Cornell Announces that Campus Will Reopen to Protect Student’s Health

Cornell University has announced that it will reopen its campus to students this fall to benefit the health of students. Despite the decision by several major universities to keep their campuses closed for the fall semester, Cornell believes it is best for the health of its students to hold classes in person.

According to a report by Campus Reform, Cornell University has announced that it will reopen its campus this fall to benefit the “public health” of students.

In a press release, Cornell announced that it would navigate the upcoming academic year by adopting an extensive Chinese virus screening program. Some students stated that they were so eager to resume campus life that they planned to return to campus regardless of the university’s decision to reopen its campus.

The key consideration in our decision to reopen is public health, and so I would like to take a moment to explain, in particular, the findings of the epidemiological modeling. The analysis, done by Operations Research and Information Engineering Professor Peter Frazier and his team, showed that residential instruction, when coupled with a robust virus screening program of the form we intend to implement, is a better option for protecting the public health of our community than a purely online semester. This counterintuitive result stems from the expectation, borne out in our student surveys, that a large number of our students would choose to return to Ithaca even if we were wholly online; and they would live together and socially interact without the mandatory virus screening tests and behavioral requirements (described below) that Cornell can impose if students are enrolled as part of a residential semester.

Students told Campus Reform this week that agree with the university’s decision.

“It’s great and a huge improvement over online classes. If the university can seamlessly integrate the hybrid environment then this unique semester will be an enjoyable one for all,” student Hudson Scanni said.

Weston Barker, who serves as the president of the Cornell Republicans, argued that the administration’s decision was a well-reasoned approach to reopening campus.

“The reopening plan seems by all accounts to be the result of a solid mix of epidemiological research and community input,” Barker said.

Breitbart News reported this week that Harvard will offer all of its courses online for the upcoming academic year.

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more campus updates.