2020-21 Planning Update for Employees

Dear colleagues,

I am deeply appreciative for the hard work everyone has put into planning for a return of students to campus; this has involved a complete re-imagining of campus operations, and it has involved every part of the institution. But, as we find ourselves at a critical moment in the course of the pandemic, we need to adjust our plans for the coming academic year.

Below is the letter that was sent to students and their families about the changes in our plans. But first, I wanted to provide you with some context for the considerations behind this decision, and the particular impacts on Kenyon employees. We will discuss further at our all-staff forum Wednesday, July 15, at 12:30 p.m. EDT. Please use this form to submit a question in advance of or during the forum

(1) What has changed? First, I’d like to address the timing for rethinking the path for the fall. In other words, why now? Why not earlier in the summer?

Over the last two weeks, the pandemic has worsened, nationally and locally. Cases now are higher than the peaks of the spring, and though the numbers are still small, we are seeing more cases in Knox County. There also have been troubling outbreaks associated with university campuses: some connected to the return of D-I athletic practices, some connected to off-campus congregate living near universities. While I do not think these cases are perfect analogues for Kenyon, and I do think that a 100% residential setting provides more safeguards, they are nonetheless concerning.

(2) What are our options to respond? We’ve considered three possible paths in response to the changing dynamic of the pandemic. The first is basically to stay the course: proceed with inviting all students to campus in the fall, giving options to students either to study remotely or to defer their return, and giving faculty the option to prepare their classes in person or in a remote/hybrid format. A second is to reduce the number of students on campus to about 1,000; this allows for all students to be placed in single rooms in residence halls, makes some services (like dining) logistically easier to manage, while still giving all students the option of at least one semester of in-person coursework. A third option is to move to all-remote instruction (or, almost all-remote; we would still host some students on campus who have no other options and provide for international students, who may need at least partial in-person experience to satisfy the new ICE restrictions). Each of these options can be configured to give students the choice to study remotely.

While Kenyon should not simply follow the trends among peer institutions, the plans that our peers are making for the fall are a helpful context. And, they fit into the three categories I’ve laid out above:

Option 1 (100% invited to campus): Bates, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Colby, Colgate, College of Wooster, Denison, DePauw, Dickinson, Earlham, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Macalester, Middlebury, Occidental, Ohio Wesleyan, Southwestern, Union, Vassar, Washington and Lee, Wesleyan, Williams

Option 2 (reducing population of students on campus, with approximate percentage of students invited back given in parentheses): Amherst (60), Bowdoin (33), Carleton (85), Claremont-McKenna (60-70), Grinnell (33), Kalamazoo (33), Mount Holyoke (50), Oberlin (75), Smith (50) Spelman (30), Swarthmore (50), Trinity (80), Wellesley (50)

Option 3 (100% remote, with specific exceptions): Pomona, Scripps

(3) Changing to a reduced population of students on campus. As you can see from the letter to students and families, we are switching to a model (option 2) with a reduced population of students on campus. This will allow us to house all students in singles with adequate spare space for isolation and quarantine. The reduction of the number of students taking in-person classes also reduces demand on classroom spaces, allowing us to optimize where these classes are located (and reducing density in the academic buildings). Having a more robust line-up of remote course offerings increases flexibility for students choosing remote versus in-person. We will delay making a decision about spring semester until later in the fall (when we have more information).

(4) Financial implications. While we will lose revenue in this new model (including about 40% of room and board revenue and a reduction in tuition revenue), we estimate that the cost of this model fits within the financial projections we presented in May and June; in other words, we believe at this time the model does not require any further budget adjustments, and is consistent with our efforts to preserve jobs and avoid layoffs on campus.

Reducing the number of students on campus will make the environment safer for all of us — students, faculty and staff. A change at this point in the process will be challenging, but I am confident that all of us together can meet this challenge. Thank you very much for all that you are doing and have done, and I’ll see you online on Wednesday.

Yours truly,

Sean Decatur, President

Update for Students and Families: