UNC-Chapel Hill instructor petition calls for masks, testing, option to teach online-only

As UNC-Chapel Hill faculty continue to question the plan to re-open to on campus instruction Aug. 10, they have launched a petition calling for specific guarantees for instructors.

The petition asks for school administration to ensure several precautions:

• No instructor will be required to teach in person or be required to disclose personal health concerns.
• All members of the UNC-CH community will be required to wear masks and practice physical distancing in classrooms and public settings.
• All staff, students and faculty on campus will be tested for the virus that causes COVID-19 in the first weeks of classes and that that school develops plan for regular and ongoing testing.

As of Wednesday morning more than 240 instructors had signed the petition, which comes on the heels of sometimes tense faculty meetings with Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Bob Blouin that left many professors feeling uneasy about the university’s plan.

Last week Guskiewicz told a joint meeting of the chancellor’s advisory and faculty executive committees that the university will have a community expectation that students, faculty and staff will practice social distancing and wear masks in public settings but it would not likely be enforceable as a strict rule under the school’s honor code.

This week Blouin seemed to walk that back, saying professors should insist students wear masks in class and suggesting there should be consequences for those who don’t comply.

Both men hedged or refused to answer when asked about how many courses instructors will be expected to teach in-person rather than online. They also wouldn’t answer questions about how many students, staff or faculty would need to be infected before the school would go back to online-only instruction.