Troubling Developments at BU (to be continued)

I’d like to be reporting right now on what appears to be an extremely troubling development at BU when it comes to the workplace adjustment application process and the exceptions to in-class teaching BU is meant to be providing to many BU teachers at this juncture. I’ve heard enough from four department chairs (indirectly in two cases) to know it is an extremely troubling development, but I have not yet seen the relevant internal communication to department chairs for myself. I feel I must wait to comment on this matter. If anyone has anything they’d like to share with me regarding this troubling development, please email me at allcaution@gmail.com.

There is no shortage of other troubling developments. For a start, a BU graduate student recently wrote to me (thank you!) regarding an extraordinary decision made by BU Real Estate, which is responsible for renting out many rooms to both undergraduate and graduate students. The student writes:

BU Real Estate is turning vacant rooms in some BU graduate housing into quarantine rooms for suspected cases of Covid-19. BU Real Estate wanted us to know that confirmed cases will be in a separate building. The [particular] graduate housing will be only used for quarantining of suspected cases. Although it is only for suspected cases… [there are] a myriad of health concerns and logistical uncertainties. … The plan [is] to turn vacant units into quarantine rooms … They essentially confirmed that, according to the current plan, most graduate students in this graduate housing in the fall will be exposed to a constant flow of suspected Covid-infected students. The most alarming of it all is that they currently have no plans to disclose this information to all of their current residents. I understand that it might be difficult to push them to change their whole plan but I strongly believe that BU Real Estate should at least disclose this information to current residents so that students can make informed decisions about their own living environments. BU Real Estate [has] compared themselves to other property managers around Boston and [has] argued for their lack of legal obligation to inform their residents. They [have] argued that if we lived in a random apartment building in Allston or Brighton, property managers/landlords would not notify us if our next door neighbor was suspected or confirmed of Covid-19. I believe this is a flawed comparison, as BU Real Estate is deliberately bringing suspected Covid cases into the building.”

Seriously, BU?

In other news, BU journalism and political science student Grace Ferguson has been doing some great work tracking recent developments, troubling and otherwise, at BU. After reporting on poor ventilation in BU classrooms and the heightened risks of infection that holding classes in these rooms will lead to (we will have more on this topic soon), Grace has in recent days been providing regular reports on Twitter regarding online town hall meetings BU has been organizing with students, in anticipation of students arriving on campus from the middle of August onwards. From Grace’s reporting of these meetings we have learnt, amongst other things, that the university will not be providing a quantitative threshold in advance (with respect to number of people infected, etc.) indicating when they will be prepared to close the campus. We have also learnt that students coming to Boston from elsewhere, including from virus hotspots, will not be required to enter quarantine; they will merely have it recommended to them that they enter quarantine.