right solution (although, I’d say, there are some obviously wrong).

It was a discussion that involved worrying about undergraduates in precarious financial situations who need to keep working, staff and students who are living with or caring for people in the high-risk category, the needs of students to continue to get support for their writing, and legitimate concerns about overwhelming existing technology and whether we’re—as a university—shifting to a system that will have a disparate impact on students with limited financial means.

As the DWRL Program Coordinator pointed out, if everything shifts to online—classes, consultations, office hours—then students will suddenly find themselves devouring data, and that’s pricey. Not all students have computers, nor do they all have wi-fi in their homes, and, if they do, they don’t necessarily have unlimited data plans. Shifting to online classes disproportionately hurts students who don’t have the means to go out and buy a laptop or pay for a better dataplan.

Closing campuses has repercussions that disproportionately hurt marginalized students. If classes are cancelled, students on financial aid of various kinds might have to pay money back, students on education visas might find themselves in precarious situations, students in university housing who don’t have the money to fly back home (or don’t have a home to which they can fly back) are on the street.

There is a saying, “If white people get a cold, black people get pneumonia.” How some universities are handling the coronavirus is an unhappily apt example of that saying. It isn’t necessarily just black v. white, but disadvantaged technologically v. highly advantaged. If a university shifts to online teaching, cancels classes, or closes campuses, rich students will be fine. Shifting to online classes is non-trivial to wealthy students, but potentially a disaster for students whose precarious financial situation means they’re on limited data plans, and closing campuses is even worse for them.

So, universities that are concerned about what are supposed to be American values—inclusion, social mobility, fairness—aren’t immediately shutting down. And that is not an obviously bad decision. They’re trying to think things through. UT is moving more slowly than other universities on all this, and today announced an extended Spring Break—one that will enable faculty and graduate student instructors to redesign classes for online delivery–but I sincerely believe that it is doing so because administrators are meeting constantly and really trying to balance various legitimate needs, including questions of the digital divide. Our sister unit, the DWRL, is looking into opening its classrooms so that students who might be prevented from participating in online classes because of their precarious financial situation can have full access. But it will take them time to figure out if that can be done in a way that is also safe.

One of my direct reports (who lives with someone high-risk) had an email exchange with HR about how to institute a telecommuting agreement, and the response was reasonable, advocating flexibility on the part of the unit. My Chair is completely supportive of flexible and sensible policies for my unit, giving me helpful information about where things are headed (helpful information zie has been given). I’m saying that I feel enabled by my chair, HR, and my university to respond as ethically as possible to this situation.

I’m not saying that every university has responded well, nor that my university’s response has been perfect. Hell, my response has been reactive. I’m in my sixth year directing the UWC. I should have put in place a pandemic plan my first year. Many of the policies we’re enacting I should have put in place just because of the flu.

Yes, the university should have had a pandemic plan in place, and the technology to support it, but so should I. My university didn’t. I didn’t. When the smoke clears, I will almost certainly be unhappy about how my university responded, but, and this is the point, it might just be that my university’s response was sensible given constraints of which I am unaware. A person looking at this situation, unaware of the implications of shutting down a university for international students, might believe there is only one right answer.

The seed of authoritarianism and demagoguery is the premise that situations aren’t complicated, that there is an obviously correct course of action, and that anyone who opposes that obviously correct course of action (doing this thing, supporting this political figure, enacting this policy) does so because they’re corrupt, biased, or stooges to corrupt media.

I love me some agonism. I think we should all argue vehemently, passionately, and reasonably for our positions. I don’t think that arguing vehemently, passionately, and reasonably for our positions and being willing to settle on better rather than best are mutually exclusive positions. Change happens when there are people who agree to make things better and others who point out that this “better” could be better yet. Both positions are important.

No university is responding in the perfect way, but some are responding in terrible ways. I am tremendously proud of how my university is responding.