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Brief
Unions and groups representing UNC System workers and professors are urging county health directors from college communities across the state to order universities to close for normal business “until such time as students, faculty and staff can return safely to their work” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The memo, sent Thursday, comes after this week’s revelation that the Orange County Health Department recommended UNC-Chapel Hill go entirely online in the Fall semester and cut on-campus living to a bare minimum. UNC-Chapel Hill administrators did not disclose those recommendations to faculty, students or the community and is not following them.
The President of the UNC System and the UNC Board of Governors will make the ultimate decision about university closings. They have directed the chancellors to follow orders from public health officials but not recommendations.
The coalition of groups sent the memo calling for orders to directors of health in Watauga, Pitt, Pasquotank, Cumberland, Guilford, Wake, Durham, Orange, Buncombe, Mecklenburg, Robeson, Forsyth, New Hanover and Jackson counties.
“Today, we implore each of you, as the experts and stewards of public health in your respective communities that include UNC System campuses, to communicate your own concerns, guidance, mandates, directives and recommendations in explicit terms, directly to university leadership at the campus in your county,” the unions wrote in the memo. “We ask you to send your own thoughts about how, when, and whether to safely re-open campus to the chancellor and other university leadership with whom you are working on this evolving situation.”
“Nobody knows your county’s unique strengths and areas of vulnerability better than you and your colleagues. We are depending on your collective knowledge, experience, and voices to keep our communities safe, healthy, and strong,” they wrote in the memo. “We ask that you do the responsible thing and order universities closed for normal business until such time as students, faculty, and staff can return safely to their work. We speak not only for ourselves, but on behalf of our students, co-workers, families, and neighbors in making this plea. Ultimately it is your guidance, your words and actions that will matter the most as we move forward together.”
The coalition includes NC Public Service Workers Union: UE Local 150; UNC-Chapel Hill American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Chapter; Members of the North Carolina Conference of AAUP; Workers of UNC Coalition
Read the full memo here.
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