September 13

“COVID, COVID, COVID” (voice of an ex-president) 
There was a professional football game last Thursday night in Tampa Bay, Florida. Some 65,000-people attended. Quarterback Tom Brady had another spectacular game and very few attendees wore masks. Social distancing was not respected, enforced, or even tolerated. The seven-day average of case counts in the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg area for those testing positive is near 3,000 according the current New York Times coronavirus tracker. A day before this game, President Joe Biden was implementing new vaccine and mask mandates, pleading over the airwaves to please get vaccinated, to wear a mask, and to social distance, but this was not the case at college and pro-football games around the country.

Step Backwards
Back in February when the Super Bowl took place in Tampa Bay, NFL officials limited the number of those attending to 22,000 and made masking mandatory. Even though social distancing protocols were also implemented, many thought a super-spreader event might be in the making, and at the time the 7-day case counts only averaged about 1400 according to the Times tracker. More than a million-people attended pro-football games this past weekend in packed stadiums even larger than Tampa Bay’s. “More than 90 percent of N.F.L. players and all coaches and staff are vaccinated, yet dozens of them have tested positive for Covid-19 since training camps opened in July,” according to NY Times sportswriter Ken Belson.  Well, Santa Cruz case counts averaged around 200 during Super Bowl week last February. Today, the 7-day average is around 70 according to the same Times tracker. With the coronavirus “breakthrough” variant strains coursing through our country as a result of so many people just being on the move, can our Covid-19 rates remain low for very long in our county?

Covid Fear and Loathing in the Classroom?
It began at noon last week with 187 participants. It swelled to 195 by 12:30pm. The meeting was only scheduled for an hour, but at 1:10pm there were still 126 on the Zoom meeting. People, UCSC faculty and staff, seemed hungry for information about how to deal with Covid, vaccination enforcement, and classroom decorum. Only two weeks remained before the first day of instruction, Thursday, September 23rd. There was much information distributed by at least six different campus officials. They clearly had their hands full. Faculty and staff were peppering the admins (administration) with some real concerns, and fears, about opening the campus. Here are some of the questions and responses:

Staff/Faculty: What are we to do if a student will not put on a mask?
Admin: “If a student will not put on a mask when asked, then ask them to leave…but don’t call the police…the police enforce the law, it is not their job to enforce campus rules.”
Staff/Faculty: Who will enforce the masking rule? (Never answered during discussion. Came up several times.)
Admin: There is a new rule in the fall, “no eating or drinking in any classroom…you must keep your mask on at all times.” (Does this include coffee?)
Admin: Unvaccinated students will be required to get “2 tests every 4 days,” while unvaccinated staff and faculty will need to get “2 tests per week.”
Admin: All students have to provide negative test results before they can move into campus housing. All other students must provide a negative test result within 5-7 days after arrival “to campus.”
Staff/Faculty: Will you require mandatory testing of vaccinated people? 
Admin: No. 
Staff/Faculty: Why is UCLA requiring it, but not UCSC? 
Admin: We are following UC guidelines. We are not set up for it. “Almost all hospitalizations are of unvaccinated people.” 
Staff/Faculty: Do faculty need a doctor’s note if they want to teach on zoom instead of in-person? 
Admin: “Yes, documentation is needed…” through the “disability accommodation process.”
Staff/Faculty: What about classroom ventilation?
Admin: Ventilation in some of the classrooms has been enhanced. If ventilation is not adequate, you can request another classroom, “but do not call the registrar, contact your dept. office. We are identifying bad ventilation and installing hepa-filters.”
Staff/Faculty: I’m concerned about equity (if the new color-coated badge system is being predicated on having a cell phone) and students who have no phone. 
Admin: Yes, we are too and we are looking into it.
Faculty/Staff: What is the main benefit of being in an in-person classroom if everyone is masked? 
Admin: Students told us they want to come back to the campus and we are trying to accommodate that. “You’ve all told us you want to be back.”
Staff/Faculty: What about these “breakthrough” transmissions of the virus?
Admin: “Breakthrough transmissions are from unmasked individuals.”
Faculty/Staff: Can students sit in every other chair in the large classrooms?
Admin: UC system is not requiring social distancing. “We want students and staff to have the accommodations we can provide…we cannot provide for social distancing.”
Admin: “Talk to your students on the first day about how you are going to norm the room…visit your classrooms before the quarter begins and see what kind of accommodation is needed…we had the idea of blocking out every other seat, but these [large] classrooms will not have seats blocked out.”
Admin: Don’t come to campus if you have been exposed to those testing positive or think you were exposed and are waiting for lab results.

What is College Life? (personal memory)
I’ve been experiencing lots of thoughts lately about my own college experiences at UCSC and what it has been like for students having to learn “remotely.” But also, what constitutes a real college experience and if the university grows to 28,000 students and adds 4000-5000 more staff and faculty, how will that experience be changed? How would any of us feel about a “remote” Zoom education? Yes, there are students who prefer it, but not many, and what kind of education is it? UCSC used to be about making connections, potlucks at professor’s houses, going to lectures and films on campus and then talking about it with roommates until 2am…it’s also going to the Catalyst and Moe’s Alley and ending up at the Red…it is sitting in the library and wandering the stacks never knowing what you might find…oh the books that I’ve discovered! It is participating in streaking on the first night of rain in Santa Cruz…it is Halloween downtown…breakfast at Zachary’s with friends…listening to jazz at Kuumbwa, hiking in Wilder/Pogonip/upper campus and all the while running into friends and classmates…It is participating in in the Holi Festival, 4/20, Earth Day, and intramural sports…it is all those serendipitous chance meetings, connections, and friendships that matter most…on-line college just doesn’t make it. A college education is not simply listening to lectures, passing tests, and writing papers. It is an (w)holistic endeavor that should be available to all of our young people. (And 20,000 students in Santa Cruz is enough…basta! We’ve reached our student carrying capacity.)

If You Love UCSC so Much, Why Do You Seem Hostile?
Hostility comes from many corners of Santa Cruz, essentially because the UC Regents is an undemocratic system. It justifies dumping students from El Cajon, Fresno, and Eureka into SC and expecting them to survive because every young person in California deserves a UC education. Yes, everyone deserves a UC education and no, Santa Cruz can only accept its fair share. I am certain most people in Santa Cruz would not want to give up the real perks and privileges of having a UC here–great libraries, musical concerts, plays, and visiting faculty lectures, but why not spread the wealth? Why not erect new campuses? Why not a UC Eureka, UC Stockton, UC El Centro, or UC Redding? We need to build more campuses, not continue to stress out the communities that already house a UC. Community goodwill is not something to dismiss lightly.

UC and Bad Decisions?
And/but, UCSC has made terrible decisions…kicked Shakespeare Santa Cruz off campus; brought in 100 cops to beat up grad and undergrad students last year (not the first time either); it’s still not gone to electric buses when by all indications they would do it 10 years ago; then the admin saying campus population will grow to 28k and not including the extra 4-6k faculty and staff in that number up front; seeking to build in the ecological hotspot that is upper campus; trying to construct buildings on the iconic east meadow thus defying a 60,000-plus signature petition; and of course the eternal question which perplexes locals: why aren’t the UC Regents building more housing on-campus for ALL new students? Are Santa Cruzans hostile? How about insurrectionary.

“We have worked very hard to develop legislation which finally meets the long-neglected needs of the working class. $3.5 trillion is already the compromise — we must pass the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill in tandem.” (Sept. 12)

Iron Man/Womyn competition is quite the event! It was held this past weekend and large crowds came out all along West Cliff, Highway 1, and in the Depot Park area. Amazing athletes! But Covid-19 had its way here too. I heard over 2000 registered (at $349 each), but less than 1300 showed up.