Message from the Office of the President: Update on fall planning, COVID-19 and community safety

From the Office of the President

Dear Twin Cities students, faculty, and staff,

It’s hard to believe there is just one more week left until our fall semester begins. While we are taking a two-week pause on our plans for students to move into University housing, classes will start as scheduled on Tuesday, September 8 (online or in remote formats for most undergraduate students for at least the first two weeks of the semester).

I’m writing to provide you with updates on our Fall 2020 work, a new COVID-19 Dashboard we have launched online, and on our partnership with Dr. Cedric L. Alexander to guide further consideration of community safety.

Fall 2020

We have been actively monitoring peer institutions around the country as they have moved students to campus and begun fall semester classes in recent weeks. We have watched as many schools have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks, and we are closely reviewing their response so that we can make our decisions with better information. With full appreciation for the extra work our two-week delay caused and the uncertainty it created, it is incredibly helpful for us to see actual data rather than projections as we finalize our own Fall 2020 plan and stay focused on the health and safety of all students, faculty, and staff.

As we noted in our Board of Regents presentation last Monday, you will have clarity on our plan for moving forward no later than September 7.

COVID-19 Campus Dashboards

Earlier today we published the first iteration of our online COVID-19 dashboards for all five campuses. Click here to go to the Twin Cities dashboard. The page includes links to the dashboards for our other four campuses. As we collect more data in the weeks ahead, you will see enhancements that will help illustrate trend lines, as well as other information that will provide some perspective on our community.

There are significant limitations to these data. For the Twin Cities campus, our data are limited to what is collected at Boynton Health, just one of more than 250 testing sites around the state. Due to federal patient privacy laws (HIPAA), the University does not know the test results for Twin Cities students, faculty, or staff that seek testing at any other facility. For Crookston, Morris, and Rochester, testing is done entirely by non-University health care providers so our access to that information is similarly limited by law. Testing data for those three communities are reported to the Minnesota Department of Health and would appear in the county data on the MDH COVID-19 page.

Dr. Cedric Alexander and the University of Minnesota Police Department

I hope you saw my email yesterday regarding Dr. Alexander. The work ahead of us is incredibly important, and I am grateful that we will have the benefit of Dr. Alexander’s expertise and insights.  Please engage fully--we will seek meetings for Dr. Alexander with many of you and if you are interested in participating, please let us know.

Recent months, and particularly recent days and developments, have been difficult. While our decisions have been anchored in a commitment to safety and information, we can’t help but feel a sense of whiplash, as well as heightened anxiety as fall draws ever closer. My continued thanks to all of you as we prepare for the coming semester and in the next steps we will take together.

Please be healthy, safe, and well.

With warmest wishes,

Joan Gabel