Transcripts For CSPAN2 Senate Hearing On COVID-19 Impact On College Students 20240712

The hearing on the senate health, education, labor and Pensions Committee will please come to order. We want to thank our staff for working through some technical difficulties this morning, and thank the senators and our witnesses or joining us from around the country at various offices. We are all following the attending physicians protocol for safe distancing, and those of us who are here are Wearing Masks on her weight in and sitting at least six feet apart while we are here. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement, then we returned to our witnesses for their statements of about five minutes each, if they could please summarize them and oh, there it is. And senators will each have five minute rounds of questions. We have a vote at 11 40, so we we will need to finish this hearing about noon and hopefully all the senators will have by that time a chance to ask the questions. The question for administrators of 6000 colleges and universities is not whether to reopen in august, and how to do it safely. Most are working overtime to get ready for one of the surest signs that American Life is regaining its rhythm. 20 Million Students going back to college. Our Witnesses Today are here to tell us their strategies for reopening safely. Mitch daniels, president of purdue in indiana, Christina Paxson, president of Brown University providence, rhode island. Logan hampton, president of lane college in jackson, tennessee, Julius Benjamin Georges Benjamin in washington. Purdue, the universe of south carolina, rice, creighton, the universe of notre dame and others will finish there in person classes before thanksgiving to avoid further spread of covid19 during flu season. Vanderbilt university will require masks in the classroom to make social distancing easier colleges are rescheduling classrooms that are usually empty in the early mornings, the evenings, on weekends and summer, concerts and parties are out. Grab and go meals, flu shots and temperature checks will be in. Campuses will offer more online courses. Weasel out on on a phone call with about 90 chief executives of tennessees 127 Higher Education institutions. They are planning to resume in person classes almost all of them this fall but they want the governments to create Liability Protection against being sued if a student becomes sick. Bucking the trend, California State University system has announced it will offer most of its courses online. All roads back to college lead through testing. The availability of widespread testing will allow colleges to track and isolate students who have the virus, but been exposed to it so the rest of the student body doesnt have to be quarantined. Campuses are exploring using mobile phone apps for tracking and creating isolation dormitories to isolate students who have the virus or who have been exposed as university of Tennessee Knoxville is doing. Widespread testing that only helps contain the disease. Helps build confidence that the campus is safe. Fortunately, u. S. Assistant secretary brent told our hearing that it would be 4050 million test available or month by september. Thats 45 times the number of test available today and more than any other country. Dr. Francis collins who leads the human genome product valles a competitive socalled shark tank and enterprise definition institutes of health to discover new ways to conduct since the midst of additional accurate test with quick results. Should everyone on campus be tested . On a webinar for us its the fire education on friday, may may 29, senators centers for Disease Control officials said theyre not recommending that at this time to test every student but they encourage campuses to work with the state and local health officials. However, that doesnt take into account testing for peace of mind. Some schools may want to test everyone before they come back to campus. At least school should want to think about randomly testing to detect symptomatic cases, have the ability to test everyone in certain categories, healthcare, food service, cleaning workers, older faculty, student with medical conditions, students were arriving with virus hotspots, all students in the class or a dorm or there is an outbreak or a a person infecte. Administrators asked me where will i find attached . The answer is, consult your local Health Department and your government. And your governor. Each state submit a monthly plan to the federal government outlining testing supplies in needs. Admiral chairman schiff helps fill in the gaps. My recommendation is you want your schools testing plan to be in your statement admiral giroir. Can contract directly with laboratories to conduct tests, review the fda list of authorized tests ask for help from a local university or hospital that is create its own test. Covid19 plans should last for at least the full school year. The government pursuing vaccine at warp speed but no one expects them in august. In the second semester there should be more tests, more treatments, better Contact Tracing and vaccines. But amidst the flu season and the return of covid19, it will be the fall of 2021 before begin to approach normal. Students returning in the fall and their families want and need to have peace of mind that they and their loved ones are heading back to a safe environment. Testing is the key to providing that. There are several Reasons College have an advanced and provide a safe and private for and faculty peer one, younger people have been hurt less by covid19. For example, in tennessee Nursing Homes account for 5 of the cases but 36 of the deaths, compare that with tennesseans under the age of 30, 30 of the cases, less than 1 of the deaths. Still there is much we are learning about the virus and dre cavalier about assuming that young people are not at risk. Second, colleges are notorious wasters of space. Former George Washington University President Steve Trachtenberg once estimated a typical uses its facilities for academic purposes of little more than half the calendar year. He said he could generate he said that continues to generate Maintenance Energy and debt Service Expands contribute to the high cost of running a college. He said he thought he could run two colleges in the space that he has one college is organized sufficiently why he was never able to do it that way. Keeping students succeed apart will be easier if colleges embrace a new efficiency and use more of the classrooms and spaces throughout the day and throughout the year, maybe thats a lesson that will last beyond the covid19 crisis. Third, tracking and tracing will be easier to do at college. We know what class students attend, colleges take it a step further, assigned seats. Fourth, a college can presumably require students to wear masks. Perhaps campuses can make masks wearing a part of the campus culture. The collagen college environmea couple of challenges as well. 19 and 20yearolds especially dont always choose to do the healthiest thing. A National Survey on drug use and health on the third of College Students admitted to binge drinking in the last month, for example. Second, 86 of undergraduate students are not living on campus. According to the National Center for education statistics. That means many students will leave and return potential exposing themselves and others virus making social distancing and cdc recommended Health Status all the more important. What should the federal government to role be in helping colleges and universities open safely . Providing advice from cdc, finding the innovation such as the shark tank i mentioned for tests, encouraging universities to work with states to get included in the testing plans, helping supplies, provide supplies that states dont have, finding such as the 14 billion in the cares act to address lost revenues, and the federal government could provide some Liability Protection. Beyond that decision in my view ought to be left to individual campuses. From the small technical universities to harvard, from mit to the four year Marine College and kentucky which is tuition free, they are best able to make their own decisions. When i became University President in 1998, 1988, i asked the president of the universe of california david Gardnerwebb University of california was so good. And he said first, autonomy, and second, the government money follows the students to the college of their choice. United states is home to 6000 colleges and universities, arguably the best system in the world. Its gotten that way because the Institution Campuses have had maximum autonomy and minimum direction from washington on everything from curriculum, tuition, admissions policies, healthcare plans for students, compensation for faculty, they campuses themselves determine student behavior and conduct, housing safety, and a host of other issues. I would suggest we follow the same tradition here. President trump and congress should not be telling the California State University system that it has to open in person in the fall, nor should it be telling notre dame and purdue that it cannot open in person in the fall. And it should be telling Brown University that they cant test everyone if brown wants to and tell indiana that it has to, or purdue that it has to even though they dont want to. We know a single lost year of college can lead to a student not graduating and setback career goals. Already distraction University Research projects has erased much of the funny that congress has given our research universities. Many american colleges will be permanently damaged or even closed if they remain as as a witness today Christina Paxson of brown says, ghost towns. Twothirds of College Students want to return to campus, according to the axios survey. Mitch daniels, another witness today, says that purdue tuition deposits by Incoming Freshman broke last years record. Colleges and universities are microstate is. College president s and administrators to make them among the safest small communities in our country. Safest communities in which to live and work during this next year. In doing so they will help our country take a step toward normalcy. Senator murray. [inaudible] so hard to make it possible for this hearing to be safe and socially distant. Before we begin i just want to say that the people around the country especially young people protesting for longoverdue change come with remember the Opportunity Institution of Higher Education have to help address disparities and systemic racism, and the responsibility to do so. That means as look at the dramatic impact covid19 is having on institutions of Higher Education and talk about ways to keep students and faculty and staff safe. We absolutely have to address the unique impact this virus has on black communities and of the communities of color. Weve already seen that communities of color, tribes and other vulnerable populations face some of the harshest impacts from this pandemic. It is our job to ensure students who have been and will continue to be disproportionately impacted by covid19 dont see their education suffer or fall behind. So with that in mind today we must recognize and address the disproportionate impact crisis is having on those who are already facing challenges, students of color, firstgeneration College Students, students expensing homelessness and student parents, and we must let Public Health and science drive decisionmaking. The Coronavirus Crisis is deeply affected every single aspect of our Higher Education system, and it will have profound impact on students and colleges for many years to come. The covid19 pandemic has forced institutions of Higher Education to grapple with unprecedented challenges from widespread closures to rapid transitions to Online Education, to unprecedented Student Financial need and unemployment and sharp revenue losses and budget cuts. Many may not be able to reopen their doors, including many historic and underresourced colleges that serve high populations of students who have low incomes and students of color. Faculty and staff to administrative and support staff, to custodial workers and food service and much more are wondering if theyre even going to have a job to return to in the fall. And for students across this country from graduating High School Seniors to community College Students, to students pursuing advanced degrees and more, this pandemic has completely shattered their notion of a Normal School year. They are forced to navigate this new world. Every single student across this country is experiencing unprecedented disruption, and many students will need Additional Support like advising and tutoring and Mental Health counseling to succeed in a new learning environment. But not every student is experiencing equal disruption. The pandemic has hit certain communities particularly community of color significantly harder than others, and these disparities hold true for Higher Education where the horse certain student populations i bury a heavier burden of the crisis than others. Before the pandemic started students of color, students who are parents, firstgeneration students, lgbtq students, students with disabilities and veterans students were already far more likely to struggle to meet the basic needs like food and housing and healthcare and childcare. But with oncampus resources now widely close, this pandemic has exasperated existing problems for many of the students. Millions of students who rely on dorms and college managed apartment buildings have been forced home. But for many students like students expensing homelessness for former foster youth or students with and International Students are unable to return to their home countries. Going home is not an option. For many students without access to a computer or the internet, or a safe, quiet place to study, Online Learning is not an option. And with many on campus and Community Childcare providers close, the one in five College Students who are parents have even fewer options for child care. As we move towards solving the true the countless challenges facing our colleges and students, we absolutely have to keep in mind and address the unique needs of the students who have been disproportionately impacted by covid19 as colleges begin to reopen safely, physically, or online. We need to make sure colleges do not rush into a decision on how to reopen without thorough consultations with public theres a very real possibility as dr. Fauci told us the other week of a resurgent of coronavirus. That is why colleges and universities need a detailed plan for how to keep the campus human to save them regardless of how the pandemic evolves in the coming months. Our students, faculty, staff and college team need to know that before colleges reopen their doors, they have plans for every potential outcome, have a contributing factor and every scenario. That colleges and universe cannot do this alone. They need indepth actionable and detailed guidance from the federal government on best practices when it comes to how to house students sify, how to minimize class size and keep students socially distant. How to ensure liberia books and other shared equipment are cleaned properly and often. And when it comes to the broader community, how to keep faculty and Staff Members and the larger Committee Safe and at a a minie risk when student travel to and from campus. Those are just a few of the questions that need to be answered before schools can open safely. Doing so requires a complex planning process that we absolutely cannot get wrong. Colleges and universities need the actual support from the sect of Education Betsy Devos who instead of working with Higher Education committee on how to reopen safely is forcing colleges and universities to implement a new harmful ideological title ix during a pandemic that will ensure one thing, that students already worried about the pandemic are not going to be more unsafe next school year when it comes to Sexual Assault and harassment. So im glad to have the opportunity to hear from the Witnesses Today, this committee and the American People deserve to hear directly from secretary devos and now she is working with the Higher Education communities as well as secretary of labor Eugene Scalia on how we can safely protect workers from the virus, and sect of health and Human Services alex azar now the administration is responding to this health crisis. Today we need to not only address the immediate need for colleges students but we need to begin to plan with the future f Higher Education will look like in the wake of coronavirus. These truly unprecedented times require bold, responsive leadership. But right now colleges and universities are not getting what they need from the federal government. While and fighting to secure additional funding and address the ongoing needs of colleges and students across the country, i will continue to push this administration to not only implement the law as intended by congress, but to step up and provide leadership and guidance for our faculty, our staff and her students because they desperately needed. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank thank you very much, sr murray. Will now move to the witnesses and into senators questions. Pleased to welcome all format ever witnesses and will introduce all four but let me ask senator braun to introduce our first witness and vinod introduced the other three. Mitch daniels, first on a jew, mitch, was in 2015. As in october nor by asking the question, what will you do to lower cost, remember vividly you said you will look at purchasing across our locations, made sense, you are gonna tackle benefits especially healthcare cost i did that in my own business and await and that is a rowdy affair when you do it, but when you make it sustainable its great for your employees, theres no doubt about that. You said you turned a four year degree into a three year degree. That impressed me, that was entrepreneurial spirit i think we need across the federal government for sure and it addresses High Education costs postsecondary and healthcare cost, the two most uncontrollable sectors in our economy. Its noteworthy that you did that without shifting from fulltime faculty to parttime. You did not increase your percentage of international and outofstate students and you signed a book deal with amazon that lower cost by 30 . Making it now tuition is less phenomenal terms than it was in 2012, also borrowing down 31 , we got the back the Boiler Program which is an income share agreement model and provides a better alternative to the parent plus in private loans, all of this is no surprise, as governor of indiana, you took a chronic deficit situation, 800 million a year, turned a Credit Rating into aaa, every position you held from the time of chief of staff or senator dick to advisor to Ronald Reagan and the director of the owen b for president bush, you demonstrated fiscal conservatism, business acumen. Once again this time as a university leads reopening for institutions of Higher Education following the covid19 emergency. In a recent oped in the Washington Post mitch rightly argues that not only the reopening campus in the fall possible but it is the duty of the university to continue to provide highvalue instruction, training and research for which the university is nationally respected. I look forward to seeing how purdue has approached th unique challenge and how it plans to bring the campus back safely into educating, i am proud the Indiana Institution is leading the way for others across the country, im pleased to have the leader here today to testify virtually in front of our committee where we can discuss these changes in purdue more in depth. Thank you, senator braun i think ill ask you to introduce me some time that was as good as the introduction that ive heard of anybody. Thank you very much. Our second witness is doctor christina, president of Brown University in Providence Rhode island in april brown announced his plan to hold classes in person this fall creating a healthy fall 2020 task force to develop a plan to safely reopen campus. Doctor paxton was appointed president of brought in jul july 2012 and prior that she served as dean of the International Public affair and as a Hughes Rogers professor of economics and Public Affairs at princeton university. She has been active in the field of economic and Public Health serving as the Principal Investigator on several Research Projects by the National Institutes of health in serving on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve bank of boston. The third witness is doctor Logan Hampton president of Wayne College in jackson tennessee. Lane college has announced its considering bringing students back to campus in the fall and he was appointed president in june 2014. Prior to that he served as vice for Student Affairs at the university of arkansas in little rock. One of the distinctions as it was a place where alexs father taught raised four distinguished children, welcome doctor hampton. Id like to turn to senator murray to introduce our next witness. Thank you very much im glad we have the opportunity who is an expert on what we need to be doing in terms of making sure that our colleges and universities and Public Health system is working correctly when it comes to having a safe place to return to this fall. Thank you, senator murray trade with thicker witnesses for joining us virtually, we will ask them to summarize their statements in about five minutes which will leave more time for questions by the senators and will begin with president daniels. Welcome president daniels. Thank you, mr. Chairman and the committee for the invitation and the good advice i know we will receive during the next couple of hours. Purdue teaches everything at the university and were one of the most eccentric schools and proceed from science to data women can we certainly did in this case and i will say if we had to make the reopening decision in march or early april, we would have not been able to justify but it was only as the data made plain and how highly focused how this terrible viruses that we began to come to a different conclusion. As we all know nationally deaths and Nursing Homes alone represent 40 of the patel these interstate, nursing 48 and is suggest maybe well over half meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum the typical college age individual, we now know has a 99. 9 survival rate much fiber than any other illnesses that do affect people old and young. The data suggest it is not even in the top ten risks facing her students outranked by the illnesses as well and accidents of different kind and stressed to say suicide. Meanwhile they are telling us they want to be on campus, they dont want their education interrupted, we believe the other schools have to deliver content online but that surprises many other experiences that are only available on campus and encounters of some time with faculty and with their peers. So the plan we have assembled is based on two basic strategies, one is the protection of the vulnerable to minimize the risk that we now know are serious potential danger from this virus in the other and to maximize choice, we will stay that students in the faculty with all the cautions we are putting in place if youre still uncomfortable, please dont come, we have an online option as a student. We have hybrid options available as a professor. A week from today the board of trustees will examine and help improve a three and set of actions that are taken together and constitute the plan to protect purdue. Just to give you the playbook, the third of all of our staff will continue working remotely indefinitely in the occupancy of classrooms 50 , there will be a 10foot minimum between any faculty member in any student and they will wear masks and out faculty member will be behind plexiglass. I learned that the plexiglass proceed 1 mile. It will not occur indefinitely, a grab and go as the chairman said will become, the Residence Halls many doubles will not become singles, we will rearrange the others so were looking at 13 14 to 15 feet distance room as they sleep. Social distance will be achieved everywhere we can, no complications, concerts, large gatherings, no parties and weve spent the millions on hvac and disinfection improvements and of course testing. We will have comprehensive screening on arrival and extensive testing from the first day in the testing of those who have been in proximity and people testing positive and a lot of random testing during the semester. We have over 500 beds already set aside to the quarantine of positive testers and we expect to have many more in all of this will cost before were done tens of millions of dollars but we will try to leave nothing to chance. I want to finish by saying we all recognize the single most important change that we must make in behavior and culture, we brady began saying to her students if youre uneasy about any of this, please do not come, we have other option for you. If youre going to come please be prepared to pitch in. The Committee Meets person in our community to all the changes that i have mentioned and to have the best answers, we made our intentions known early and because we meet every day, we think the implement effectively a program that comprehensive and are encouraged to see almost all schools coming to a similar conclusion and learning from them and from this Mornings Committee meeting. Thank you. Thank you president daniels and thanks to you and other witnesses for interrupting demanding more from schedules to be a part of our hearing. Doctor paxton, welcome. Good morning chairman alexander, and members of the health committee, thank you so much for inviting me too testi testify. Before i begin i want to acknowledge the pain that our country is experiencing over systemic issues of racial injustice. In times like these are college and universities play a Critical Role in helping communities that dont understand with the culture action. Thank you. Chairman alexander you might appreciate the fact that my grandfather was a longtime faculty member in your university the university of tennessee where he directed the search station. I grew appearing about the challenges that University Experience during the great depression. In towards the Great Recession which i experienced was another time of great stress for colleges and universities. I say whether youre a public or private institution large or small, rich or poor, we have never seen anything like this. Last spring when the Coronavirus Spread and the United States colleges and universities had no choice but to shut our campuses, testing was scarce, there was no way to know if the virus was spreading to dormitories and classrooms. So now its reopening in developing plans to bring them back to campus. I want to underscore that it will not open in less we can do safely in compliance with cdc and state guidelines, we will not compromise on safety. Im cautiously optimistic that we can open if we continue to cordon closely with the state of rhode island and develop a sciencebased Public Health plan for campus. This plan must include all the things that we heard about, their familiar of preventing this, testing and more testing, tracing, isolation quarantine, social distancing, masks and hygiene majors. Were changing how we use lecture spaces and adjusting arrangements and developing plans for remote teaching among a multitude of other staff. This work is complex and allconsuming and very expensive, but if this is what it takes to make it possible, it is worth it, theres so much at stake. First our students are eager to come back to campus. Many say that they may delay getting their degree that they cannot return and that would be bad for them and bad for the country. Second a lot of federally funded the languishing on the bench and the research has been the last of covid19 work throughout the spread but important work on things like alzheimers disease, cancer and new Energy Technology is simply is not getting done. Third the pandemic has created in enormous financial pressures of colleges and universities. This will get worse if students cannot safely return in the fall. Brown is fortunate, we can weather this but colleges and universities dont have the resources to do so and if they cannot reopen they will have no choice but to lay off more of their employees and possibly close forever. Colleges and universities as you know have traditionally been the most stable employers and consumers in the region and education and Research Drive upward mobility reduced disparity to support standards of living. So i want to thank you for the support that youve already provided for colleges and universities, Going Forward the Higher Education sector cannot reopen without your continued support so we need help eliminate Public Health plans for the safety and her students and employees in addressing the enrollment. Another major need is Financial Aid. Institutions will send tens of billions of dollars on aid for students whose parents have lost their jobs and they may be unable to return to School Without Emergency Assistance even of colleges open. We cannot risk losing a generation of students. Finally universities, medical schools, Teaching Hospitals estimated 26 billion in Emergency Support for research thats been adversely affected by the pandemic. This includes funding for grand contract, facilities of work come up in student scholarships. This is a time when partnerships between Higher Education and federal government and State Government are more important than ever in the sake of their research and innovation in the competitiveness and the most importantly the sake of her students. Thank you for the opportunity to opoffer testimony and i look forward to questions. Thank you, doctor paxton and why do your grandfather was at the university of tennessee my daughter graduated from brown. Our next witness is doctor Logan Hampton, chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today and my name is logan i serve in jackson tennessee, lane colleges that historically college founded in 1882 by the former slave of the methodist church. Lane is an hbc you which consists of 36 buildings across 55 acres. Truly creating an exceptional academic and living environment. I was asked to testify before the committee about lanes plans to reopen the campus in the fall. Laying college began the moment to moment response to the novel corundum virus disease known as covid19 on march 7, 2020. Initially i created and met with the Leadership Team consisting of 21 members of my direct reports academic cabinet and the Marketing Team to consider three options for the remainder of the semester. Option one vigilance, continued facetoface instruction with residential students while local and state federal orders and practicing cdc and the state department of health, Madison County Health Department recommendation. The second option, remote, move all instruction online indirect nonessential employees to work remotely. Third option, the nuclear option, in the semester on friday march 13, 2020, laying college during leadership decided to move to remote instruction and soda delivery. These are the 819 residential students and counsel is accredited, 713 for a total of 584,305. Which is slightly less than 10 of the institution. 76 resided on count, unfortunately due to the pandemic laying college laid off 21 employees and continued the previously spending freeze. Nevertheless laying College Students will not expand the increase in tuition or room and board for the upcoming academic year. As a result of consultation given by you, laying college was able to quickly establish a Crisis Management team with a Strategy Team to lead it. This team is charged with offering overall leadership by the Crisis Management center and coordinating the weekly laying college see 19 team meeting, that is comprised of members of the laying college joint Leadership Team in the Pandemic Health team, the strategy sent to implement a detailed timeline for reopening that is articulated in my written testimony. Due to the development of covid19 the Strategy Team at college to prepare for three scenarios, laying College Faster and facetoface instruction, lanes college all online courses. A hybrid of online and facetoface. I would be remiss if i did not think congress in this committee for passing hr 748 the cares act. Also think the president for signing this bill into law, the college of the cares act, laying college has access to a total of 5,000,270. 608 indirect allocation. While im thankful for this, id be remiss if i did not share with you that laying college with the revenue losses that were impacting our ability to operate. And our students arent during tough Economic Times that present unique challenges especially for students of color. To have a number of important request to congress and my written testimony but my top two would be to ask congress to provide an additional 1 billion in funding for hp, primal colleges and universities and minority serving institutions, i would also ask congress increased title iv of the Higher Education act of 1965 by doubling the maximum grant wars. The majority of my students are black american. And black american are disproportionately impacted by covid19 and racism that continues to impact our nation. If the majority of my students by disproportionately impacted, they are not institutions is disproportionately impacted and needs the investment. More information of the details regarding my remarks, i asked that you read my written testimony submitted for your review. Thank you. Thank you, doctor hampton for being with us today in our final witness is doctor george benjamin, welcome. Thank you chairman alexander and Ranking Member murray and Ranking Members of the committee. Let me thank you for having me be here today. Decisions are based on risk and all these decisions to be datadriven in close consultation to stay in the Public Health authority. All the Current Evidence shows that we will continue to have Community Spread of covid19 and continue to do so for many months to come. Once youre there for purposes there will be people on campus with covid19 infection regardless of what the cost is taking. Let me just briefly talk about the issues that i think we should emphasize. The first one is maintaining alignment with policies and the standard of the surrounding Community Without utilizing Public Health protections at a weaker of those in place in the community in which the schools onset. The second one according to the recognizing the commuter schools with the student body coming from a narrow place of the community and a different risk profile than residential schools that attract those nationwide and often from around the world. Number three, the guidelines matter, the cdc guidelines are there and i think people should use them, certainly focusing on issues around physical distancing, hygiene and fundamentally means math, hand hygiene and routine cleaning and sanitation of facilities are important and what to think of these as protections that Work Together to reduce the risk of infection, i believe there should be enforceable regulations to protect all oncampus and recommend the congress require osha to pose for i Infectious Disease to protect her workers from covid19 and as a state of california, they saw transmission of disease standard to serve as a model for congress. Number four, to achieve adequate Disease Control and all institutions you need to have a very robust Campus Health program linked to the state and local Health Agency to enhance rapid availability to support the practices. Again as youre working on the premises there will be a case oncampus and we should assume that while most students are less likely to have severe disease when infected the risk for serious disease is not 0. So the testing for covid19 and Contact Tracing for the center and Disease Control and a test the strategy and plan with the authorities as needed. And they clearly defined testing in terms of who should be tested the role of strategies as well as testing employees who are high risk even because of underlying disease or because of not only oncampus but also the offcampus occupation and one thing we saw with Nursing Homes was the offcampus issue and other places were nursing home workers worked and put them in their patients at risk. Obviously Everyone Needs to be adequately on staff and have enough personal protective equipment to ensure protection and obviously the interest of time i wont go into all the physical distancing thing, you probably have a lot of those already and let me endorse and say youre all in the right track on the things that youre going to need to do. Also let me reemphasize the issue of a disproportionate risk for minorities in the community, we know very clearly that africanamericans in particular are disproportionately at risk because they have more chronic disease and if they get infected theyre much more likely to get severe disease and while our young people generally are healthy in school, many of the diseases incurred in our young people much younger than those of us who are baby boomers today. I also want to remind everyone the schools will start before the influenza season in the schools need to be prepared to address influential illness which is how covid19 presents, theres a lot of really Unanswered Questions of temperature taking an Antibody Testing and understanding the state of what we know about the Antibody Test today and clearly robust communication are very important and every one of these colleges already have the experience with the sick kid in school and understand enormous work involved with a single meningitis campus. This would probably be worse than covid19. I just want to point out scenario planning, i encourage all the schools to do very active scenario planning and in my testimony you have the nine that i thought up in the middle of the night but let me point out about four of those, one is student diagnostic covid19 who lived on or off campus, on or off in Campus Housing, the student faculty and staff member can identify Contact Tracing that is asymptomatic. In exposure student, you may not have a lot on your own campus, obviously College Campuses and the students go elsewhere and obviously tragically student death for any cause oncampus may be perceived as probate and obviously manage that from our perspective are the university for Risk Management that will be very important, there is a lot and i wont waste your time and go through all of them but let me close out that none of this happens without a robust well resourced and train Public Health system in the country and i encourage congress to support the Public Health system and let me give you the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you, doctor benjamin and thinking to the witnesses. Now we will begin around a five minute questions from senators and i would assess senators and witnesses to keep your answers within five minutes because all the senators would like to participate and we have a vote a little bit before noon. President daniel let me start with you, let me ask, to advice you want from washington in order to go back to School Safely, for example, do you think washington, d. C. , the president or the congress ought to tell you that you cannot open in person or should tell the university of california system that has to open in person . I guess it would be within their legal rights but i hope not, as every student is different we try to remind ourselves of that in every school in the country is unique in some way, i thought your emanation at the beginning was on target and i know others will find better answers and we had so we can copy them. Doctor paxton you wrote that you want to test every student in cdc is not recommended that yet, the University Said thats not practical. How much advice do you want on the president or congress about how many students you should test and how you should do the testing. I think the cdc guidelines talking to my people and the members of my medical school as well as parents and students and faculty. They want testing, they want everybody to be tested and they want to do surveillance testing on a regular basis. Its a piece of mind but also being able to monitor this. I think it is essential. Let me ask president daniel and the other president s, one of the opportunities we have in this crisis is to learn from it, we compressed ten years of experience into three months in terms of two things, one is telelearning, what to be learned from that in the two is the use of space. As i mentioned in my comments the are the most notorious wasters of space in america i would think classes are not usually taught in the morning or in the evening or on saturday, is it possible the result of the requirement of social distancing that a Year Experience of teaching classes at different times and the more efficient use of space would have some sort of Lasting Impact. What about the Lasting Impact of telelearning. Let me start with president daniel. Yes of course there will be lasting effects. They will be highly beneficial. I hope weve been using it better, theres nothing unusual about saturday or evening classes here. But clearly we can do better and we will now, yes, when you reduce occupancy in the classrooms to 50 or less by definition you have to use time and space in ways they were before and i may mention that we now learn so much about telework that at least a third of our employees, our staff will now be asked and enabled to work from home on a rotating basis, that takes them out of harms way and free up a lot of space and maybe we can find creative uses for. Doctor paxton. Yes were all learning a lot and i appreciate your question in just a couple of things were learning to president daniel, the remote learning, students learn and there were many valuable lessons, i think as a teacher we may do more foot classrooms where large lectures are not done in person. Thats a great thing. Another related area thats very important in the use of telemedicine and we discovered Psychological Services when students are in states that we can work with and bureaucracy around that, it is actually an incredibly efficient and valuable way to support our students. Doctor hampton have you learned anything in these three months about the use of space that might be a lasting lesson outline college we learned that our faculty in our institution that was committed to residential instruction and in the spring and that was absolutely fundamental. I want to go back and say to your question, yes in fact laying college will be open in the fall but what we need is the one billiondollar, the Greater Community has, we need a partnership with the federal government to help us to ensure that we have the standards and facilities in place to protect our students to educate them safely and to deliver our mission. Thank you, doctor hansen. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, and for going to safely reopen, Public Health has to drive decisionmaking and according to her Health Experts that includes making students and staff have access to testing and the ability to safely quarantine if there close to the virus and support isolation and access. Students and staff need to participate in their classes and also following Public Health advice to social distance, facemasks and keep themselves and their families healthy but Public Health experts agree, we are not anywhere close right now to needing adequate level the other thing is i dont know about thursdays is everybody else hearing that . He may be tied up thursday. We have a technical difficulty. If our country remains at current levels we will be able to keep employees and community safe. Thats a key to success, we have about 400,000 test per day in every state is a little different, i want to get a chart today of states that are not there yet. It will be a real challenge if we change it to the bare minimum 500,000 per day and you may know that several groups like Rockefeller Foundation believe that we should go 2 3 times. I heard that covid19 is a great equalizer, we know in terms of virus of health and impact in communities of color being at much greater risk of getting sick and dying and falling behind economically of the pandemic itself. College is determining how to reopen have to consider those inequities in selecting the best course of action for the students and the staff, i want to ask each of our president s maybe daniel, paxton, how specifically are you leaning to address the Alarming Health disparity in our communities of color when you think about reopening. Also with president daniels. One thing im worried about his efforts we made as far as i know every college and university has made to successfully recruit and just as important seethrough the successful graduation of lowincome firstgeneration minority students. Weve been making every effort that we know how for some time and i worry these are about to be set back in a tragic factor that you mentioned, im tentatively encouraged that our deposits came in and the percentage seems to have held up, i was really worried that it might be put back but maybe not, i do worry that our progress will be arrested and that we will certainly pay special attention again to identifying those who might be vulnerable, mainly faculty and death but as doctor benjamin pointed out there are young people who have the comorbidities that will put them very much in our site for special attention and im sure youre probably right that minorities may well be disproportionately represented in that group. They are. Thank you for the question and the Health Disparities and economic disparities, when i look at it issues of inequity are one of the major reasons why we should open colleges and universities are places that create level playing eel for students and we can ensure all students have equal access to education, the quality will be the same and they will be the same for students regardless. Its one major reason why i went to get students back. No doubt about racism and health disproportionally impact our institution at laying college to overcome these barriers, we need help is the federal government, yes we need your guidelines but we need your investment. Our students need more money to attend colleges and universities in doubling that would help to familiarize some of the challenges that their families are having at this very moment as theyre losing their jobs and being laid off as a result of covid19 and the other impact of racism. Those students are students, my students need an additional investment, the pell grant is going along way to help them to afford. Thank you for bringing that up, in addition, there is a disparity of resources among college as well as we need to address that. Thank you very much. Your time got interfered with if you have another question go ahead. We will go to senator collins pgh thank you, mr. Chairman, this hearing is incredibly timely because just this morning the universities main other College President issued a document called sustaining Higher Education and sustaining, i know that they are watching this hearing with great interest. My first question is for president daniels. Colleges and universities are economic engines for their communities and their states. In addition to educating students they employ thousands of people, administrative staff, food service workers, custodians, faculties, advisors, student workers when the campus is closed to an person instruction, this had a great impact on many hourly workers in particular. In the main system employs 4800 employees, my question is this. Should there be different testing protocols for employees that are going back and forth into their communities and back to campus then for students who are living fulltime on campus . And are you looking at that . That is an excellent question senator, thank you, yes we are. It was observed that many schools, we are one, half of our students live off campus and many are very close by, we will be working very closely with their landlords and others to try to make certain following the same practices that we will in the housing that we administer. Ill just say its been very sad to read about so many furloughs, layoff and staff and faculty other schools, we had not done that at purdue intent to not do that if any way possible. But it is a significant issue, our principal responsibility is to our students Enter University communities, but were very conscious that she said we are an economic driver and many other people in the Community Around us do rely so our responsibility to them from a Health Safety standpoint and from an operational and economic standpoint, we tend to never lose sight of. Thank you. Doctor paxton and doctor hampton in maine more than 7400 students are served by the trio program, ive always been a very strong supporter of those programs because we have a great number of firstgeneration College Students in my state. I am very worried that if colleges do not reopen this fa fall, that we are going to increase the number of people who have some college but no degree in the end up with student debt but no credentials and and with expanding programs like trio to make sure that the student supports are there to encourage students to come back to school and to complete their degree or earn their credential that their attending. Thank you in and im fully in support of bringing our campus, not disturb brown but it should be a national priority. I am also concerned without increases in Financial Aid and i agree with the other speakers on this call that it would be a great thing to do, these students if they do not come back and if they defer or delay they may never come back and they may not get their degrees. Another related issue which is even more alarming is it for colleges and universities have to close permanently, they have a lot of students who will be half through their degrees and finding institution to complete their degree may be very different. We need to keep a close eye on the system of education especially during this time. Thank you. Senator i absolutely support the program of laying college in your strong provider of the program in the most recent round of competition laying college by one point. We were one point out of that, that is basically 100 students, that is five or six faculty Staff Members who we lost and have not been able to provide services for. But i absolutely support an expansion of laying college in the east jackson is an economic and laying college is a 36 million engine in this area to have a strong laying college in a western tennessee. I would very much support the trio program in getting aback at the college. Thank you, senator senator casey. Thank you very much for the hearing and i want to thank you and Ranking Member murray for following this hearing in a one thinker College President s for their appearance as well as her testimony and very informative press who have Higher Education institutions that are state to have this hearing and i would just note at the outset that a place for help the Higher Education institutions have brought to capitol hill including some this morning should be mindful all president s should be mindful that right now as we speak at the beginning of june, there is no prospect for legislation right now thats related to covid19 in the month of june, i hope that changes but right now the United States senate is only doing nominations. I hope that you would bring some pressure to bear on the majority to begin to negotiate a new piece of legislation in a range of issues for Higher Education and for students prelet me start with the questions of how students will respond to the change of circumstances on College Campuses. Student compliance with social distancing or enhanced safety protocols or other measures obviously the key to reopening safely. You know that, you said that, youre living that now. There is going to be substantial enforcement challenges as you know, especially when students not only on campus but engaging with her interacting with members of the community for various reasons. In one of the concerns obviously and you all understand this letter asymptomatic and i hope we can get a question into doctor benjamin. Number one what is the protocols that you are using and i know you outline some of those in some of this will be by repetition. And how you enforce those protocols and number three how are you engaging with students right now or have you already engaged to review and to make certain what those protocols will be and the enforcement. Protocols enforcement and then engagement. We can go to president daniels. Thank you, senator the protocols are essentially about distance in masking and about monitoring ones own system, the pledgor talked about in monitoring the symptoms, reporting right away for testing if anything suspected, all of that. I would say in terms of enforcement, yes i really think the most important thing that we can do is foster a culture i am hopeful about this on our campus, we will appeal to students, i see it every day along before kobe came along, in overwhelming numbers young people want to do good things and help others, here is a chance in a huge way, and im brinkley going to tell them there are a lot of people that dont believe you will do this they think youre too selfish and too selfindulgent. Lets show them how much you care about your fellow human beings, young and old, lastly i will say this is a central question and i believe the most important one if we do all the other things that we talk about and dont have reasonable compliance we probably dont make and vice versa. Very interesting study out of hong kong showed simply reaching 80 compliance with masking stops the spread of infection and lowers the number below one and is very central, i am hopeful that we will do everything all summer long to try to foster it. Thank you, doctor hampton. We have some practice when we went to remote instruction we had about 200 students have remained on campus and we began to practice the cdc guidelines and we had a group of students who decided to have a party. They took pictures and posted it. So i have every confidence in our student body and after that our student body practice the 200 students and the cafeteria and back to the room and social distancing and they operate where you see a group of students you will be around together. Thank you so much predoctor paxton. I think its very important that students have tomorrow are one Crystal Clear not ambiguous not complicated but College Rules there is an expectation that a violation of the protocols is a violation of our student conduct in their enforceable and ideally if you dont do this or enforcement leayearoveryear now and protecting their fellow students and their faculty members people who they respect and love, if we can get that message through ongoing confident we will do well. Sorry senator casey, senator murkowski. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for being here today, thank you for your leadership in your respective in the leadership that you are showing as your guiding your students and your faculty through very challenging and uncharted. We worked hard within the cares act to try to ensure that we were able to get direct relief out quickly, quickly to small businesses, quickly to our schools, quickly to the individuals direct assistance, as i look back there cares it seems that one group that kinda got missed were students. Those who are over 16 and were not dependent on their parents and were not able to receive direct assistance, cares were not be able to see on their behalf in many times not eligible for unemployment and when i think about the impact to the students at the time and literally alaska specific case spring break is underway and they get the wording dont come back after spring break and the university of alaska situation what they were able to do was provide Financial Assistance for many students from everything from ensuring that they have transportation back to their home, shipping their belongings back or Emergency Funds. I know tuition cost in many institutions have been refunded but to what extent have weve been able to make her students whole in terms of the cost that they incurred. As we know most students do not have a lot of disposable income out there where theyve got money in savings that they can pick this up. Were you able to fully reimbursed your student for their cost for unexpected travel in the housing and to what extent were you able to provide that relief to your students and will just start with the president daniels and got on the line. I cant say it was fully, im sure it wasnt as probably it wasnt around the context around the country but i hope it was adequate when we did the refund a very substantial and housing costs and so forth and we had an Emergency Fund which we augmented and came to the specific relief of students who made application and were having exactly the troubles that you are having, and very attentive watching for this fall and we increased our Financial Aid to the extent that we could and were in a lot more than a few weeks about whether students, preexisting and incoming aspiring freshman have been by the Financial Agency by doing what they are eager to do. President paxton. Thank you. Like other schools, we will pull all the stops trying to support her students that they transition home wifi, books, et cetera et cetera. And i think that was fairly successful it is growing in unemployment has increased, student families are losing their jobs, student summer jobs have been theyve evaporated, theres nothing for students to do this summer. Why were doing all we can to find alternative thing in for pay over the summer, it is very, very hard to meet that need. We have waived the expectation that students will save money over the summer that meet their tuition in the coming year. But were getting repressed from help, thats where we are. Doctor hansen. Yes the student portion of the cares act and distribute that directly to the students and we were able to do that on april 30, 78 communicated to us that they needed assistance for food and 73 indicated they needed assistance with housing so we prorated the amount for food and housing and we also added in support for transportation and we distributed those funds directly to the students. Now we are using the funds to help students to return to college and support the educational need for any number of things for food, housing or digital supplies to Digital Resource or hotspot, we are doing this on a casebycase basis. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We have seven senators remaining in everybody is doing a good job was staying and within five minutes which i thank you for. Senator baldwin. Thank you, mr. Chairman ive been wanting to ask a couple of questions, first to doctor benjamin, doctor benjamin you stated in your testimony that every school, all school should be prepared to have at least one case of covid19 on campus, last week i learned from the university of wisconsin madison that they had run out of the agent needed to run one of its testing platforms. And despite continuous calls for support from the administration, the administration essentially said that private labs need to rely on a supply chain were things like lee agent. Can you describe why schools need to have all of the supplies on hand not just the testing platform in order to respond to the very high likelihood of new cases . The challenge that you have, you will have a case and youre going to have to test someone, if you dont have the capacity within your own Campus Health program, you will have to have a linkage between someone also does. And the biggest challenge you have in the fundamental has been the supply line issue. It is going to require partnerships and require on a daily basis making sure that you have adequate Testing Capacity and as you know the test is not available and then all the closing they occur after that which our problems and just the inability to test, they will have to have adequate testing, otherwise we cannot function at all. Thank you. I have a second question for you, i know in some of the testimony by both senators and our witness panel, they were referencing the fact that most of the Severe Health outcomes from the coronavirus among older people. According to the American Federation of teachers 40 of adjunct or contingent faculty, who comprises 75 of total instructional staff, our over the age of 60 and im also thinking a lot about our technical and vocational colleges that will probably, during a time of excessively high unemployment, see a new age demographic beyond what they already have seen as a result of the Great Recession. And so, im very concerned about not only the safety and health of undergraduate students but also faculty and staff that work on campuses. I am confident colleges and universities want to do the right thing but they made it very clear rules of the road and workers need to note that they are protected. It is why i worked with several of my colleagues to introduce the every Worker Protection act which requires the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue emergency temporary hundreds that cover all workers and workplaces and requires workplaces to implement Infectious Disease exposure control plans to keep their workers safe. You say that in your testimony that ocean needs to promulgate such a standard. Do you agree that it is important for the safety of faculty and staff, as well as students, such a standard, not a voluntary guidance but a standard be in place before colleges and universities move to reopen this fall . Ive been running big organizations on and off for a long time and unless you have standards that everyone can rely on you will not get anywhere. The standards are absolutely important. They create, frankly, a floor that everyone can rely on, it doesnt mean you can do more than that but ive always argued those standards are absolutely essential. They reduce a whole range of risk and so i would also [inaudible] thank you. Thank you very much, senator baldwin. Senator cassidy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the university for thinking creatively about reopening the schools. Doctor benjamin quickly points out that even though you have less than 25 you have less risk but we do know that if you miss out on critical years of education is an absolute, 100 risk, your future economic prospects are minimized. [inaudible] cdc recommendations seem to be the minimum standard that are not doctor benjamin, knowing that the federal government has been slow coming out with testing strategies for setting like universities and that what they do will be what they different at purdue and lane and brown because louisiana at universities or tulane because of different sizes of schools is your organization promulgating or suggesting different strategies so that someone like president hampton, god bless him, is able to get his university reopened with a strategy about how to use the test . We are not specifically developing standards. We are encouraging schools to collaborate so they can learn i will pause you because i have minimal time. Its important to have a strategy and importance for the federal government and for others it appears that you have put together a strategy and i want to explore that because i thank you would inform others. We understand that if you have an outbreak in a particular dormitory and it is not other dormitories, [inaudible] is at the beginning of your approach or how would you say that . S, the optimal testing strategy is one we are working on given that epidemiologist and it will be data and formed and change over time. It depends on prevalence and certainly one of the components would be if there was a student who tested positive, there dormitory, their classmates would be people who do standard would be people who would be tested next and [inaudible] one thing we have been interested in is because there might be a limitation on the number of tests available is the ability to fact check and do 100 in a dorm but if they test positive you can do individuals. Is that part of your strategy . We are for that and it is something that is relatively new, very much in development and that testing looks promising as does wastewater testing where you can test stuff coming out of the dorms and figure out if anyone in the dorm hasnt. We are in those options. Were delicate when you say stuff coming out of the dorm. [laughter] president hampton, as you put together your strategies god bless you. You are much more constrained in terms of resources. Where are you developing your area of testing strategy from and what could be done to help you and those similarly situated in louisiana for example to implement such a strategy knowing that your student body they have an increase incidents of those orbit conditions which increased risk . I began with make the investment in our institutions. I make that 1 billion investment with tribal colleges and [inaudible] make that investment. We had a little bit of practice this past spring. We implemented protocols dealing with [inaudible] and being represented in our Health Services for flu and other screened we had one incident on our calendar in the spring with students who remain on campus and they came into contact with the person we were able to ill isolate that person into an apartment complex with a lot going through those 14 days and then have that person to not show symptoms. Let me ask you because im almost out of time with the strategy that the president has put together where you wastewater or at a community because theyve shown to be positive or at least one person within them. If you have a similar set of protocols it would benefit you to be promulgated by some organizations with the cdc or other Public Health organization . [crowd boos] it would in fact benefit us to have those promulgated but we do in fact [inaudible] Health Department, Crisis Community department to do testing for our who believe that they may get tested and get the results back in 24 hours. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, doctor cassidy. Senator murphy. Thank you all. This has been an incredible hovel for all of us. Mr. Chairman, i want College Sports to come back. I want sports in general to come back. I miss it. For me its a release from this job and i cant wait. At the same time i want to come back for the right reasons and i want to get it to come back. I want to ask a series of questions on this topic because i think it is important. Maybe i will start with you, mr. Daniels. I think it is interesting that College Sports teams are coming back for practices before professionals sports leagues are feeling that it is safe enough to come back. While i have read through what youre university is doing to try to protect students that are returning these are Contact Sports and there is no way ultimately to have social distancing for a Football Team or soccer team. What happens if you have an outbreak over the course of summer training or in the early fall . Or on your Football Team or under womens soccer team . What is your protocol . Do you shut that team down . Do they stop playing the season . Do you segment off the players who tested positive . This is a potential for super spreading environment if you are not careful. I completely agree with you. I thank you would shut it down. I think that somewhere out there someone may very well face this situation and our teams are resuming individual workouts later than some but they are coming back to dad and then group workouts, the conference we belong to has prescribed guidelines and we will follow them and in some cases exceed them but you are quite right. We love sports too but first things first that starts with the safety of people, players, coaches, dont forget that people who may be at most risk of the spread here are the older folks, coaches and others. I hope we get back but if it takes longer or if it subject to interruption then so be it. Let me ask you a specific question. What happens if you have a scholarship player who does not feel comfortable coming back . Lets say theyve got a mother at home or grandfather who has medical convocations and what if they decided to not play football this year because of think its not right for them, do they maintain their scholarship . Yes, they would. Weve honored scholarships at purdue for a long time for people who cannot continue for some reason could be injury or some personal tragedies so that would be consistent with our policy. I think i can speak with authority for our Athletic Department that we would see that as the right thing to do and the think we ought to do. I appreciate that. I will note that that is not right now the standard for all ncaa schools and it would be important for us to make sure it is. Lastly, maybe most importantly, what would you do about attendance at sporting events this fall because that is what i really worry about. You have the iowa Athletic Director of the record, a number of your conference, saying that right now his plan is to let everyone into the football stadium and anyone who wants to come watch can. We had a situation in Westport Connecticut before this was an epidemic where 50 people got together for a birthday party, one person had coronavirus, one of the first in the northeast to have it. At the end of that party half of them had it and the virus was off and running on the east coast. It worries me that we are contemplating putting hundreds of thousands of adults and the students into stadiums, especially when the professional sports leagues dont seem to be entertaining that idea. What is your understanding today . Will be have fans in stadiums for events in your conference this fall . Cant speak for any others but we are not looking at going beyond one fourth of the capacity of our 57000 stadium right now. This has been mapped out just as we mapped out classrooms and dorm rooms to measure distance and exceed the requirements that we would do this. It comes to about one fourth on what we have done and we know outdoors is different and that is very hard to spread this outdoors but we will still take an abundance of caution approa approach. I cannot tell you about Indoor Sports right now but i dont see a way we can proceed on anything like the basis that we have all been familiar with. I appreciate that but it still ten20000 people altogether for an event and i think that maybe a pretty dangerous endeavor and its an interesting compared to professional sports who have decided to make a different decision and its a topic worth considering to talk about. Thank you, senator murphy. Senator warren. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to start by quickly [inaudible] acknowledging what is happening in our country. We can ignore the racist violence that has killed george floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and Breanna Taylor and so many othet ourselves to change this committee as well as others to advance any racist policy and health, and education and for workers, including todays hearing about reopening colleges. Millions of families and students across the country are wondering when and how colleges will safely reopen and i note this is a hard question that will bury [inaudible] but president daniels, you wrote a recent oped entitled, [inaudible] your oped makes it sound like you have an ounce that you will reopen no matter what in this fall but in this oped you discuss how you will mitigate risks for students but i know theres almost no discussion of addressing workers or faculty who are older and more at risk. Nothing about the risks to middleage workers but these workers are responsible for serving food in the dining halls, keeping your campus running. They are particularly vulnerable and they have the least power and they are getting sick at disproportionate rates. President , purdue has 17000 employees and have our staff wont be able to work remotely this fall and [inaudible] or because of their age or preexisting Health Conditions they may not feel safe coming onto a College Campus during a pandemic so have you laid out publicly a plan for these workers . Could you agreed to continue paying them if they cant come to work or if they decide it is too risky to show up for work . Thank you im so glad you asked the question because first of all you could not have better expressed our entire strategy and i dont know if you are here for the opening presentation but i noted it then. Our entire strategy is built around the protection of the vulnerable and that starts with faculty and staff including next week we will have 121 visits with our faculty to try to we have a grid that attempts to estimate their degree of vulnerability and that we will make an accommodation for but you havent put out a plan regardless and you are planning to work it out oneonone with your employees and is that right . Our plan is entirely based on the protection of the vulnerable and that will include trying to make individual accommodations for those about whom they had the most concern. [inaudible conversations] i had just not seen the plan laid out because my question is about who has power and who has voice in these decisions. Best practices are best practices only if everyone is at the table who will be affected. When those plans are being laid out. I want to move on for the time being but i will try to followup in writing to get public commitment that will include faculty and staff at the table and if they will expand how this will intersect with their pay and how you safely reopen this campus. Doctor paxton, i want to stay on the topic of power and accountability and in addition to being president of Brown University you are also the vice chair for the [inaudible] so a signed letter week from the American Council on education which is the very powerful College Lobby first quote, quickly enact temporary covid19 related Liability Protections for Higher Education institutions and systems. Doctor paxton, [inaudible] only when the college has behaved unreasonably under all the circumstances but they do not impose automatic liability when someone gets sick or even when someone dies but instead it is liability only when, for example, in a pandemic a college doesnt take reasonable efforts to clean up common spaces or to separate desperately sick students. So, when colleges lobby to change that standard and to walk away from it, even if they are extraordinarily careless with the lives of their students, even if these colleges take completely unreasonable risks, even if someone dies, what message does it send to our families and our students . Would it make you more comfortable or less comfortable as a parent of an incoming student . Doctor paxton, we are well over time but you take whatever time you need to answer that question. Thank you very much. I do not want protection from being careless. That is not what we are about. If we are careless and if we dont follow guidelines that is something that should not be protected in any way, shape or form for the fact is we are in a brandnew pandemic that weve never seen this before we are in uncharted territory. Many institutions are very nervous that even if they play by the rules scrupulously that they will still be subject to lawsuits that will prevail if they have done the right and the cost is defending those lawsuits would take money away from tuition, Financial Aid, not from tuition but from Financial Aid and all the support we provide for our students. I am in favor of very carefully crafted Liability Protection that is in no way, shape or form commits us to be careless with peoples lives. Thank you, senator warner warren. If i could, i just want to ask unanimous consent to enter same as for the record on this issue from americans for financial reform, the student borrower protection center, public citizens, American Association for justice and georgetown law professor david [inaudible]. The public should know that college like any institution thank you, senator warren. That is what the law requir requires. Senator braun mac and q, mr. Chairman. I will leadin with senator warrens question and i think it is a valid one to ask in the sense that the safety of your employees, staff, universities as well as your customers which would be the students would be important. Underline is that it is not in the extreme interest of the university and of businesses across this country to keep not only your customers safe but your employees as well. It also, to me, by the way, was stated assumes that there will not be the agility and the ability to do both of them and my question will be for president daniels and you can continue your response if you want to but i think rest assur assured, for the people that run the real economy, including teaching our students they have in their own best interest to do all the things this bureaucratic approach has been to where it tamped down economies may be unnecessarily and we are able to do two things at once and i think that argument that you cannot operate safely and keep the disease at bay might have been an underlying Strategic Air and how weve adjusted in the first place. President daniels, as any entre nous or sometimes your plans dont work out the way you might hope they will and i know in building a business over 37 years if things were going great in the moment i said hey, something will come along to maybe derail it and had the data not shown you or if something should change to where you bring students back to school and i think everything you laid out makes it sound like a great plan, lets say if not how does your involvement with Online Education when i thank you call it perdue global would that have been a backup plan that would have come into play for your students that would want to attend on campus and tell me a little bit about that and then more broadly how you think that part of post secondary education might break the cost curve that has been so tough to do with traditional education on campus. Senator perdue, global is a separate branch of our university and serves a different clientele. The typical student there is 33 yearold woman with a job and usually family responsibilities. It is really aimed at that enormous universe of americans who started college and did not finish and helping them get to the finish line and we hope a better station in life. We learned a lot and learned a lot about Online Education and as i mentioned, we will be offering to those students who cant get here this fall or choose not to come with an online option for their undergraduate education. At perdue global we have aimed at working americans and i will say in your question i think surfaces this, with the damage weve done to this economy its been that there must be a greater need for greater market for very affordable purely Online Education of perdue global and many other fine schools. Dig into that more deeply, how long do you think that cost curve it will from the involvement in online undergraduate as well as trying to educate older students . Do you think that is something that will be disruptive enough to where, like healthcare for instance, it costs us a double care in our country roughly what it does in both countries with results that arent any better or do we have that opportunity through disrupting education in a way sense if the next most govern cost increase each year through technology and through Something Different that most of us might not see at this point in time. The staggering cost of Higher Education has been an issue for quite some time now and thank you for noting it. We have not changed our tuition in the last eight years and a pledged to last through the ninth. We are less extensive in nominal terms and then we were in 2012. With that result we been able to track most students and terrific students for whom affordability and accessibility is a real issue. Now in the wake of this terrible pandemic it seems very clear, i think, that there will be a new pressure on schools to find any way possible to make this Vital Service more affordable and i cant imagine it has any other outcome than that read. Keep it up. Leading the way on trying to make something that is along with healthcare for the most families the man is lasting and we wanted. Ironically of course, classic economics were it costs us the most in this country and we need to do much better. Thank you. Thank you, senator braun. Senator kaine. Thank you mr. Tear. Thank you to our witnesses. I have been very critical of the administrations handling of the Public Health side of this crisis but there is no reason the united state should have more than 100,000 deaths and no reason that our economy should have been hammered by this and the way it has, especially if you look at whats happened in other countries. Since i have been critical of a continue to feel like ive got to get give credit where credit is due. Demonstration has done some things that i want to thank them for and some are right in this. Helping us work out implementation, if you will remer after the cares act passed some puppy a that would go to students might be taxable income and the administration worked quickly with us to clarify that was not the case. Some universities trying to get ppp loans were told their student workstudy students would be counted as employees putting them over the 500 limit disqualifying them for ppp loans. The administration worked very quickly to delay that concern prayed ive got to give credit where credit is due because i will tune suit with criticism. I do want to think senator murphy for raising a football question. It is an example of how openings complicated. Folks who play football are amateurs and not getting paid. Folks who play football are disproportionately minority and there have been a number of articles and forms and Sports Illustrated about how football, especially in the conferences, is a big money thing. I hope we do not, because big conference football is a big money thing risk the lives of amateurs who are predominantly minority by going back before we began because the ncaa has figured this out that when they canceled spring sports like baseball they told all the athletes if you want another year of eligibility you can get it and many who lost their last year of basketball or baseball and were heartbroken had figured out ways to go and get a masters degree or stay at a college for an extra year so they could have that extra year of eligibility. We can provide that experience for student athletes if they wanted without jeopardizing their health because football is a moneymaking proposition and i hope we will all consider that. Let me get to the critique. Mr. Tear, you said a couple of times in your Opening Statement and it lays out well. The road to reopening is through testing. The road to reopening is through testing. I deeply believe that and there are other issues obviously but the road to reopening colleges is through testing. The cdc has a document that they have put out and continually updated and it is online right now called considerations for institutions of Higher Education but most recent update was may 30. Its a very competence of document and ive just got it here on my iphone. Go through it, principles to keep in mind and i a t and institution of Higher Education general settings, iag on Campus Housing settings, behaviors that reduce red, sub points under all of these, multiple subpoints under all of these maintain healthy environments and let see, what else do we have here . So many maintaining healthy operations, room layout, water system supplies, subpoints, subpoint, subpoint, you go through this endless document and not a mention of testing. The cdc guideline preparing for when someone gets sick, and this subpoint, there is not a single mention of testing in the document that the cdc currently asked to give to universities. I get it that our universities dont need a mandate, test everybody or test one sixth of students but universities dont have cdcs or nih and they need guidance. If you will give the University Guidance about how to make sure the water system is safe or how to limit the size of activities or what to do when a student at six it seems like he would give them some guidance, some recommendations about testing protocols. Mr. Tear, you laid out and maybe you test everyone who is sick or anybody in vulnerable population and then maybe you would want to do sentinel testing random to determine the spread of anybody and it strikes me that you could give that guidance to universities without a mandate that would be restrictive. My suspicion is this, because this has been more general in the administration they dont want to say or set goals for testing because they dont want to be measured against those goals. They know that if they are measured against those goals we fall short and to the only way you get a goal is my statement. If you dont say it you will not get there and i think our cdc does a great disservice to colleges, small, medium and large if they dont provide some basic guidance about what a testing protocol would be successful would look like. With that, i thank you. Thank you, senator kaine. Senator. Thank you, mr. Tear. I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for having this hearing and i want to thank our witnesses for all that you are doing to help your students and our communities. Between the covid19 crisis and the rightful outrage following the killing of george floyd this is a deeply challenging time for our country. That is true that our institutions of Higher Education as we grapple with how to reopen safely during the Global Pandemic we must also remember what Higher Education and institutions have historically served as places of civil discourse. As our local communities and our country works together to make our systems more equitable and just i look forward to working with all of you. My first question is are three president s, last week i sent a bipartisan letter to secretary devos with senator scott, booker urging the department of education to immediately ensure the students receive the Financial Aid that they are now eligible for due to the Economic Impacts of covid19. Specifically we asked the department to issue guidance of colleges to help ensure students Financial Aid eligibility can be appropriately adjusted and to update the online form to capture recent changes in income for Financial Aid and plugins. To each of the president s and ill start with you, president daniels, could you speak to how your students had been economically impacted by covid19 . I know youve done a little for the syrian but more importantly why further action by the foreman of education is needed to help ensure that students get the Financial Aid that they are eligible for . Senator, i cant say we know yet and we are in the process of finding out now which students who had expressed a desire to come to purdue we will comment i dont doubt that many of them have encountered economics significant economic setbacks since they express that intention. We will know much more over the next few weeks and im hoping that most of that will do it but i applaud the initiative that you led and those who joined you in it. Clearly we did all we can to get it more swiftly and directly and flexibly of which a point i think you drew our attention to. To every young person who needs it. Thank you. President hampton. It is, no question, that our students have been negatively impacted by covid19. When we did our survey of our students that survey went five weeks after majority and also reported that 70 [inaudible] our students need the help now. They need the help in the fall. They [inaudible] those incomes have dropped and those families will have less means to help them come august. Whether we are facetoface our students need the help and the results of covid19 and the basis of sex and racism on their parents and come. Thank you, doctor paxton. After the 2008 recession Financial Aid at brown rose by 2 and the maximum on women rate during that recession was a 10 and we are heading to 20 . We are also hearing from students who were saying i know my fafsa was correct but it is no longer, in any way an accurate portrayal of my familys economic circumstances. We are having to go back and work out those because we are in an extraordinary time. In queue. I want to turn to doctor benjamin if i can and i know doctor benjamin wouldve talked a bit in your answers about what colleges need to do from a Public Health point of view, including robust testing and Contact Tracing as part of their strategy as they reopen. Youve also spoken about even with the best Public Health protocols in place to ensure that students, faculty and staff practice social distancing, recommended handwashing and wear masks it is likely inevitable that there will be spikes in cases on College Campuses. What protocols do you believe should be in place to contain a detected spike in cases on College Campuses and if colleges are forced to close what can be done to ensure that students leaving campus do not spread the virus in their own communities . Absolutely, [inaudible] to get involved in Contact Tracing or in disease containments. In many cases this will involve the community as well and you know they should have plans for that and they should have prewritten guidelines for how they will handle it, how they will manage it, whos the spokesperson for the university and how does that or how do they link protocols with the state and local Health Department so that there is no debate about who is managing the disease outbreak. I would assume in most cases the Contact Tracing activity would be done by the state and local and not the universities but it depends on how the community Health Program is at the university. They may want to be involved in that but if you dont have plans for that it will be at [inaudible] so it doesnt require a fair amount of planning upfront and for all the various scenarios that they can possibly think of would be important for them to do. Thank you, mr. Tear, ive lost sight of the clock on my screen. Thank you, senator. I would say we only have two senators remaining. Senator jones. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate your leadership on having this hearing and Ranking Member murray. Thanks to all her witnesses. Let me first associate [inaudible] as we see the issues out there im also seen rays of hope and folks that are peacefully demonstrating and people that are getting together to raise their voices but doing it together locked arm and arm, blackandwhite, folks of all races, religions and walks of life. I dont think the media often focuses on that as much as they do in the more violent protests but we see it happening all the time so i do think there are rays of hope out there. Doctor hampton, i would like to ask you and i like to follow up a bit with you because you probably know that i have been one of the champions for hbcus and we have 13 in my state and senators alexander have gotten us funding for recently and i joined with a couple colleagues and sending a letter asking for additional 1 billion funding so id like for you to talk a little bit, assuming you can get that, how would that be invested and how would that be used by the hpc use around the country, would it make up shortfalls to help the students infrastructure, how would you use the additional funding that Congress Might give you . Yes sir. We have several strategies we are using those funds for. Number one, we use it to make it our campus more safe for our students as they return to our campus. As i look at the numbers and estimates in terms of where we are, we will need anywhere from 3 million6 million to 13 million to fully be able to convert counties from a residential campus to a hybrid campus that is online and face to face. For our purposes we will use those funds to support the students and make sure campuses are safe and begin to be able to deliver at a high level our own line courses. We will need those funds for a number of different diverse set of additional staff, management, online services, digital devices, Digital Resources, our need are significant. Yes, sir. I appreciate that. Dennis, let me followup, as you could probably guess a Southeastern Conference senator will follow up on some of the sports questions that senator murphy and senator kaine said bird they asked several that i had, one would be what steps would you try to take to minimize the risk to these athletes and the coaches going in, certainly you may have to shut down a program and you can see something but what steps will you take to minimize the risk and seconds of all, the loss of revenue will be significant and loss of revenue for colleges will be significant. What can congress do to help make up for that and what will you plan on making up for the lost revenue that supports, not only the football and basketball programs, but also all the other sports that you have at purdue . Senator, our Athletic Department is putting together a protective plan and a lot of separation initially between athletes and a lot of testing and very regular testing to try to spot any infection of the first possible moment and do all the smart things about that. Again, we believe we could and an outdoor setting have at least a fraction of the fans that you would have to enter in different ways and obviously be spaced in different ways but we do think that that part is possible and consistent with safe practices but we are all in very new waters here and we wellmaintained the directions as we all learn more but im not sure that a federal treasury that is already done what he says don, what is borrowed, wants to make up athletic shortfalls that we at purdue are proud to say weve already operated a selfsufficient Athletic Program which has weve never had imposed a fee on our students who are not able to play in may not even be that interested in athletics as much as some of us are. On the list of huge problems we have been discussing this morning and i dont want to minimize this but i for one when not urge that you place that nearly as high, for example, helping hpc use and some of these other goals. Thank you, i was hoping there would be your answer and appreciate that very much. Thank you, senator jones. Senator rosen. Thank you, chairman alexander. Ranking member murray, i want to thank all the witnesses for being here today for the work and care you do to help our students and those that work at our university. I believe we really need for student dreamers and veterans paid the covid epidemic has severely impacted the nomadic colleges and the students they are serving. Im crowded to vote for this explain dollars for institutes of Higher Education and to provide emergency Financial Aid to students most affected by the pandemic. The new law intentionally provides significant flexibility to institutions and determining how to disturb it funding amongst students, including those who are most in need. Unfortunately the department of education has decided that not only students who are out or only students were eligible to receive federal Financial Aid qualified for the cares act assistance. This decision excludes students veterans, individuals who have not completed the fafsa application and the aca. Many who have to support their parents, siblings, children, be the first in the family to attend college. In april i joined a letter along with several members of the Committee Asking the secretary to reverse this decision to prohibit institutions of Higher Education for providing cares act emergency Financial Aid grants to undocumented students but if not, get the response. Doctor paxton, like our educational leaders in nevada you have long supported protections for dreamers, given this and the extraordinary situation which we find ourselves do you agree with the department of education guidance excluding undocumented students from the cares act . No, i dont agree at all. I firmly believe that we should protect students for the future of our country and we should be protecting students, veterans, International Students here in this country and need the support. Thank you britt rpg that. I would ask all the panelists this next question. What is the department of education to give [inaudible] they have protected our nation and older students have families and really important because they continue to get any support they need along with those who dont go out with fafsa application is for many reasons and come from foster families or all kinds of reasons that those students arent in dont know how to do that. We want to know how your students will help and how they will help the students and if you agree with that decision to exclude that student veterans and lets begin with governor daniel. We could go on to doctor hampton and returned to doctor paxton if we can. Thank you, senator. I agree these dont seem like wise choices and frankly i did not know about the impact on veterans so thank you for drawing our attention to that. I can say as we did to a previous question that we are doing all we can to move money and to scholarships and Financial Assistance and we do anticipate that whatever shape our applicants were in just two, three months ago is very different today than we will need to do more. Senator, [inaudible] i am unaware of any negative impact that the ruling had on the veterans at lane college however, for those that needed support who were not eligible for the cares act we were able to find those through our board of trustees that made donations to support all our students. Thank you. Appreciate that. Doctor paxton, i would all students are equally deserving and students who deserve an economic ground to be supported need to be supported and we have not yet received cares act funding and we awaiting guidance from the apartment of education but our intent will be to support students and equally as well as they can. I have a few seconds off but i just want to address the Digital Divide. Of course, we do Distance Learning to support coronavirus and to support the graduate students so they had Broadband Access and that happens in Rural Communities and are underserved communities and what can you do or what to plan to do to address the Digital Divide and particularly in broadband as it might apply to your students and i guess you can go, doctor paxton, i see you first so ill let you go first this time. We have done a lot of work the spring making sure students have internet to wifi hotspots and have done pretty well with that. The other thing we are focused on is helping the city of providence make sure all the High School Students in the area have Digital Access because that has been a huge problem for high school education. Fantastic. Lets go on to whoever would like to go next. Doctor hampton. Lane college is sourcing and providing digital devices as well as hotspots for our students and we are able to use the fund, cares fund to fund some of that. Perfects. Governor. Similar answer, we had problems unfortunately they were fairly limited and generally in rural spaces as you had suggested and we were able to calm within individuals and as far as i know in each case also we were blessed for an Extension Service we do have offices and even smaller Population Counties and i think that gives us a little advantage in helping those who were struggling. Are you appreciate that. I appreciate all you are doing. Thank you. I want to thank senator murray and her staff as well as our staff for their cooperation and Technical Expertise today in this hearing. I want to thank the four witnesses who all have demanding schedules who made time for us but this is a more valued than you might think to our staff and the American People as they listen. There is no more sure sign that the American Life is regaining its rhythm then when 75 Million Students had back to college back to school which is where we believe where they will go and focus this month is to help make sure they go safely. Today our discussion has been about colleges, next week we will be talking about kindergartner through the 12th grade going back to school and School Safely and we are having other hearings is month on tele learning on looking ahead to the next pandemic. As we consider our overnight response ability. I will include in the record a letter from the American Council on education to which one of the senators referred earlier is that organization is an Umbrella Organization representing most of the 6000 Higher Education institutions in the country and it asked congress to consider a number of things including properly constructed Liability Protection for students for institutions as a result of covid19. I also heard that from virtually everyone of the 90 from teleconference last week and the issue of testing came up and my advice to colleges for example doctor hampton talked about jackson tennessee in our state the governor said to get a test and i know that that works because i went to the public all department on the hometown of maryville and waited about three minutes in line and got my negative test which turned out to be negative a couple of weeks ago. For colleges and universities who dont have large hospitals or their own capacity to create test my advice would be to be a part of the states plan because according to the law every state submits to the federal government its testing needs for the next month. If its needs cannot be met by the state federal government will help with that. For example, with swabs or reagents, they testified that we should have 10 million test capacity in the country this month which would be about, if my math is right, the 500,000 tests a day that was mentioned by doctor benjamin and also said that he anticipated that there would be 4050 million tests available per month by september and in addition to that doctor collins is heading up an effort of the National Institutes of health which we called the shark tank which to create a highly competitive environment to see if we could find one, two, three, four new ways of creating accurate rapid tests which would be tens of millions of more tests so that there would be an ample supply this fall for universities. My advice would be if there is a question for a college or institution about testing become a part of your states plan and let the state look ahead and help with debts. This has been a very helpful now i have words im supposed to repeat. The record will remain open for ten days and members may submit Additional Information within that time. Thank you for being here, our next meeting will be next wednesday, june 10, covid19 going back to School Safely. The committee will stand adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] this week the house and senate will hold hearings on the federal response to the coronavirus and lawenforcement accountability. Tuesday at 2 30 p. M. Live on cspan sec. Of labor eugene scully testified before the Senate Finance committee on the cares act and the role of Unemployment Insurance during the coronavirus pandemic. Wednesday, 10 00 a. M. Eastern, live on cspan the House Judiciary Committee hearing on policing practices and lawenforcement accountability. Also at 10 00 a. M. Eastern live on cspan3 secretary of the treasury Steven Newton testifies before the Senate Small Business committee on the implementation of title i of the cares act. Watch this week live tuesday and wednesday on cspan and cspan3, online cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Tonight on the communicators. We are at the very beginning of building out a smart city. We were fortunate very early on to convert our old telephone booth infrastructure into wifi kiosks. They are strategically located across the city of new york. That, in and of itself, provides a means of communicating that is a predicate for what can be done with sensor technology, how we can regulate our lighting syst system, there is so much that can be done just from that alone. New York Democratic congressman you bette clark on the communicators tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. For the federal government at work in dc and throughout the country use the congressional directory for contact affirmation from embers of congress, governors and federal agencies. Order your copy online today at cspan store. Org. U. S. Senate is about to dabble in. Lawmakers plan to spend the week on a bill to create a fund for maintenance of National Parks and other public lands. The National Park Service Estimates they have a 12 lead dollar backlog of maintenance projects. Senators will vote at 5 30 p. M. On moving forward with the bill. Coming up, live coverage from the senate floor here on