- Welcome, everyone, to our
first community conversation addressing Dartmouth's planning
response and operations in the time of COVID-19. I'm Joe Helble, I'm the
Dartmouth College Provost and I'm joining you this
afternoon from a nearly empty campus, sitting in a very quiet
STAR instructional studio. It's great to have a chance to connect, although I will say personally
it's not nearly the same. Looking around at the campus
today and seeing it nearly empty of students, empty of faculty, and staff on a beautiful springtime day, it certainly doesn't feel
quite right to me and I know it doesn't feel quiet right
to any of us that the campus is certainly different. In our conversation this afternoon, I'm going to be joined by
Justin Anderson, who is our Vice President for Communications, who is sitting in another studio on campus and our COVID-19 Task Force co-chairs, Josh Keniston, who is the
Interim VP for Campus Services joining us from his home, and Lisa Adams who is
a professor of medicine at Geisel and MD, our Associate
Dean for Global Health in the Geisel of School
of Medicine, a professor of medicine, and a specialist
in the care and treatment of infectious TB. And Lisa is also joining us
from her home in Norwich. Our format that each week
for these sessions is going to be a brief update perhaps
10 or 15 minutes where I will walk through some of the
decisions that we're in the midst of making and talk about
planning for the next set of decisions that will affect
operations and academic planning and academic
operations on the campus in the weeks and months ahead. We'll then take live question
and answer that'll be moderated by Justin Anderson,
and then turn to have a brief conversation with
campus leaders in this case today, the taskforce co-chairs Josh Keniston and Lisa
Adams, and then we will turn to you the audience for any
questions you'd like to put specifically to our guests, before I wrap up briefly
with a few words the end. Our goal in these campus
communications, these campus conversations is to
amplify the messages is that the taskforce co-chairs that President Phil Hanlon
and I have been putting out in our written communications. And again, to give you an
update on what's happening now on campus and at Dartmouth,
and truly to do our best to answer the questions that we know are on everyone's mind. Now, the decision that
we made most immediately that I trust nearly everyone
has seen this familiar with is a decision we announced
a week ago Monday, around summer term, the transition
to a full summer term with remote learning. What I'd like to do today is
not go through that decision per se, because I'm trusting
that you're all familiar with the details, but speak a little bit about
the process that led us to that decision to help
give everyone a sense of how we are beginning to
think about the process leading to decisions around fall term. When we made the announcement
of the summer term decision last Monday, I can tell
you that my email inbox President Hanlon's email inbox,
Dean Lively's email inbox, the Task Force email inbox,
and every other senior leader immediately began receiving
questions appropriately about what's next. What's the timeline for
decisions that impact other operations this summer? What's the timeline for
decisions about the fall term? What kinds of decisions
are we contemplating for the fall term? And I anticipate today
that many of you will have questions there. But as I said, let me start with summer
and just take a few minutes to walk through the thinking that guided our decision making. Now from the beginning, as we've approached our
decisions related to campus operations and Dartmouth
operations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have said and I have
said as clearly as I can that our absolute first
priority is the health safety and well being of the community. This means the health safety
and well being of our student community, it means the
health safety and well being of our campus faculty and staff community. And it also means the health, safety and well being of the broader Upper Valley community that
interacts with Dartmouth so directly on a daily basis. We've also said and I've
also said that paramount in this is ensuring the
educational continuity of our students. This is the educational
continuity of students in the classroom, this is the educational
continuity of students pursuing independent research projects, this is the educational
continuity of undergraduate and graduate students
alike across the entirety of the Dartmouth campus. And our goal and my goal
in all of this is to be in a position where, guided
by the Task Force, we are able to make and I am able to
announce operational decisions as early as we can, to provide certainty and
guidance in the community, but to provide them as late
as possible to be as well informed as we can and
making those decisions. And I recognize that those
principles may seem inherently contradictory, but that's
part of the challenge and so much of what we're wrestling with in planning our response to COVID-19. We recognize that so many
members of our community are looking for certainty so
they can be able to plan, but we also recognize that
the parameters in federal and state guidance are
changing so rapidly, that we don't want to make
decisions that have tremendous operational impact and
tremendous impact on our workers on campus, our students, our faculty and staff in the larger Upper Valley community, any sooner than we absolutely have to. So what parameters are we
thinking about as we make decisions related to COVID-19? Well, first and foremost, we need to look at the rate
of progression of the disease in our local community, in the states in New Hampshire and Vermont, nationally, and also internationally. Why do we need to be thinking
about the progression of the disease beyond
just the Upper Valley? Well, that's because
Dartmouth draws a national and international community
of scholars and students to our campus. And so it's not just
progression of the disease and the surrounding
Upper Valley environment that's relevant, but it truly
is the rate of infection and the rate of containment
of the disease across the entire country,
across the entire world. We have to ask ourselves whether
we have adequate supplies of personal protective
equipment and adequate ability to test people who are infected
or potentially infected or exposed before making a
decision that we can bring large numbers of students, faculty and staff back to campus. We ask ourselves whether our
ability to make operational decisions that would begin
to reopen the campus need to rely on unrealistic
expectations of our students and our community. You can imagine if we said
we can open the campus to students, but it can be
one student per building, you need to be fully gowned
at all times and you need to effectively be locked in
your room and not interact with another human being. That's certainly not the
Dartmouth experience we want to promote and that's not
a realistic expectation to impose upon our students. We need to ask whether there
is still a need and federal and state guidance requiring
self quarantine of all individuals returning to our campus. And we take a look at what
decisions our peers are making. And here I have to say
it's been extraordinary how openly our Ivy League
peers and other educational peers and we have been sharing information and planning together. We are all in this together
as we try and figure out the best path forward to
bring students, bring staff, bring faculty, and bring
research activity and educational activity back to our campuses. Decisions our peers are
making are informative, but they are not determinative
because each institution and certainly Dartmouth
in our rural environment in northern New Hampshire has
some unique characteristics that have to be considered
as part of the process. And finally, let me say that
the financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the
economic downturn associated with all of the self isolation, self quarantine and self
restriction and cessation of travel and restriction of
economic activity have had on higher ed broadly and
on Dartmouth has to be part of our calculus. We've said quite openly
over the past few weeks that our loss in the fourth
quarter alone of fiscal year 2020, the fiscal year that ends June 30, was over $50 million operationally, and that's not counting additional investment losses in our
working capital pool. We anticipate and project
that there will be additional losses of $7 million over
the course of the summer. With that kind of revenue loss, that kind of loss affecting
all of higher education, we have to think about not
just our ability to sustain that level of loss, but we have to think about
the impact on our community and on jobs as we begin to
make decisions for opening or reopening Dartmouth. So when could we reopen residentially? What are the factors that we
consider in making a decision whether or not summer, or for that matter whether
or not fall would be an appropriate time to
begin bringing students back to campus. Well, here too, we're guided by advice from
federal and state authorities. We're guided by advice
from academic experts, including our own. We're guided by advice business
groups that are providing recommendations to their
communities as to when businesses can be reasonably reopened. And some of the best guidance
we've seen actually came over a month ago from the American Enterprise
Institute, where they laid out pretty clear parameters that govern when an institution can begin
to think about reopening for business or in our case reopening for residential education. And those are a steady
reduction in the case load in the relevant geographic
area and they recommend a steady reduction in cases
over a period of 14 days. The presence of adequate
treatment capacity to treat those who are infected and
affected in your community. The presence of adequate testing
capacity and the presence of adequate monitoring, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation capabilities. And when you look at all of
that together and you think about where we are today, as we look forward to the start
of summer term in a little less than two months time
and ask do we have these? The answer for most of those is no. We have been pleasantly surprised, perhaps due to the effectiveness
of some of the social distancing measures in the
Upper Valley, that our local medical system the Dartmouth
Hitchcock Medical Center has seen far fewer cases of COVID-19 than they had anticipated. So we do, at this moment in
time, have adequate treatment capacity in the Upper Valley
health care system, but on all of the other measures, including effective testing capacity, availability of PPE
monitoring and contact tracing capacity, we are not where
we need to be to consider a significant reopening
residentially of our campus. So the decision we announced
was to be remote only for the summer, with our coursework to be graded as Dean Elizabeth Smith and
I had announced in mid March when we indicated that
the spring term would be a term of credit no credit grading only. We announced for our
sophomores who will not be able to have a residential
sophomore summer experience this year, that if they wish
they could choose instead to be in residence in the
summer of 2021, to experience that summer in Hanover as
part of their education. We also announced the
cancellation of on campus Tuck Bridge Program, the Remote Start, and the Tuck and Geisel Master of Health Care
Delivery Science programs, and the cancellation of all
on campus athletic camps, performing arts events, and the Hanover Country
Club for the summer. Basically, physically,
at this point in time, we have announced that the
campus is remaining closed for educational activity
and for residential activity over the course of the summer. So with those decisions, what comes next? The first thing that I know
is on the minds of many of our undergraduate students
is the logistical question. Now that summer term is not
happening as a residential term, how will we return your belongings to you that you had to leave
behind when you went home for spring break? That's something that
Task Force is working on, and I'm going to turn to Josh Keniston and Lisa
Adams in a few minutes to provide some insight and
answers to that question. What about grading? What does a graded summer
experience look like? Well, we will return to graded
and evaluated coursework, but our faculty committees
are working through questions around the specific parameters
whether or not we might, for example, expand the NRO option. And I anticipate having an
announcement out to campus with the details on that
within the next two weeks. And what about fall term itself. As we think about fall term, the immediate and obvious
options that may come to mind for everyone are the two extremes. Either fall term is another
term that is fully remote learning continuing the
practice of spring term in summer term, or fall term is a full residential
term with everyone back on campus, life as
usual, business as usual. As I sit here over these
past few months and talk with epidemiologists,
talk with physicians, talk with our sciences, talk with public health officials and talk with our colleagues on the Task Force, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the opportunity for a
flip the lights switch return to normal business as usual operation is, well I won't say impossible, highly unlikely for us
or any of our other peer higher educational institutions. So where does that leave us? It leaves us considering
and contemplating things that I would call hybrid operation, where some fraction of our
students would come back to campus, some fraction of
our students would continue in residential learning. But let me say clearly and
unequivocally that in all of these options, Dartmouth will be open as an educational institution this fall. We are not in any way
contemplating cancellation of the fall academic quarter. We are working diligently
right now with the Task Force to figure out how we can
most effectively structure that fall term and how we
can bring safely and securely the maximum number of
students back to campus for a residential experience this fall. How are we going to get there
as we think about the summer in the months ahead? Well, first and slowly, as I said to a student reporter from the DU who interviewed
me the other day, we are going to begin focusing
this summer in the very near term on the slow reopening
of our research facilities, bringing graduate students
and postdoctoral scholars, and some faculty and staff
back to campus in a very staged, managed and measured function. We know that through that
experience over the course of the summer, we will learn some of the
steps that will be essential to protect community health
when we bring larger numbers of undergraduate students
and graduate students back to campus in the fall. We have just put in place this
week through collaboration with our partners at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical
Center, a health working group that is going to help
us think through exactly how we can manage the population
health, manage student, faculty, and staff on campus
health through this fall by figuring out how to
effectively test and frequently test the community for
presence of the disease, how to procure adequate
personal protective equipment, what social distancing
guidelines we can put in place, how we can effectively manage
contact tracing when someone is believed to or are
expected to have developed symptoms of COVID-19. What kind of monitoring can
we have in place to monitor and manage community health
and what kind of quarantine and isolation facilities will we have. Our Task Force will focus
on how we accomplish these things, and an academic
working group composed of deans and associate deans
will be working with me to figure out how we
structure the curriculum, recognizing that it's likely
to be hybrid with some students on campus and some
students learning remotely, to most effectively meet
the educational needs of our students. There's a lot of complexity
embedded in all of this, and so a question I'm sure
it is on everyone's mind is when we'll be able to make a decision and when we announce. We anticipate announcing
our plan for the fall term by the end of June. June 29th is the operational
date we have given ourselves to announce that decision. Our fall course selection process, because we are not going
to make an announcement on the structure of fall term
into June 29th, is therefore going to be postponed. Rather than having students register for courses in May, we are
going to postpone the listing and timetables of courses
to mid-July and registration for faltering classes will
happen over the course of July. But first before we get to
those points we need to make and announce operational
decisions around belongings, around grading, around June
virtual commencement plans which I anticipate are
releasing in the next few weeks, and around fall off campus
programs and travel. And embedded in all of this, we also need to be thinking
about steps that we will need to take in the coming months
to address the extraordinary financial and budgetary
challenge that COVID-19 has imposed upon this campus. But let me simply say in
closing that guiding us in all of these steps is going to
be adherence to the first principles that I outlined
at the very beginning. It is an absolute focus
on the health and safety of our community, our students and our faculty
and staff, and the local members of the Upper Valley Community. It is on focusing on the
educational continuity research and training of our students, undergraduate and graduate alike. And let me say we are
doing that with a community that continues to inspire me. It's been an extraordinarily resilient and supportive community. I had meetings with two
faculty committees last week and the stories I was hearing
from the faculty committees and from department chairs in
a meeting with all the arts and sciences, and the
department chairs just two days ago this week, about how the faculty are
engaging with students, how the students are
engaging with the faculty and how everyone is embracing
this shift to remote learning, it's been truly extraordinary. And let me finally say before
I turn to Justin to take your questions that some
of you who know me know that I'm quietly competitive
and not that I like to see us in a position that beats the rest of the Ivy League, but I will point out that Dartmouth, because
of the nature of our academic calendar, has somewhat
of an advantage here. All of our peer institutions
had to make decisions to go to remote learning in the
middle of an academic semester. We made the decision to do
so at the start of the spring term, the spring quarter, and so we will have by
the end of this term, a full quarter in academic
experience teaching and learning remotely under our belts. We will get a second term of
remote learning completely under our belts by the end of the summer. So when September first arrives, the scorecard will say that
Dartmouth has had two complete terms of learning how to
effectively engage with students, challenge our students,
provide assignments, grade assignments and work
with our students mentor and advise our students
by remote learning, where many of our peers
across the country are just about to start their
very first semester, of full online learning. We won't keep this to ourselves,
the academic community, as I said, has been extraordinary. We will be sharing with them
lessons that we have learned, just as they've been
sharing with us lessons that they've been learning along the way. So let me stop there. Thank you all for your
engagement and for listening. And we'll turn to Justin
Anderson, who will moderate some of the questions that I can see that you've been sending it. Thank you. Justin. - Thanks a lot, Joe. It's nice to be with you,
although it's only virtual. Nice to see you. So a lot of questions have
have come in over the course of the last 10 minutes. You just addressed what will,
what may happen in the fall, fair number of questions about the summer. Two questions in particular. I'm seeing a lot of
questions about the return of staff to campus. One question, when will
staff return to campus? And then how will you
determine which departments or areas open first? - That's a really good
question and one could ask, in fact the same questions
about research laboratories and how we will determine
which ones will open first and what the schedule will be. So first and foremost, we need to be responsive
to the guidance and in fact executive orders of the governors in Hampshire and Vermont. So we are waiting for their
indication that restrictions can be relaxed and we can begin
to contemplate a lessening of the work from home
expectation or requirement. The Task Force has working
groups that are looking at which functions we can
and should first bring back to campus. Initially, I anticipate those
will be functions that are either struggling to get
their work done effectively through remote learning or
those that are supporting the on campus research
enterprise as the first place to start. That's something that is
going to be a work in progress over the course of the summer. And as I said, our guidance has to be
driven by state guidelines and in fact, Executive Order requirements
in the near term. When will it happen? It's a question I'm asked often. This is a guess. I will say I am hopeful that by late June or the beginning of
July we'll begin to be able to bring people back to campus. It might be sooner, it might be later. That's simply my best guess
sitting where I am today. - Thanks, Joe. This next one I'm assuming is from, well, it could be from the students,
or even a student considering coming to Dartmouth. When will a decision be
made about first year trips, five step orientation? - As you might imagine, as we think about the
academic program for the fall, when we think about the
schedule for the fall, there are groups who are looking
very actively at the best ways to engage with incoming
first year students. What does that mean for FYCEP? What does that mean for first year trips? I think we will be in a
position where we can make decisions on first year trips
sooner than the June 29th deadline that we have
announced for anticipating, announcing the structure
of the academic fall term. How much sooner I don't know, I don't anticipate that we'll
be in a position to give an answer to that over
the next couple of weeks. Our first order of business
is to look at international travel programs for the fall
and I know that there is a working group in the Task
Force that is committed to making recommendations
around fall off campus programs, language study,
and foreign study programs by mid to late May, I would
imagine that we will be making decisions around FYSEP other
residential programs like FYSEP, first year orientation, first year trips in the same timeframe. So mid May to late May,
possibly early June. - Thanks. This question just came
in about the endowment. Is there a possibility that
trustees could find a middle ground between the fear of
depleting our endowments and using this amazing rainy day fund for this extraordinary rainy day? - That's, it's, you know, in fairness, Justin, that's a good
point because this is an extraordinarily rainy day. It's a rainy day in ways
that no one ever anticipated. Higher ed has experienced
economic crisis before, but it's the combination of
the depth and the rapidity of the transition in
operations and the transition financially that is something
that we truly have not seen as a community of educators
ever in our history. So how do we think about the
endowment in this context? And this is a question that
friends and colleagues in town and on campus have have
asked me by email frequently because I'm not seeing too
many people face to face, but frequently are
asking me this question. The endowment I think you
use the term rainy day fund, we have to be very
careful in acknowledging that the endowment in fact
is not a rainy day fund. It is funding that was
provided to the institution over generations with very
specific purposes in mind. Most of the uses of the
endowment are restricted, restricted by SOU, Statement
of Understanding, they are, in fact, essentially, legally restricted where a
donor gives us money very generously to support a
specific building, a specific program, a specific faculty
members, faculty line. The funds that come in through
earnings on the endowment are used and can be used to
support that activity only they're not fungible and
they can't be used to address institution-wide operational
funding deficits. I think we need to remember
in all of this is that we are in fact using the endowment
to support the operations of the institution, Dartmouth's fiscal year 2020
budget is roughly a billion dollars and the endowment
earnings on the endowment support over $250 million
of those operations. So why not draw more? And there's a fundamental
principle that you'll hear the President, you'll hear
me you'll hear the sport, the more you'll hear many of
us speak about when we speak about the endowment and
the use of the endowment. And that's one of
intergenerational equity. Dartmouth is the institution
that Dartmouth is today because of the generous
philanthropy of alumni and friends in generations past, that was stewarded and
protected and preserved, that enabled us to draw operating funds, that enable us to have
faculty that we have on campus today, that enabled us to have
jobs that we have on campus today, that enabled us to have
financial aid for students that we have on campus today. If those decisions had
not been made to preserve the endowment, even in past
moments of financial crisis, we would have fewer students,
we would have fewer jobs, we would have less
financial aid available, we would have fewer faculty. And so this principle of
intergenerational equity doesn't just apply in the past. We have to think about carrying
it forward for generations to come to preserve the
continuity of operations and to preserve the core
of the Dartmouth academic and educational mission. Let me just add, because this is something
I think about a lot by, perhaps not to put too
fine of a point on it, but I'm an engineer and I like to think about the quantitative aspect,
I think about the numbers. We're facing roughly $100
million combined operating loss if you include the working
capital portion for spring term and summer term alone. Why not take $100 million
out of the endowment if you could, and use it to fill that gap? That $100 million, once you
draw upon it is gone forever. It's not learning earning interest. The principal isn't growing going forward. That $100 million would
generate $5 million in annual operating budget support that our budgets count upon. Take that away, $5 million, that is 100 full scholarships
for students that we would no longer be able to fund. It is 140 staff and faculty positions, and so the implications
are huge to doing something that may seem like a simple step drawing from the endowment now to
address an immediate financial challenge, and so for that
reason through generations, the trustees and the administrative
leadership have always used the endowment as a
resource of last resort, because of the tremendous and
long lasting impacts it has on the future operations
of the institution. - Thanks, Joe, and I guess let's just stay on the the issue of how we can fund our operation. There's a question about the
use of the federal stimulus money, part of the CARES Act. The CARES Act, as you know, is a $2.2 trillion federal
bill and of that 14.5 billion was set aside for
allocation to institutions of higher education. And as such Dartmouth has
been allocated a certain amount of that money. So the question is, is Dartmouth going to take
advantage of the CARES Act to use for funding for
undergraduate grants? - So the CARES Act that as you know, Justin and as our listeners may know, sets aside funding for each
institution of higher learning in this country through a formula that looks at student need. It is support that is
designed to help address the economic hardship
faced by institutions and by the most needy students on campus. Dartmouth's allocation through
formula has been announced that $3.4 million of support. We have not yet applied
to accept that funding, but if we do, we are committed to applying
100% of that funding to support students and student needs. Now, as you might know, those of you who have been
paying attention to the press on this know that there has
been some pressure applied on some institutions to consider
turning down the funding because of the size of the endowment or because of the scope of the university. But if you look at those institutions, and particularly if you look
at Dartmouth, there is no question that there are students in need, there is no question that
there are students and families whose financial need will
be increasing significantly because of this economic hardship. So we are thinking very
carefully about the value of accepting those funds
to support our students at this particular moment in time. And as a matter of principle, I think one needs to keep in
mind our students absolutely need this funding to help support what Dartmouth can provide. And we also have to
recognize it in a moment where we're asking all of the
Dartmouth campus community. Through our salary freeze
for faculty and staff, through the hiring freeze,
through the request that everyone reduce their fourth quarter non-compensation expenses. We're asking everyone to
make financial sacrifice. I think it's incumbent upon
us to look to every source of support for the Dartmouth community and for our students. And so we were thinking very
carefully about proceeding with filing an application
to seek this funding. - Thanks, Joe. So we've been receiving
questions now for over a half an hour and I'll tell you
that the two most popular questions are, number one, when and how can I get my belongings? Which I know you said
that Josh would address. So we'll get to that, but the other most popular question is about layoffs and furloughs. And when decisions may be made about that, or announcements made about whether or not that's happening. - Right, yeah, that's another
really important question for so many members of
the Dartmouth community, and there I can say we
are committed to being as transparent as we can
about any decision we need to make and to announce
any decision as soon as we possibly can. I think you know that when
Dartmouth made the decision to suspend residential
operations for spring term in the middle of March, we
made the commitment to continue to pay at full salary all
members of the staff for three and a half months through
the end of June in the hopes that the economic hardship
that we are facing in the fourth quarter of
this fiscal year would lessen and in the hopes that we will
be in a position to begin returning to residential
operation over the course of the summer. That now is not happening
and we are thinking very carefully about what a fall
term operation, a hybrid operation would look like. Our needs to support students on campuses are going to be driven significantly
by the protocols we put in place to help preserve
and protect the health of the community, faculty
staff, and students. Are going to be driven substantially by the number of students
who are on campus and how our residential
buildings are being used. So we can't answer the
question about any potential furloughs or layoffs until
we have better insight into what the fall term
is going to look like. I said earlier, we're not going to announce
a fall term decision an academic decision until
the end of June but we will not wait that long to
make any announcements about potential furloughs or layoffs. That might begin as early
as July 1, and so we are committed to making decisions
on those to the extent that we can by the beginning
of June, and we will be open and transparent with
the community as we go through that process. And it's something that I'm
happy to continue to comment on in these weekly forums, 'cause I know how important
it is to so many members of our community. - Thanks, Joe. We have time for one more
question before we get to Josh and Lisa. This is another one
that has been popping up a number of times. Is the COVID-19 Task Force doing anything to consider student
input and perspectives? - They are. We do not, other than on one committee, there is a working group
that has been working as part of the Task Force to help
us develop a structure for a potential virtual
celebration and commencement ceremony in June. Not to replace the physical commencement, but to give us a marker in
time of this celebratory moment in the conferral of degrees
as we anticipate then a full physical and normal
commencement ceremony in 2021. There have been students
contributing very directly to that community. In other parts of the working
group there are not and have not been students on the
Task Force around the working groups because the individuals
on the working group are individuals who are charged
with making major financial and operational decisions,
controlling operational units, managing facilities,
overseeing academic program, directing travel programs for the campus. We have, however, sought and received
significant student input, significant student perspective
that has helped inform some of the decisions that we made. There was a tremendous amount
of student input that was sought and considered as we
made the decision to have spring term be a credit
no credit grading term. There is student input being
provided in a very structured and helpful way through the
Student Assembly, a long series of questions that they
provided to us in leadership in late March, and a
second series of questions that I just received this
morning that we will be responding to by early
next week that help provide the student perspective and
ask for student guidance. And finally, I know that Dean Kathryn Lively, the Dean of the College and her team and Student Affairs have
been hearing from students regularly and have also been
reaching out to students proactively to seek student
input on things like processes for getting belongings back, that have been an important
consideration as we develop plans for those steps
that are happening next. So there is a very important
student voice in all of the processes we're undertaking, even absent having students
for the reasons I articulated, being explicitly appointed
to this Task Force that's comprised of
institutional divisional leaders. - Thanks, Joe, and
speaking of the Task Force, I think you're about
to speak to the chairs of the taskforce. - Yes, so thank you, Justin, and thanks to everyone
who sent those questions in and please keep them coming. We will be doing this
again on a regular basis. And I look forward to taking
more of your questions next Wednesday at the same time. I'd like to turn now to Josh Keniston and
Lisa Adams, the co-chairs of the COVID-19 Task
Force whom I interviewed or I introduced at the beginning, I'm going to ask each of them
just a few questions to help give you a sense of the
work that they're doing. And then we're going to turn
it over to you with questions moderated by Justin again, that you can put directly
to the Task Force. So first I'd like to ask
Josh and then Lisa to very quickly and succinctly give
us a high-level structure of the Task Force from your perspective, and talk about your specific
role on the Task Force in your specific and current focus. Since one of you comes very
much from the operational side of managing the campus, and the other one is an
infectious disease specialist from the Geisel School of Medicine. Josh, why don't we start with you. - Sure, thanks Joe. Good to see you and good
to see you too, Lisa. So the the Task Force is Joe,
we report directly to you. But really, our job is to
coordinate across the institution. I've been at Dartmouth just
about three years and never have I had the chance in
such a short period of time to get to meet so many individuals, and that's really kind
of a hidden perk here. But we've appointed four
individuals from all of the professional schools
from some of the key divisions that are represented on the Task Force, and then about a dozen sub working groups, things like travel support,
business continuity, research continuity, a
variety of areas all working on how right now, how
do we think about fall? And how do we track towards that? So my role is really, as the interim VP of
campus services is to come at this from an operational perspective, how do we think about getting the campus ready and responding. - Thanks, and Lisa as
a physician scientist, tell us about your role in the Task Force. - Sure. Thanks again for having us participate. So my role on the Task Force
has really been to focus on the medical and public health aspects and the epidemiological data. I and my health and epidemiology
colleagues are the ones who are closely examining
that COVID-19 data for New Hampshire, for
Vermont, for the US and really across the globe. We are closely following
the trajectories and slopes of the disease curves and
looking at the various models that are designed to help us
project what we can expect to see in the near future
and long-term future. We're also of course, dealing with the uncertainty
in the data and the model projections and doing our
best to examine all available resources and sources and
to make the most sound interpretations of the data. You also mentioned that
we're working very closely with Dartmouth Hitchcock
Medical Center colleagues and partners at the New
Hampshire State Health Department to align our guidance recommendations and plans for things like testing, access and
capability and care delivery for our community. And you also mentioned and I
think it's worth highlighting that our broader Task Force
goal and when I take very personally and seriously
is really to do our best to safeguard the health and well being of those in our community. So I see my role is making
sure that we have the best available data and information
to make sure that all of our recommendations and
the decisions by senior leadership are based on the
best available scientific and public health evidence. - How often are you in touch
with the state epidemiologist or your colleagues at DH? I remember certainly in
the early days of this, it seemed as if you were
on at least one call if not more daily. - It certainly was quite
frequent in the early days, especially as things were, practices were getting implemented
and changes were coming fast and furious at us and
information and we were having our first cases and figuring
out how we were going to be dealing with those in the community. So now it is sort of tapered
off to a steady state of almost daily with a
Dartmouth Hitchcock colleagues and little bit less frequently now with the health department. But we know where they're
good colleagues of mine from the infectious disease
section who were involved in both state and Dartmouth
Hitchcock leadership, so we're always only a phone call away. - Okay, so it's pretty clear
there's still very frequent collaboration and connection. So one of the questions
I've been asked less so now in the later stages of our
managing the disease here in the Upper Valley Community,
but certainly frequently in the beginning was how are we faring? How many cases are there? Where are they and how
are we accommodating them on campus? I know some of this is
information that needs to be protected. But what can you tell us about the numbers and how we're managing it on campus. - So what I can share is that to date, we've had just under 10
students with confirmed COVID-19 in the Upper Valley. We're also aware that
there have been a few cases amongst our employees. But we know that there's
community transmission in both New Hampshire and Vermont,
so this really does not come as a surprise. We've also heard from students
who have moved outside of the Upper Valley that they
or a family member have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and
our college health services providers have offered telehealth support to those students and I
think are available to all students who have questions
and concerns about COVID-19. Now regarding the self quarantine
and self isolation piece, we have identified spaces
on campus that we have cleared and cleaned to
allow us to isolate up to 35 students who are ill, but not ill enough to
require hospitalization. And we've always cleared and
cleaned rooms for a similar number of students who have
been identified as contacts to individuals with COVID-19
and need to self-quarantine for 14 days. So these are spaces that
meet our infection control criteria of having a single
room, a private bathroom. And then of course, we've arranged for meal
delivery for students in those spaces. Now fortunately, we've
never had more than a dozen students in either our
isolation or quarantine spaces at any one time. But we really feel that this
has served as a good practice run for us to know what
will be needed practically and logistically, and how will
we manage when we are able to welcome more students back to campus? - Thanks, Lisa. And I have to say one of the
things I got to see first hand a few weeks ago was the
great lengths that the dining service staff have gone to
to take care of the students who are in isolation and quarantine. It's really extraordinary to
see the steps they've taken both to prepare meals for
students who are still here on campus, but also deliver
food to those who are in isolation and quarantine. So Josh, let me turn to
you now with a question, the question perhaps
that's on everyone's minds, at least all the undergraduate students. And that is the belongings that were left behind on campus. And so I know the Task
Force is working on this. I know you promised me
I'll be seeing the final plan very soon. What can you tell us
about where that stands? And when we'll be able to
announce to campus the plan for returning student belongings? - Yeah, that's a good one, Joe. And I'm not going to have
the complete plan today. But I'll update you on where we are. We're working hard and we're
probably about two weeks, if not sooner away from being able to roll that out and Dean Lively will
follow up with those details as soon as they're ready. We all hoped this was not going
to go on as long as it has, and so we are digging in and looking at what the options are. It's complex, we have about
3,200 students' belongings that we need to deal with
and it's things like how do you get thousands of
boxes to box things up that we're looking at. We're looking at options
to ship some of the stuff that needs to get there
in a quicker timeframe. So we're looking at all of
that information right now and putting together a plan. And we'll roll that out, as I said within the next two weeks, and it's going to take
the course of the summer to fully implement it. But by the end of the summer, we'll be able to have
belongings back to most of the students. - Thanks, that's encouraging. I'm sure for many it's not
as soon as they would like. We know everyone would
have loved to have had their belongings back the
first week after we needed to close in the spring. But I also have to say
that I've been impressed and appreciative of how the
vast majority of students and their families have
recognized that this is a public health crisis, like none we've ever seen, and have given us the campus
community and leadership the flexibility to work through
the plans, and I'm really pleased to see that we're
close to being able to roll out the plan and letting
people know when they'll get their belongings back. Last question, I'd like to
ask the two of you briefly before we open it up to the audience is around the question of
return to research to campus over the course of the summer. I know the two of you as
taskforce co-chairs have a working group that's
focused very specifically on this and maybe if you don't mind, I could just ask each of you
to provide a little bit more detail on what they're considering
and how they anticipate rolling that out and moving that forward. - Why don't I get us started then. So as you mentioned, we have a working group, our
research continuity working group, which is led by our
Vice Provost for research Dean Madden, this is one
of our many working groups, and that working group
is actively exploring how to carefully and
intentionally restore research activity on campus, including what practices need
to be in place to protect the health and safety of our community. This will be a careful and
intentional process and is likely to occur in a stage
or phased in fashion. So some of the things
that we're doing that sort of my team will be involved
in is looking at lab spaces and personnel, and devising
a ramp up plan that will take into consideration spacing so
that we could allow the six foot social distancing and
limiting the number of people that are in the space over
a day or, or even a week, and then also having to
consider one of the cleaning or disinfecting practices
of high touch surfaces. And maybe with that, I'll turn it over to Josh
to comment on that piece. - Yeah, the other key piece
that you hit on Lisa is even within the labs there, then the common spaces in
the buildings and so part of what we're looking at is, what are the appropriate
standards to put in place for shared spaces like
bathrooms or common touch areas like the exterior doors to buildings. So we're working with
facilities teams to think about how do we create
the right level of kind of disinfecting, and regular
cleaning, and make sure that we have the staff ready to go. And so it's a lot of coordination. The other piece we're watching
closely is to make sure that the appropriate personal protective equipment is available. It's been an issue across the board. It's one that we watch very
closely and want to make sure that the levels more
broadly are available. So that when our researchers
are back that they have available what they need, and that we are kind
of doing it being aware of what the needs are for the
medical community as well. So a lot of balancing
acts that have to happen there to do that well. - Great thanks, Josh. And I'm pleased that
you mentioned restrooms. There is a paper actually
that I just saw in draft form this morning in Nature Science. It was a study done in
some of the hospitals in Wuhan, China, and they
found that one of the areas they needed to be most
attentive to where there was the highest aerosolized
viral particle moving was, not surprisingly, in the restrooms. So let me ask Justin to
turn to our audience and see if there are any questions
coming in from outside that we can direct to the two of you. - In fact, there are, Joe,
so thank you very much. I think this first question probably should go to Josh,
it's an interesting one. Has the committee or has the
Task Force at all discussed the possibility of shortening
the six week interim break in order to delay fall
term and allow it to be conducted on campus? It appears as though a
modification of the calendar would allow for more time to
prepare for fall term. Is the six week break really necessary? - So I would say the Task
Force has examined lots of different permutations as about fall. We've spent long hours
thinking about the various ways to tackle this. So at this point, I think our priority is to
figure out what option allows us to get closest to what we
would have called it a normal type of operation. And so we'll be watching
all of that closely. Lisa, maybe you can
comment a little bit more on the timing piece and how we're thinking about how that all impacts
our decision making. - No, it's a good question, and certainly scenario, as Josh mentions, that we have considered. There are pros and cons to almost every permutation that we look at. The delayed start maybe
gives us a little bit of planning time, more
planning time up front, but we really have to
think about what we gain in those extra weeks, versus having a Thanksgiving
break towards the end of the term for which we know
people may very much want to travel during, and that
seems like it the cost benefit there of having people again leave campus return to campus. Would there be a 14 day self
quarantine period as there is now for people entering
the state from elsewhere? It gets very complicated. And so we are looking at what we can do to provide and really
preserve, and provide the best educational experience in
the timeframe that we have. So, again, we are. Everything's on the table
right now is we're trying to keep an open mind about all this, but I do think we are
weighing sort of pros and cons to a scenario such as that one. - Thanks, Lisa, and I'm
going to I'm going to stay with you for this next question. It seems to be an area of expertise. If people who are sick
are told to just stay home and isolate rather than
going to DH to be tested, how accurate do you feel
the number of cases is for the upper valley? - So we do know that we are testing, is not as complete as
we would like it to be. And that the populations that
we've been able to test are a small, much smaller cohort than we would like to be able to test. And that testing has been
available in other countries. So we know that our results of individuals who have tested positive is a great underestimation
of probably the true number of infections that are out there. By what factor, what is that ratio? We don't know exactly, there
are some estimates out there. But I think as we have more
access to testing for both disease and to indicate past infection, we will be getting more
information about what is the true extent of COVID-19 in our US population. - Thank you for that, Lisa. Josh, I'm going to go back to you. A number of questions have come in about the Hanover Country Club and its status, given the recent announcement
that it will be closed for the season. Can you speak a little
bit about that decision? - Yeah, I know that
that's one that there is, a lot of disappointment
for individuals as many of the decisions that we've made have. So the decision is just about
this season at this point and was part of a larger
decision about our summer activities on campus and
wanting to reduce the number of people on campus and
really limit the operations of what we have this summer. So the decision is about
this summer there have been, we're in the process of issuing refunds for those who have membership fees. And then as we look at the
broader picture, we will, as we get to the other
side of the COVID crisis, we'll take a look at how we move forward with the golf course. - Thanks, Josh. We have time for one more
question for you guys. And I'll go back to Lisa for this one. It's an interesting question. Will incoming international
students be prioritized for starting on campus in the fall? If some groups are allowed to attend, will this include new
international students? So this question is about
international students specifically, but the
issue really is much bigger about if we go to a hybrid model, how is the campus populated? So I'll go to you for that one. - Yeah, let me make a couple points there. I think everyone knows that
we already are housing some students on campus, a small
number, less than 200 students, some of whom are international
students who are not able to return home. And we will certainly expect
to continue to be doing that. In terms of who would be
returning to campus if we are able to do that partially residential term for undergraduate starting in the fall, that is very much still
under discussion and will certainly be a senior leadership decision. I will say too, just to keep
in mind about what fall term might look like for every
students are returning that we are still expecting
that there will be a requirement around some of
the public health measures that are in place now, social distancing, the frequent hand washing,
the use of face coverings, the probably statewide ban
on on large mass gatherings. We expect those are still
going to be in place. So, we will be working with
them to allow the largest number of students that we
feel like we can safely welcome back to the campus, but recognize that some of
these public health measures, many of them are still
likely to be in place. So however students are welcome
back, they will be guidance and some of these measures
that we will absolutely expect our students to adhere to. - Thank you very much, Lisa. And thank you also, Josh, appreciate your time
and your willingness to engage with Joe and take some of these questions. There are a lot of questions that came in that we couldn't get to. I do encourage folks to check out the Dartmouth's COVID-19
website, which you can get to through the homepage. There is a feature there, an email address that you
can use to ask questions. We will try to respond to
every question that comes in. So if you didn't get your
question answered today, please think about taking
advantage of that opportunity. And of course, we'll be back next week, and you'll have the ability
to ask more questions. So with that, I'm going to go back to Joe. - Thanks, Justin. So Josh, Lisa, let me echo my
thanks for all of your great work leading the Task Force
these past two months, but also for being part
of our conversation today. And so to everyone who's watching, I think you get a sense
of the key interrelated challenging questions we
need to address as we think about fall term. How many students can we bring back? We're committed bringing the
maximum number possible back to campus safely and
with health and safety first and foremost in our minds. Who are those students
who get to come back, if not everyone is able to return? What curriculum can we
put in front of them, and how will that differ for
residential students versus those engaging in remote learning? And then as Dr. Lisa Adams just said, and what will campus life look like? What kind of restrictions,
social distancing, PPE contact tracing, do we need to think about as we anticipate fall term operations. But with all of that, I will say again what I said partway through
my remarks this afternoon. Dartmouth will be open this fall, we are not contemplating
cancellation of fall term. Fall term will take place, and the challenge for us is
to figure out in the next two months the appropriate
operating model that enables us to bring the maximum
number of students safely back to campus. So let me end there. Thank you all again for
your interest and attention. We will be back at this time 3:30 next Wednesday and I anticipate
having as guests two members of the Dartmouth College
faculty who will speak a bit about their engagement with
students and their experience and what they are learning, going through for the first
time this tremendous remote learning experience at Dartmouth. Thank you everyone, look forward to seeing you next Wednesday.
