Screen capture of the email sent out from Spelman's Faculty Council.
The in-person fall semester at Spelman College was set to begin on August 18, but an email recently sent to students from the faculty council at Spelman has triggered widespread confusion among students and their parents.
"Faculty have not received clear and enforceable protocol and safety guidelines that will ensure our health and wellbeing when teaching face-to-face," the email read. "While awaiting acceptable responses to these concerns, we have decided not to teach in-person."
For many students, it was the first that they were made aware that at least some of their classes would be online.
On Aug. 19, Spelman's president Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell sent out an email to students informing them that the campus community that the college was indeed open “for in-person learning and instruction," and that "Spelman faculty members have decided to return to in-person teaching effective Monday, Aug. 23.”
This kind of back and forth, the tug of war between faculty and administrators, is something “we are likely to see across the landscape of higher education institutions,” said Dr. Shaun R. Harper, the Provost Professor of Education and Business at the University of Southern California (USC).
“Because of the evolving nature of the ongoing pandemic, the Delta variant, and inevitable future variants, they’ll continue to be disruptive and anxiety producing for faculty and students across institutions,” Harper said.
