San Jose State administrators provided updates on which campus services are reopening and answered questions from students during the SJSU Adapt Fall Forum Tuesday over Zoom.
At the start of the forum, SJSU President Mary Papazian said she is proud of the work the university is doing amid a pandemic and nearby wildfires.
“The bottom line is this, San Jose State is committed to delivering its mission through this pandemic and remaining the most transformative university in the country,” Papazian said.
Students were able to submit questions regarding the Adapt Plan before and during the event and had their questions answered in a Q&A format.
Budget raises employee layoff concerns
Papazian spoke about possible employee layoffs in her opening statements, which has been a concern since the first town hall meeting on July 23.
“Layoffs are our least preferred option at San Jose State,” Papazian said. “We continue to look for creative solutions to our financial challenges without resorting to layoffs.”
Charlie Faas, vice president for administration and finance and chief financial officer at SJSU, reiterated that layoffs are not an option they’re looking into at the moment. Faas said some alternative solutions the university might implement to avoid layoffs include a pause on hiring for non-critical positions, limiting early exit retirement salaries and participation and using some of the university’s reserves.
Joanne Wright, senior associate vice president for university personnel at SJSU, also said layoffs were a last resort.
“Layoffs are not the route we want to go,” Wright said. “We're doing everything that we can to make sure that we don't go there.”
Faas said the administration has been working on issues about the SJSU budget, particularly regarding its $92 million deficit.
Reopening campus
SJSU is waiting to announce the plan for Summer and Fall semesters next year because the administrators wanted to see if Santa Clara County would move from the red tier, substantial risk phase, to the orange tier, moderate risk phase. Santa Clara County moved into the moderate risk phase according to the County website later in the day.
Vincent Del Casino Jr., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, said because of the possibility of the County being upgraded to red or even purple tiers, which are substantial and widespread COVID-19 risk phases respectively, SJSU cannot guarantee opening more areas of the campus without a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I think we're going to have to be in a wait-and-see environment for both of those semesters,” Faas said. “If the optimism of vaccination comes to be, if we can distribute it widely, if we can make that a requisite of sort of campus life, then I think we can return to some semblance of continuity to what life was like prior to COVID.”
On-campus dining
The Dining Commons updated its hours again after backlash from students who complained about the reduced hours of noon to 6 p.m. Starting Wednesday, the Dining Commons will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the weekend.
The hours were originally reduced because of a survey given to students living on campus which showed that the majority of students were dining between 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Starbucks on campus will also provide service inside the Village Market to better accommodate students living on campus. Faas said administrators want to ensure students living on campus have access to food.
“We're listening to people on the timing of when they want to eat and when they want to do that,” Faas said.
Faas said he believes the administration is meeting the dining requirements.
Coronavirus cases at SJSU
Dr. Barbara Fu, acting medical director for the Wellness Center at SJSU, said when workers test positive or show symptoms of the virus, they must tell their employer. She said other people on campus are strongly encouraged to report if they have the virus.
Fu said case managers at SJSU are there to help students isolate and quarantine properly when needed, make sure any areas where people who tested positive are sanitized and provide any other accommodations that students may need.
“[We’ve] all gone through an online training process and are familiar with our protocols,” Fu said.
The case managers provide advice about the virus over the phone to students depending on their specific situations such as housing.
There have been 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the university since March, according to the university's health advisories page. The administration also keeps in mind how many cases are reported each day in the county.
Athletics and recreational activities
SJSU Athletics Director Marie Tuite dispelled rumors that two separate unnamed SJSU sports teams came into contact with people infected with the virus and that some players tested positive as a result.
“The rumor is not true,” Tuite said “However, we did have some individuals from two teams that did interact with some students from SJSU that were outside of our COVID-19 protocols.”
She said the athletic department stopped any team interaction when the department was notified and it tested the teams for the virus. The test results from all of the players on both teams came back negative.
Tuite said the university is looking into ways to stream sports games for fans who would not be able to watch in person, but no other athletics news was announced during the forum. However, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department cleared the SJSU football team to return to campus and be able to play by Wednesday, according to a Santa Clara County Public Health news release.
Furthermore, Traci Ferdolage, senior associate vice president, announced the Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center (SRAC) reopened Tuesday and students enrolled at SJSU can reserve a time slot and participate in limited activities such as working out in strength and weight rooms.
Mental health help for election stress
Patrick Day, vice president for Student Affairs, said the university is preparing resources to inform students about the election through blog posts on the university website and will share information on how to vote safely with the pandemic regulations.
“We're also going to spend some significant time dealing with safety as we start to think about the safety of election night and making sure that our students are safe, obviously relative to COVID,” Day said.
Chief Diversity Officer Kathleen Wong(Lau) said SJSU is looking into creating a mental health support system that will be available to students 24 hours a day.
“[We] anticipate that there will be a lot of stress, as we already have leading up to the election.” Wong(Lau) said.
She said the administration already knows this extra help is needed during election season, especially after reactions on campus after the 2016 presidential election results that she shared where students “did spill out of the residence halls and wanted to express themselves and commiserate and commune.”
Academic courses
Michael Kaufman, dean of the College of Science, discussed how STEM courses have improved on campus, which was a question asked by a student.
Kaufman said some areas of the College of Science, like the geology department, were sending materials like rock and mineral kits to students so that they could work on labs at home. He said the department is looking into online programs to integrate into its teaching and help students gain more experience in their studies.
With the exception of some upper-division labs in chemistry and biology, almost all science labs are online.
“Faculty have been, and continue to be, extremely creative about how to deliver that content,” Kaufman said.
Del Casino said SJSU will release the class schedules for the following semesters so students can find out if their courses are fully remote or hybrid.
