University’s poorly-executed announcement of move to online classes and residence hall closure only led to more uncertainty
Eric Boose / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista
For around an hour and a half following President James T. Harris’ III, D.Ed. announcement that the University of San Diego would be moving to online classes and closing residence halls, most students had no more information about the decision than a social media post. President Harris announced the decision around 2 p.m. at a meeting of the Associated Student Government (ASG) Senate and The USD Vista and USDtv promptly broke the news on social media. At around 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, USD students received an email from the president’s office — the campus-wide announcement of the decision to move classes online and to close residence halls.
No USD students have experienced a pandemic like this one ever before. In fact, very few Americans have experienced a pandemic on the scale of this one ever before. As such, missteps are bound to happen. It would be unfair to expect every aspect of every response to be perfect. However, USD administrators made two crucial decisions which not only failed to comfort students and provide some stability, but also managed to further destabilize students’ lives.
First, the decision to inform ASG Senate well before the rest of campus was poorly thought-out and irresponsible. For the nearly 90 minutes between the announcement and the president’s email, all that students knew for sure was that classes were canceled between March 16 and 20 and would resume in online form on March 23, as well as that there were plans to close the residence halls at some future time. With that little information, some students were left with more questions than answers, especially those students who could not simply pack everything up and go home.
First and most importantly, almost nobody, not even Resident Assistants, knew when residence halls would be closing, leaving RAs and residents alike to fret about how long they would have to pack their lives up and take everything elsewhere. If any group of students had the right to be informed of the university’s decision before the rest of campus, it would be RAs — a group of students charged with facilitating the experience of students living on campus and often the first source their residents turn to for information about on-campus housing.
Second, students who work on campus had no reason to believe that they would still be working once the residence halls closed. For students who depend on income from such a job, not knowing how many more paychecks they could expect would only add more stress to a day which already had its fill of uncertainty.
Finally, students for whom going home would create a burden — financial or otherwise — had no assurance that they would be allowed to remain on campus during the closure. Such uncertainty opens the door for the assumption that no students would have been allowed to remain. Even when students were informed that they could apply to remain on campus, there was no clear indication of how many students would be allowed to remain.
Of course, it turned out that no students would remain on campus, thanks to a San Diego County order prohibiting gatherings of students, among other things. Following the county’s order, USD essentially evicted all students remaining in the residence halls by March 18, four days before the initial move-out deadline. While students who had been approved to remain on campus were provided with non-campus housing in San Diego, plenty of students had their departure times moved up, with only 24-hours notice. Even with their hand being somewhat forced by the county, the university’s approach was plainly unhelpful. The 24-hour relocation notice only increased students’ stress levels, especially students from other states whose flights home were later in the week. USD should have clearly reiterated any and all resources they were able to provide students to ease the move-out process. At the very least, the relocation notice should have been printed on something friendlier than neon yellow paper.
As the country and the world as a whole react to the coronavirus pandemic, universities should be a rock for their students to hold onto, as stalwarts of certainty and security. As a whole, USD’s response failed to do that, thanks to the university’s two major blunders. By announcing the plan in the manner that he did, President Harris and the university plunged students into a 90-minute situation no more certain than life was before the announcement. The entire campus community should have been sent the email when President Harris made the announcement, or even before. When students were asked to relocate, the university should have extended a hand to help students, instead of shoving them out of their residence halls. While there is almost nothing USD can do to make these mistakes right, they can and should be making a plan should a similar situation arise at any time in the future, so that these mistakes will only be made once.