The Faculty Athletics Committee met Thursday to discuss topics ranging from coronavirus to faculty engagement with student athletes.
“You don't have a playbook for everything and certainly the coronavirus is not one which we have a playbook for, nobody does,” Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said. “We are certainly creating one and I feel really good about the team.”
Guskiewicz said he and Provost Bob Blouin recently formed the “COVID-19 Coronavirus Executive Operations Team," an additional working group in regards to the disease.
“This team is going to be working more on long range planning, which we felt was very important for the continuation of operations,” Guskiewicz said.
Lissa Broome, the faculty athletics representative and a law professor, asked Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham how coronavirus will affect athletic teams.
“We’re also concerned with the next couple of weeks,” Cunningham said. “We’re starting into the championship seasons for a couple of our teams so, should they qualify for a championship, depending on the location of it.”
Cunningham said the athletics department will be getting advice from the NCAA on which championships they are going to sponsor, as some schools and institutions have already cancelled events they were set to host.
“We sent out notifications: we don’t do high fives, we don’t do fist bumps,” Cunningham said. “We’re giving our kids sharpies so that they are doing autographs, I mean all the standard personal hygiene. We’re continuing to remind them what’s just good, common sense at this point.”
Jeffrey Spang, an associate professor of Orthopedics, spoke on faculty engagement with student athletes after a faculty meeting he attended on the topic.
