The fall decision will have to wait

Not enough information available currently to decide whether to return to campus

Eric Boose / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

The first coronavirus-related death in the U.S. was less than three months ago. In the time since, cities have seen case numbers climb — often at a rapid pace — and some are now seeing that increase plateau, or even turn to a decrease, sparking hope for lifting the restrictions meant to stop the virus’ spread. For universities, including the University of San Diego, that means hope of returning to campus in the fall. However, there are four months before students are slated to return to schools across the country. Too much can change in those months for universities to decide, at this time, whether to return to campus in the fall.

Not too far north of San Diego, California State University, Fullerton announced that they will begin their fall semester online. The university cited the “unknowns of the current pandemic” and a desire to be prepared for anything come fall for their decision. 

When announcing the decision to begin the fall semester online, CSU Fullerton admitted that their decision was not final, and that they would wait to see how things change. That is the problem — things will change. Nobody can really tell what four months from now will look like, just that it will almost surely be different. As such, universities have to find a way to inform students in a timely manner and provide students with the best possible college experience. The preferable college experience would be a return to campus, where students will be surrounded by their peers and friends, teachers will operate in the traditional classroom environment, and things will be as close to normal as possible. The only scenario in which this is not the best possible college experience is if the virus is still so prevalent that having groups of students in close proximity would pose a threat to their health or the health of the community. 

There is, at the same time, some value in making an early decision regarding the fall semester. For one, students want to know what their return to school will look like, and giving them some form of certainty can be beneficial. This is especially true for the incoming class of students, who surely want to know if their first experience at their school of choice will be on campus. May 1 is the commitment deadline for almost every university in the nation, and it is only days away. It would be understandable for students to hesitate to commit to a school which may be online in the fall. However, there is a work-around that does not require making a hasty decision. Gonzaga University has extended their commitment deadline until June 1, “to allow students more time to make their college decision.” Certainly, allowing more time for decision-making is far better than making a decision too early and having to backtrack.

Also, the sooner students know what the fall semester will look like, the more time they have to prepare for it. A decision made in August, whether to return to campus or to begin online, can catch students unprepared. Some students hoping to return to campus will have found roommates and signed leases, and some students expecting to be online will have made plans for living away from campus, possibly even taking a semester away from USD. All of those plans are harder to change in one month than in four. Such is the virtue of an early decision.

However, delaying the decision as much as possible almost guarantees a better experience for students during the fall. If USD is to be online again in the fall, it would be better to be that way for the entire semester, as opposed to beginning the semester on campus, only for it to be interrupted again. That being said, the online experience is nowhere near as positive as the on-campus experience, not just for students but for professors as well. Plenty of professors willingly admit that they are not as effective in their pedagogy online as they are in person, and there are surely students at USD who would consider skipping a semester of online classes, or at least taking them at an institution with a smaller price tag. The university administration would certainly love to avoid the financial loss from not having students in residence halls on campus. 

The ideal decision, then, would be for USD to hold classes on campus in the fall, but if the pandemic is still raging to an extent that it would be dangerous to do so, the university should prioritize the safety of students, faculty, staff, and administrators. At this point in time, what the world will look like in August is not clear enough.

In the midst of a pandemic, certainty about anything is a welcome comfort. That being said, there is no point making decisions just to provide that certainty. Decisions now, like always, should be made once there is enough information to confidently make the decision that is going to be the best for everyone involved.