Column: UNC is facing two public health crises
After the University’s disastrous plan to cancel in-person classes, the overarching sentiment from off-campus voices has been: “Could anyone have expected this?”
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After the University’s disastrous plan to cancel in-person classes, the overarching sentiment from off-campus voices has been: “Could anyone have expected this?”
Here at The Daily Tar Heel, we are no stranger to calling it like we see it — and as I’m seeing it, UNC in a COVID-19 world needs some work. Changes made to protect public health, including a move to remote learning, campus “de-densification” resulting in fewer opportunities for student and professor interaction and reduced campus operations have left many Tar Heel students floundering. It feels more than reasonable to ask for partial tuition refunds from our school considering the worsened financial situations many of us find ourselves in amid the economic fallout of COVID-19.
During a June 8 meeting of the Faculty Executive Committee, Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases and associate vice chancellor for global health, was answering a question about potential off-ramps when he appeared to refer to UNC’s reopening plan as an “experiment.”
The Kardashians have been known to summer in the Hamptons. The Kennedys have Hyannis Port. And the Sheeheys, no stranger to family traditions, had lifeguarding gigs at Padonia Park Club for over a decade.
White supremacy in America is not just baked into our institutions. It does not just live in the shallows, masked by unconscious biases — it is also overt and broadcasted to Tucker Carlson’s 4.3 million viewers every weekday night.
In a statement earlier this week, the Trump administration confirmed they do not plan on joining the global effort to develop, manufacture and distribute a coronavirus vaccine because the World Health Organization is involved. This follows announcements earlier this year that the United States is planning on terminating its diplomatic relationship with the WHO altogether.
“Sports are like the reward of a functioning society."
2020 has shown us that nothing is straightforward, everything can change instantly and there is only so much humans can control. Serving as a university administrator — let alone as the face of the first public university in the United States — amid a pandemic and social unrest must be one of the most stressful and draining jobs right now. But this is the exact job of Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz. I believe he has and still is striving to best serve all of the University's stakeholders, especially students.
Fueled by the recent events of police brutality and the shooting of Jacob Blake, athletes across major sports leagues have boycotted games in honor of the Black Lives Matter movement. The slow return of live sports also brings the resurfacing of some of the largest platforms for high-profile athletes in entertainment across the United States, and rightfully so.
The OC Voice is a portion of the OC Report newsletter where local residents may have a platform to talk about local issues they care about. Brittany McGee is an assistant city & state editor and a senior at UNC.
The reality is, we’re all doing the best that we can.
For the past several days, the 2020 Republican National Convention has (sort of) been taking place in Charlotte. President Donald Trump, the party's nominee for president, and Vice President Mike Pence addressed their fellow Republicans, as did other party leaders like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Since school started two weeks ago, two things have become clear. First, the UNC administration dropped the ball in organizing and creating a safe environment for classes to resume on campus. Second, some UNC students showed little to no responsibility for controlling the spread of COVID-19.
Dear sister,
Driven by COVID-19, various graduate schools across the United States have made the executive decision to waive standardized testing for this upcoming admissions cycle. This comes in response to many of the testing dates being pushed to online environments or being canceled altogether. However, standardized tests, such as the GRE, have long been points of contention in discussions of admissions committees, and this year could be a major decider in whether or not the tests ever return to application requirements.
This last week has been nothing short of embarrassing for the UNC administration. The University’s reopening plan has been plastered as an example for other institutions planning on returning students to campus this month, and has received intense scrutiny from journalists, public health leaders and government officials across the nation. Here’s a look at just a few of the things that went wrong — and some of the changes that need to be made if there’s any hope of students returning to campus next semester:
UNC Chapel Hill’s fall semester starting a week earlier made us quite the sacrificial lamb in the nation, and the already-expected consequence of opening — an egregious endangerment of students, faculty and communities — is now abundantly clear.
Did you know North Carolina faced major shortages even before the pandemic began? Not in hospital beds, masks or ventilators, but in human capital.
Dear first-years,
Winter Candy Apple Bath & Body Works pocket hand sanitizer is the equivalent to a wristband at a frat party in 2020. If that doesn't tell you there's a global public health issue running rampant, especially on UNC's campus, I don't know what will.