The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus is known for its lively social scene, says a faculty petition. “I shudder at the prospect of teaching in a room filled with asymptomatic superspreaders,” wrote Paul M. Kellermann, 62, an English professor at Penn State, in an essay for Esquire magazine, proclaiming that “1,000 of my colleagues agree.” Those colleagues have demanded that the university give them a choice of doing their jobs online or in person. University officials say they are taking all the right precautions, and that the bottom line is that face-to-face classes are what students and their families — and even most faculty members — want. Rachel Pell, a spokeswoman for Penn State, said the petition signers there represented only about 12 percent of the 9,000-member full- and part-time faculty. “Our expectation is that faculty who are able to teach will return to the classroom as part of a flexible approach,” she said.

Source: New York Times July 03, 2020 06:56 UTC