The ‘Safe Enough’ Campus, 2022
Preview:
It’s the beginning of the semester, and here on campus, faculty have begun distributing syllabi to students imagining the challenges they will be facing in the coming academic year. Everyone is wondering about the threat of COVID-19. Some want to ignore it completely, thinking it’s just one of the many health risks that we all navigate. Others (especially those who don’t like commuting) want to have as little unprotected contact with other people as possible: all Zoom, all the time. For me, as professor and college president, I’m somewhere in the middle. I want a “safe enough” campus on which we are open to serendipitous and spontaneous encounters; I also want a campus on which we protect people from getting really sick.
Originally published: September 16, 2022
Author: Michael S. Roth
Position: President
Institution: Wesleyan University
Published by: Inside Higher Ed