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

Committee heard from the president of urdu and lane college, they talked about Financial Assistance provided by the cares act and the important of addressing the hardships of minority students and those of lower socioeconomic status are facing. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good morning. Hearing of the Senate Health Prevention Committee will come to order. We want to thank our staff for working through some technical difficulties this morning and thank the senators that are witnesses who are joining us from around the country in various offices. We are all following the attending physicians protocol for safe distancing and those of us who are here are Wearing Masks on our way in and sitting at least six feet apart while we are here. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement, then we will turn to our witnesses for their statement of about 5 minutes each, if they could summarize. There it is. Senators will each have five minute round of questions. We have a vote at 11 40 so we will need to finish this hearing by about noon and hopefully all the senators will have had a chance to ask their questions. The question for administrators of 6000 colleges and universities is not whether to reopen in august but how to do it safely. Most are working overtime to get ready for one of the sure signs American Life is regaining its rhythm. 20 Million Students going back to college. Witnesses today are here to tell us their strategies for reopening safely. Mitch daniels, president of perdue in indiana, Christina Paxton of Brown University of Providence Rhode island, bogan hampton of lane college in jackson, tennessee, george benjamin, director of American Public Health Association in washington. Perdue, the university of south carolina, rice, the university of notre dame and others will finish their in person classes before thanksgiving to avoid further spread of covid19 during flu season. Vanderbilt university will require masks, to make social distancing easier colleges are rescheduling classrooms that are usually empty in the early mornings, evenings, weekendss, concerts, parties are out, grab and go meals, flu shots and temperature checks will be in, campuses will offer more online courses. Recently i was on a phone call with 90 chief executives of tennessees 127 Higher Education, they are planning to resume in person classes almost all of them this fall but they want the government 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 a virus, have been exposed to it so the rest of the student body doesnt have to before and teens. Campuses are using mobile phone apps for tracking and creating isolation dormitories to isolate students who have the virus or been exposed as the university of Tennessee Knoxville is doing. Widespread testing not only helps contain the disease but helps build confidence the campuses safe. Us assistant secretary told our hearing that there will be 4050 million tests available by september, four suite 5 times the number of tests available today more than any other country. Doctor Francis Collins who leads the human genome project leads a shark tank, enterprise at the National Institutes of health discover new ways to conduct tens of millions of additional accurate test with quick results. Should everyone on campus pretested . On a webinar for institutes of Higher Education on friday march, may 20 ninth centers for Disease Control and prevention officials said they are not recommending that at this time you test every student but encourage campuses to work with their state and local health officials. However that doesnt take into account testing for peace of mind. Schools may want to test everyone before they come back to campus. Schools may want to think about randomly testing to detect symptomatic cases, have the blue to test everyone in certain categories, older faculty, students with medical conditions, virus hotspots, all students in a class or dorm where there is an outbreak or a person infected. Administrators ask me where will i find the tests . The answer is consult your local Health Department in your government and your governor. Each state submit a monthly plan outlining testing supplies in the, then fill in the gaps. My recommendation is you want your School Testing plan to be in your state plan. A School Contract with laboratories, who conduct tests, review the fda list of authorized tests or ask for help from a local university or hospital that created its own test. Covid19 plans should last the school year. They are pursuing vaccines at warp speed but no one expects them in august. The second semester there should be more tests, more treatments, better Contact Tracing and vaccines but amid the flu season in return of covid19 it will be the fall of 2021 before we begin to approach normal. Students returning in the fall and their families will want and need to have face of mind that they and their loved ones are getting back to a safe environment. Testing is the key to providing that. The reason colleges have an advantage, younger people have been hurt less by covid19. Nursing homes account for 5 of cases, 36 of deaths, compared with tennesseans under the age of 30, 30 of cases, less than one of the deaths, still there is much we are learning about the virus. We are warned not to be cavalier about assuming young people are not at risk. Colleges are notorious wasters of space, George Washington University President Steve Trachtenberg said that a typical college uses it for academic purposes a little more than half the calendar year he said, generate that generates maintenance energy. He thought he could run two colleges in the space that he has one college he organized efficiently but was never able to do it that way. Keeping students six feet apart will be easier colleges embrace new efficiency and more classrooms and spaces throughout the day and throughout the year and that is a lesson that will last beyond the covid19 crisis. Tracking and tracing will do at college. We know what classes students attend, colleges take it a step further, assigned seats, and a college can presumably require require students to wear masks. They can make mask wearing part of the collagen farms pose challenges as well. 19 and 20yearolds dont always choose to do the healthiest thing. A National Survey on drug use found a third of College Students admitted to binge drinking in the last month with 86 of undergraduates are not living on campus according to the National Center for education statistics. Many students will leave and return exposing themselves and others to virus making social distancing and cdc recommended Health Status all the more important. What should the federal governments role be in helping colleges and universities open safely, providing advice from cdc, funding innovation like the shark tank i mentioned for tests, encouraging universities to work with states to get included in their testing plans, helping supplies provide supplies the states dont have, funding such as 14 billion in the cares act to address loss revenues and federal government could provide some Liability Protection. Beyond that decision in my view want to be left individual campuses. From the small technical universities to harvard, mit, the four year marine college, tuition free, best able to make their own decisions was when i became University President in 1998, 1988 i asked the president of the university of california why the university of california was so good and he said autonomy, and second, following to the college of their choice. United states is home to 6000 colleges and universities, the best system in the world. It has gotten that way because the Institution Campuses have had maximum autonomy and minimum direction from washington on everything from curriculum tuition admission policies, healthcare plans for students, compensation for faculty to campuses themselves to determine student behavior and conduct, housing, safety and a host of other issues so i would suggest we follow the same tradition here. Donald trump and congress should not tell California State University system it has to open in person in the fall nor should it tell notre dame and perdue it cannot open in the fall and shouldnt be telling Brown University they cant test everyone if brown wants to and tell indiana it has 2 or perdue that it has to even though they dont want to. We know a single lost your college can lead to a student not graduating as setback career goals. University Research Projects have erased much of the Funding Congress has given our research universities. Many american colleges will be permanently damaged or closed if they remain as our witness Christina Paxson brown says, ghost towns, two thirds of College Students want to return to campus according to the actos survey. Mitch daniels, another witness today says at perdue tuition deposits by incoming freshmen broke last years record, colleges and universities are microcities, administrators 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 short step toward normalcy. Senator murray. Hard to make it possible for the hearing to be safe and socially distant. People around the country, especially young people protesting for longoverdue change, we have to remember the opportunity institutions of Higher Education have to direct disparities and the responsibility to do so and that means as we look at the dramatic impact covid19 is having on institutions of Higher Education, talk about ways students and faculty, we have to address the unique impact this virus has on black communities and other communities of color. We have seen communities of color and other vulnerable populations face the harshest impacts from the 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. That in mind we must recognize and address the disproportionate impact this crisis is having on those students of color, firstgeneration College Students, students experiencing homelessness and student parent at muslim Public Health and science drive decisionmaking. The Coronavirus Crisis has 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 transition to Online Education to unprecedented Student Financial need and unemployment and revenue losses. Many may not be able to reopen their doors including historic and under resourced colleges that serve high populations with low incomes and students of color. Faculty and staff to administrative and support staff, food service and much more are wondering if they will have a job to return to in the fall. For students across the country from graduating High School Seniors to community College Students, students pursuing advanced degrees, this pandemic has shattered their notion of a Normal School year to navigate this world, every student across the country is experiencing unprecedented disruption and many students will need Additional Support like advising and tutoring and Mental Health to succeed in a new learning environment. Not every student is experiencing equal disruption. The pandemic has had certain communities, particularly communities of color significantly harder than others in these disparities are true for Higher Education where they are bearing a heavier burden of the crisis. The pandemic started, students of, students who are parents, firstgeneration students, lgbt q students, and veteran students are more likely to struggle to meet basic needs like food and helping housing, resources widely closed, this pandemic has exasperated many of those students. They rely on managed apartment buildings and been forced many students experiencing homelessness or with unsafe phones or International Students were 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 quiet place to study Online Learning is not an option and with many on campus and Community Childcare providers closed the one in 5 College Students who are parents have fewer options for childcare. As we move towards the countless challenges facing colleges and students we absolutely have to keep in mind and address the unique needs of students who are disproportionately impacted as colleges begin to reopen safely, physically or online. We need to make sure colleges do not rush into a decision how to reopen. There is a very real possibility of a resurgence of coronavirus, thats why colleges and universities need a detailed plan to keep the Campus Community safe regardless how the pandemic evolves in the coming monthly students, faculty, staff and college need to know before colleges reopen their doors they have plans for every potential outcome. Every contributing factor in every scenario that colleges and universities cannot do this alone. They need in depth, actionable and detailed guidance from the federal government on best practices when it comes to how to house and feed student safety, minimize classsize and keep students socially distant, how to make sure libraries and shared equipment are cleaned properly and often and when it comes to the Broader Community how to keep faculty and staff safe and have minimized risk when students travel to and from campus. Those are a few of the questions to be answered before schools can open safely. Doing so requires a complex planning process that we cannot get wrong. Colleges and universities need the actual support from secretary of education who instead of working with the Higher Education community on how to reopen safely, forcing colleges and universities to implement a new harmful ideological title ix regulation during a pandemic that will ensure one thing, that students already worried about the pandemic are going to be more unsafe next year when it comes to sexual assault. Im glad to hear from the witnesses today. This committee and the American People deserve to hear directly from her on how she is working with the Higher Education community as well as secretary of labor Eugene Scully on how we can safely protect workers from the virus and secretary of health and Human Services alex aczar on how they are responding to this crisis. We need to not only address the immediate news for colleges and students pick begin to plan the future of Higher Education will look like in the wake of coronavirus. In truly unprecedented times, we require bold responsive leadership but colleges and universities are not getting what they need and while i am fighting to secure additional funding and direct the ongoing needs of colleges and students across the country, i 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 faculty, staff and students because they desperately need it. Thank you, mister chairman. We now move to senators questions, welcome all four witnesses, we introduce all four but let me ask senator bronte introduce the first witness and then i will introduce the other three. First time i met you was in 2015 as a freshman legislator and you came into the ways and means committee, the third year into the tuition freeze, tuition increases for 36 years prior to when you did that. What do we do to lower cost . Remember it vividly, purchasing across all our locations, made sense, tackle Fringe Benefits especially healthcare costs, that is a rowdy affair when you do it but when you make it sustainable it is great for your employees, no doubt about that. That impressed me. It was the kind of entrepreneurial spirit and across the federal government it addresses High Education costs postsecondary and healthcare costs, the most uncontrollable sectors in our economy. Without shifting fulltime faculty to parttime. We did not increase the percentage of international and outofstate students that you signed a book deal with amazon the lowered costs by 30 , making it to where tuition is less in nominal terms than it was in 2005. Borrowing down 31 . At the back the Boiler Program on the income share agreement model providing a better alternative to the private loans. All of this is no surprise. As governor of indiana use of a chronic deficit situation. 800 million your, turn the Credit Rating into aaa, every position you held from the time the chief of staff or senator dick lugar whose seed i occupy now, advisor to ronald reagan, director of the omb for president bush demonstrated fiscal conservatism, business acumen. Purdue leads as the 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 is reopening campus in the fall possible but it is the duty of the university to provide highvalue instruction, training and research for which the universities nationally respected. Looking at how purdue approaches this unique challenge and bring the campus back safely into educating, proud that at Indiana Institution leading the way for others across the country, im pleased to have its leader here today testify in front of the committee so we can discuss these changes at purdue more in depth. I will ask you to introduce me sometime. That was as good an introduction as i ever heard from anybody. Thank you very much. Our second witness is doctor Christina Paxton of Brown University in providence, rhode island, 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 brown in july of 2012, prior to that served as dean of International Public affairs, hughes rogers professor of economics and Public Affairs at princeton university. She has been active serving as the several Research Projects in the National Institutes of health. Doctor Logan Hampton of Wayne College in jackson, tennessee, it is considering going back to campus in the fall, the president of lane in june of 2014 and prior to that served as provost for Student Affairs at the university of arkansas. One of lane colleges distinctions is it is the place were alex haleys father taught, raised four distinguished children. I would like to turn to senator murray to introduce the next witness. Thank you. I am deleted to be with an expert on what we need to be doing to make sure the Public Health system is working correctly when it comes to having a safe place to go. We thank our witnesses for joining us virtually. We ask them to summarize in five minutes which will leave time for questions by the senators and we begin with president daniels. Welcome, president daniels. Thank you for the invitation and the good advice. In the next couple hours, teach everything at purdue university, one of the most stem centric schools proceeding from science and data when we can, i will say if they make the reopening decision in march or early april, we would not have been able to justify that but as the data made claim how highly focused the lethality of this terrible viruses then making a different conclusion. We know deaths in Nursing Homes alone represent 30 of recorded fatalities in our state, a sourcing just well over half. On the other end of the age spectrum the typical college age individual we now know has a 99 survival rate, much higher than many other illnesses that do affect people old and young. The data shows it is not in the top 10 risks facing our students every year, outranked by many illnesses, accidents of different kinds and suicide. As they tell us they want to be on campus, they dont want their education interrupted. We believe we have fashioned a way to deliver content online very capably but that deprives a student of many experiences that are only available on campus in encounters of some kind with faculty and with their peers. So the plan for our university is based on two basic strategies, what is the protection of vulnerable to minimize the risk to those we now know are at serious or potential danger from this virus. On the other end to maximize choice. To say to students and faculty after you have surveyed all precautions we are putting in place, if you are still uncomfortable please dont come. We have an online option for you as a student, we have a myriad of hybrid options for you as a professor. Our board of trustees will examine and i hope approve the third of three sets of actions that taken together constitute a plan to protect purdue. A third of our staff will continue working remotely, lower the occupancy of classrooms by at least 50 , there will be a 10 foot minimum between any faculty member and any student in those students will be wearing mask and the faculty member will be behind plexiglass. The purchases of plexiglass could treat one mile. Indoor seating will not occur indefinitely. Grab and go as the chairman said is the rule. We have taken out of thousand beds, many doubles of become singles. We will rearrange the other so we are looking at 13 or 14 feet distance as they speak, social distance will be achieved anyway we can, concerts, large gatherings, no parties, we spent millions on hvac infection improvements and in the course of testing we have comprehensive screening on arrival and extensive testing from the first day of testing those who have been in proximity, a lot of random testing during this semester. We have 500 beds set aside, quarantine of positive testers and many more, all this will cost tens of millions of dollars but we will be nothing to chance. I want to finish by saying the single most important change in behavior is in culture. If you are uneasy about any of this please dont come. We have another option for you. Be prepared to pitch in and to comply with the protect perdue pledge committing each person in community to all the changes, having all the best answers, we made our intentions known early, to implement effectively a program comprehensive, i am encouraged to see all schools coming to a similar conclusion and look forward to learning from them and this Mornings Committee meeting. Thanks to you and our other witnesses. Doctor paxton, welcome. Good morning, chairman alexander, members of the health committee, thank you for inviting me to testify. I want to acknowledge the pain our country is experiencing on systemic issues of racial injustice. In times like these colleges and universities play and especially Critical Role in helping communities build collective understanding. Thank you. Chairman alexandria might appreciate that my grandfather was a longtime faculty member in tennessee. Develop the experiment of research station. Of course the Great Recession which i experienced was another time of great stress for colleges and universities that i can say whether youre a public or private institution, large or small, rich or poor we have never seen anything like this was last spring when the coronavirus or to spread in the United States colleges and universities had no choice but to shatter our universities. There was no way to know if it was violently spreading through dormitories and classrooms. They are developing plans to Bring Research to campus. I want to wonderscore it will not open until we do so safely, science, the cdc and state guidelines, will not compromise on safety. I am cautiously optimistic, to coordinate the state of the island and develop a sound sciencebased Public Health campus. This plan must include all the things we just heard about for preventing the spread of infection. Testing and more testing, tracing, isolation, social distancing, masks and hygiene measures. We are changing how we lecture in hygiene spaces, just a living arrangement endurance, developing plans for remote teaching among a multitude of other steps. This is complex and allconsuming and expensive but if this is what it takes to make a safe opening possible it is well worth it. There is so much at stake. Our students are eager to come back. It would be bad for them. A lot of federally funded research is languishing on the bench, during covid19 related work, important work on things like alzheimers disease, cancer and new energy technologies. Third, the pandemic has created enormous financial pressures and even worse if students cant safely return in the fall. We can whether this, colleges and universities dont have the resources to do so. If they cant reopen they will have no choice but to lay off more employees and possibly close forever. Colleges and universities after digitally been the most stable employers in their region, and and i want to thank you for the support you have already provided for colleges and universities Going Forward, the Higher Education sector cant reopen without your continued support. We need help in learning Public Health plans for the safety of our students and employees in addressing declines in enrollment. This is funny for grant contract extensions, the steadily support, scholarships. This this is a time when partnes between Higher Education and federal government, State Government is more important than ever. For the sake of research and innovation as if it were for a sculptor industry and economic competitiveness. The citys and states that rely heavily on institutions as Major Economic drivers especially most importantly for the sake of our students. So thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony today, and i look forward to question. Thank you, dr. Paxson. Im glad to hear grandfather was at the university of tennessee. My daughter graduated from brown. There we go. Our next what this is dr. Logan hampton of wayne colors. Welcome, dr. Hampton. Thank you, chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Logan Hampton and ai serve as a tenth president of Elaine Jackson in lane college in jackson chelsea, and historical by college founded in 1882 by former slave of the colored methodist church. Lane is it hbcu which consists of 36 buildings across 55 acres. Truly creating an exceptional academic and living environment. I i was asked to testify before the committee about our plans to reopen our campus in the fall. Lane college begin its moment to moment response to the Novel Coronavirus disease known as covid19 on march 7, 2020. Initially i cratered and met with joint Leadership Team consisted of 21 members on my direct reports, academic cabinet and the Marketing Team to consider three options for the remainder of the semester. Option one, vigilant. Continue facetoface instruction with residential students while observing local, state, and federal orders and practicing cdc, Tennessee Department of health, Madison County Health Department recommendations. The second option, remote. Move all instruction online and direct nonessential employees to work remotely. Third option, the nuclear option. And the semester on friday, march 13, 2020. Lane college joint Leadership Team decided to move to remote instruction and service delivery. Each of the 819 residential students accounts was credited 713, for a total of 584,305 ear which is slightly than 10 of the institutions auxiliary budget. 76 of the student body resided on campus. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic pandemic lane college laid off 21 employees and continued its previously imposed spending freeze. Nevertheless, lane College Students will not experience an increase in tuition, fees, or room and board for the upcoming academic year. As a result of consultation given by uncf, lane 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 of the Crisis Management center, and coordinating the weekly lane college team meeting that is comprised of the fast start team, members of the lane college joint Leadership Team, and the pandemic proof team. The Strategy Team is set to implement a detailed timeline for reopening that is further articulated in my written testimony, and due to the fluid developments of covid19, the Strategy Team has led ln. , college to prepare for three scenarios. Lane college fast start, ace to face instruction. Lane called vr, all online courses, and lane college sore, a hybrid of both online and facetoface. I would be remiss if i did not thank congress and this committee for passing h. R. 748, the cares act. Also think the president for signing this bill into law. Because of the cares act, lane college has access to a total of 5,278,608 in direct allocations. While im thankful for this i would be remiss if i did not share with you that lane college is bracing for revenue losses that will impact our ability to operate. And our students are enduring tough Economic Times that presents unique challenges, especially for students of color. With this being said i have a number of important requests to congress in my written testimony, but my top two tasks would be to ask the congress provide an additional 1 billion in funding for hbcus, tribal colleges and universities, and minority serving institutions. I would also firmly ask that congress increase grant aid in title iv of the Higher Education act of 1965 by doubling the maximum pell grant award. The majority of my students are black americans, and black americans are disproportionately impacted by covid19 and racism that continues to impact our nation. If the majority of my students are disproportionately impacted, then my institution is disproportionately impacted and need to the investment. For more information and details regarding my remarks, i ask that you read my written testimony submitted for your review. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Hampton, very much for being with us today, and our final witness is dr. Georges benjamin. Welcome. Thank you, chairman alexander and Ranking Member murray and members of the committee. Let me thank you for letting me be here today just remind all of us Public Health decision based on risk reduction. And all the decisions ought to be science base, datadriven and in close consultation with state and health authorities. All evidence shows that internet undetected Broad Community spread of covid19 and continue do so preventing months to come. We should therefore assume planning purposes that the will be people on campus with covid19 infection regardless of what the cautions are taken. Let me briefly talk about issues we should be emphasized. The first one is maintaining policies with the standards of offending community with a utilizing Public Health protections that are weaker than those in place in the community in which the schools sit. The second one is recognized commuter schools where student body will have different risk profile and residential schools better track student station what and, of course, often from around the world. Number three, the guidelines matter. Cdc guidelines are there, i think for people to use them. Certainly focusing on issues about physical distancing, hygiene which funnily means mass, routine cleaning and sanitation of services of facilities are important. Once you think of these as stat protections and Work Together to reduce the risk of infection, i believe there should be enforceable regulations to protect all on campus and recommend congress require osha to impose them an emergency temper his dinner for Infectious Disease the be able to protect and after the state of california and results of special deceased and could serve as a model for congress. Number four, to achieve adequate Disease Control in all institutions you need to have a very driven robust Campus Health program again latest data local Health Agencies to enhance rapid availability and support for current Disease Control practices. Again as youre working on the premise that the current via case on campus, we should assume while most students are less likely to have severe disease when infected, the risk for serious disease is not zero. So Rapid Testing for covid19 and Contact Tracing are the centerpiece and plan in light of Public Health authorities is need. It should include clearly defined priorities of testing in terms of who should be tested, the role of symptombased strategies as well as testing employees who are at high risk is it because of underlying disease or because of not only their on campus but also their offcampus occupation. One of the things we saw with Nursing Homes was the offcampus issue in other places where nursing home workers worked, took them and the patient at risk. Obviously Everyone Needs to be adequately staffed and have enough personal protective equipment to ensure protection. And in the interest of time i wont go into all the critical distancing things. You heard a lot of those already from the College President s to let me and doors that those are the right, all on the right track on the things are going to need to do. Also let me just reemphasize this issue of the disproportionate risk for many particularly minorities in the community. We know very clearly that africanamericans and hispanics in particular are disproportional at risk but because theyre more chronic diseases, that if they get infected they are most likely get severe disease. While our young people generally are healthy in school, many of those diseases occur in a young people much younger than those of us who are baby boomers today. I want to let everyone the schools will be writing before the influenza season and so the schools need to be prepared to address influenza like illness which of course is how covid19 also presents. There are a lot of Unanswered Questions about who you screen, the role of temperature taking, clearly the rule role of antiby testing can understand the state of what we know about the antibody tests today. And clearly robust key medications are very important. Every one of these colleges already have the experience with a sick kid in school, and understand the enormous work involved with a suitcase of meningitis hits its campus. This is probably worse for covid19. I want to point out scenario planning. I encourage all the schools to do very active scenario planning. Planning. In my testimony you have the nine i thought of in the middle of the night but let me just point out about four of those. Number one a student who is diagnosed with covid19 who lives on or off campus, on or off in campus housing. A student, fackler Staff Members didnt find through contact but is asymptomatic. And exposure students, why you may not of had a largescale event on your own campus, obviously College Campuses are poorest and students go elsewhere to large events and obviously tragically a student death from any cause on campus may be perceived as covid and obviously managing that from a perspective of the university from a Risk Management perspective would be very important. Theres a lot of other considerations and an interest of time i can go through all of those, but let me just by the close up with the fact i think that this happens without a robust, trained to Public Health system in the country and i continue to encourage congress to support the covid help systems. I want to thank you for give me the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you, dr. Benjamin, thanks all that the witnesses. Well begin with fiveminute rounds from question for senators and ask the senators and witnesses strategy branches within five minutes because all the senators would like to participate and we have a vote little bit before noon. President daniels, let me start with you. How much advice do you want frm 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 still the university of california system that has to open in person . I guess it would be in their legal rights but i hope not. You know, as every student is different, which would remind ourselves of that every school in the country is unique in some way, and i thought your admonition of the beginning, mr. Chairman, was on target. I know that others will find that her edges then we had an help there will be free to do so we can copy them. Dr. Paxson, in an article he wrote that you want to just every student number cdc is not recommended that yet. Other universities have said thats not practical. How much advice do you want from the 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, my members of my medical school is parents and students and faculty. They want testing. They want everybody to be tested and then they want to do surveillance testing on a regular basis throughout the year. Its both peace of mind but being able to monitor this better. I think its essential. Let me ask president daniels and the other president s this question. One of the opportunities we have in this crisis is to learn from it. We have compressed about ten years of experience into three months in terms of at least two things. One is tele learning, what have we learned from that . And number two, the use of space. Space. As i mentioned in my comments, college of the most notorious wasters of space in america, i would think. Classes are not usually taught in the morning or the evening or on saturday, and is it possible that as a result of the requirement of social distancing that a Year Experience of teaching classes at different times and more efficient use of space without some sort of Lasting Impact . What about the Lasting Impact of what you learned about telelearning . Let me start with president daniels. Yes, of course, there would be lasting effects of this and i think highly beneficial. Space has been an issue with us for some time at purdue and i hope weve been using it better. Nothing that injures about saturday classes or even classes you but clearly we can do better and will now. Yes, when you reduce occupancy of our classrooms to 50 50 l, by definition you have to use time and space in ways that you were not before. I think i made mention that we now learn so much about telework at least a third of our employees, our staff will now be passed and enabled to work from home on either a constant base or lease on a rotating basis. That takes them out of harms way and that will free up a lot of space that maybe we can find creative ways uses four. Dr. Paxson . So yes, were all learning a lot and i appreciate your question. Just a couple things were learning to add to what president daniels said. One is that remotely come students learn and there were many valuable lessons. I think in the future we may do more where lectures on that in person. Another related area thats very important is to the use of telemedicine and we discovered especially for counseling and psychological services, then students are in states that we can work with and there some bureaucracy around that. Its actually an incredibly efficient and valuable way to support our students. Dr. Hampton, have you learned anything in these three months about the use of space that might be a lasting lesson at lane college. Yes, sir. Tricky we certainly learn our faculty and our institution that was committed to residential instruction could very actually moved remote instruction. We move every single course to remote instruction in the spring, and while that was absolute monument to. I do want to go back and just say to your initial question that yes in fact, lane college will be open in the fall. But what we need is we need your investment. We need that 1 billion. The Education Committee astra 46 billion. We need a partnership a partnership on the federal government to help us to ensure that we have the standards, we have the facilities in place to protect our students, to educate them safely, and to deliver on our mission. Okay. Thank you, doctor hansen. Senator murray. Thank you very mu ch, mr. Chairman. If a going to safely reopen Public Health has to drive decisionmaking and according to Public Health experts, that includes making sure students and staff have access to testing, they build to safely courting if they are exposed to the virus and support for isolation and access to medical students and staff to be able to participate in their classes what also following Public Health advice to social distance, more facemask and keep themselves and the families healthy the Public Health expert agreed we are not anywhere close right now debating adequate level [inaudible] we need to go ahead and get that the other thing is i dont know about thursday. We need to somebody [talking over each other] and if they need to, he may be tied up thursday. Mr. Chairman, i think [talking over each other] we have technical difficulty, senator murray. Our college can you be able to keep students and the place and the communities safe . Testing is always been the greatest success here. We are finally at about 400,000 tests a day. When that nearly at 500,000 50e need to be, and every state will differ. Well get a truck today that would show a variety of states that are not yet there yet. I think it will be a real challenge if we cant get to that bare minimum 500,000 per day. You may know that some groups like Rockefeller Foundation believe that we should go to two to three times that amount per day. Okay. I heard it said that covid19 is a quote great equalizer but we actually know in terms of the virus with black community and community of color being at much greater risk risk of gettg sick and dying. And falling behind. Economically because of the pandemic itself. Colleges determine how to reopen have to consider those inequities in selecting the best course of action for both the students and the staff. So i wanted to ask each of our president s may be in this order, president s daniels, dr. Paxson and dr. Hampton, specifically reach plan to address the Alarming Health disparities impacting our communities of color as you think about reopening . One thing every what about is the efforts weve made a source i know of the university, college and university has made to successfully recruit and then just as important see through to successful graduation low income, firstgeneration minority students. Weve all been making every effort we know how never sometime and the dword is about to be set back by the tragic factors that you just mentioned. Im tentatively encouraged as our deposits have come in that our you were in percentage seems to to have a look. I was really worried, senator, that it might but maybe not but i do worry that our progress will be arrested and that were going to have, we will certainly a special attention again to identifying those who might be vulnerable. That is mainly faculty and staff a yes as dr. Benjamin pointed out there are some young people who have these comorbidities that will put them very much in our site for special attention, and im sure youre probably right that minorities may will be disproportionately represented in that group. President paxson . Thank you for the question, and life despairs and economic disparities, and when i look at it issues of inequity of one of the major reasons why we should open colleges and universities are places that grade level Playing Field for students. We can ensure all students have equal access to education, that quality would be the same and Health Services will be the same for all students regardless. Its one of the major reasons what i want to get students bac back. No doubt about it. Race, racism and health disproportionate impact our institution at lane college. To overcome these barriers, we need the help of the federal government. We need your guidelines but we also need your investment. Our students need your investment. Our students need more monies to attend colleges and universities. Doubling that would help to ameliorate some of the challenges that the families are having right at this very moment as they are losing their job and being laid off as a result of covid19 or any of the impact of racism. Those students, our students, my students need an additional investment. Doubling pell grant wood go a long way to helping them to afford institutions of higher learning. Thank you for bringing that up. In addition to disparities i just talked about is a disparity of resources among colleges as well and we need to address that, so thank you very much for the answer. Your time got interfered with, if you have another question, go ahead. All right. Will go to senator collins. Thank you, mr. Chairman. This hearing is incredibly timely because just this morning the university in maine and of the College President s issued a document called sustaining Higher Education and sustaining maine. So 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, the employee thousands of people, administrative staff, food service workers, custodians, faculty, advisers, student workers. When the campus is close to inperson instruction, this had a great impact in maine on many hourly workers in particular. The university of maine system employs nearly 4800 employees. My question is this. Should there be different testing protocols for employees who are going back and forth into their communities and then back to campus, then for students who are living fulltime on campus . And are you looking at that . Thats an excellent question, senator. Thank you. Yes, we are. It was observed that many schools, and we are one, halff our students also live offcampus. Many of them are very close by. Were going to work very closely with their landlords and others to try to make certain they are following the same practices we will in the housing that we administer. Ill just say its been very sad to read about so many furloughs, layoffs of stack the staff and faculty. We intend not to do that if any way possible. But it is a significant issue, you know, our principal responsibility to store students and to our University Community but we are very conscious as you said that we are an economic driver that employs many of the people in the committee around us do rely. So our responsibilities to them both from a Health Safety standpoint and from an operation on economics standpoint, we try never to lose sight of. Thank you. Dr. Paxson and dr. Hampton, in maine, more than 7400 students are served by the trio programs, and have always been a very strong supporter of those programs because with a great number of first generation College Students in my state. Im very worried that if colleges do not reopen this fall, that were going to increase the number of people who have some college but no degree, and end up with student debt but no credential to help them pay off that debt. What do you think of expanding programs like trio to make sure that the students supports are there to encourage students to come back to school and to complete their degree or earn their credential if they are attending a Community College . Thank you, and its a marvelous program and i am fully supportive of bringing our lowest income students and our first gin students back to campus. Not just to brown but nationally as it should be a national priority. I am also concerned that without increases in Financial Aid and actually i agree with the other speakers on this call that i government pell grant wood be a thing to do. The students if they dont come back, if they defer, if the delay they may never come back and they may not get their degrees. Another related issue which is a think even more alarming is if Colleges Universities have to close permanently, they have a lot of students are going to be halfway through degrees and finding and that is addition to complete their degrees may be very difficult. We need to keep a close eye on persistence and degree completion especially during this time. Thank you. Senator, i absolutely support the trio program. Lane college was a provider of the program and in the most recent round of competition, lane college lost out by one point. We were one point out of the funding. That affected 100 students. Thats five or six faculty Staff Members who we lost and not been able to provide services for. I actually support an expansion of the trio program. Lane college is in east jackson, is an economic doughnut. Lane college is a 36 million engine in this area. They have strong lane college, being seven strong jackson and a strong western tennessee as i would very much support expanding trio programs and getting upward bound back at lane college. Thank you. Thank you, senator collins. Senator casey. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the hearing. What you think you and Ranking Member murray for calling this hearing. I want to thank our three College President s and dr. Benjamin for their appearance, as well as their testimony. Its very informative for us who have Higher Education institutions in our state to have this hearing. I would just note at the outset that a plea for help at Higher Education institutions have brought to capitol hill, including some this morning, should be mindful all president should be mindful that right now as we speak at the beginning of june there is no prospect for legislation right now that is related to covid19 in the month of june. I hope that changes, but right now the United States said is only doing nominations so i hope you would bring some pressure to bear from the majority to begin to negotiate a new piece of legislation that would address a range of issues, including support for Higher Education and especially for students. But let me start with the question of how students will respond and the change of circumstances on College Campuses. Student compliance with the social distancing or enhanced safety protocols or other measures obviously are the key to reopening safety. You know that. You said that. You are living that now. They are good substantial enforcement challenges as you know, especially when students are not only on campus but engaging with or interacting with members of the community for various reasons. One of the concerns obvious, and youll understand this is the risk of spread within a community, asymptomatic transmission. So i have three questions for the president and hope i can get a question in to dr. Benjamin. Number one is what other protocols you are using . I know you outline some of those, and this will be by repetition. Number two is how you enforce those protocols, number three is how are you engaging with students right now or have you already engaged to review and to make certain what those protocols will be in the enforcement . Articles, enforcement and then engagement here maybe we can just go in alphabetical order to president daniels. Thank you, senator. Protocols are essentially about distance, about masking, about monitoring ones own system. The pledge of talked about, monitoring ones own symptoms, reporting right away for testing if anything is suspected. All about. I i would say in terms of enforcement, yes, i really think the most important thing we can do is foster a culture. Im hopeful about this, on our campus. We are going appeal to students i see everyday along before covid came along, then people in overwhelming numbers one to do good things. They want to help others. Heres a chance in a huge way. Were also, im frexit going to tell them, theres a lot of cynics out there who dont believe you do this. They think you are too selfish and too selfindulgent so lets go show them how much you do care about your fellow human beings, young and old. Lastly, i would just say this is the central question i believe most important one, if we do all the other things we talked about and dont of reasonable compliance, we probably dont make it, and vice versa. Theyre interesting study out of hong kong showed similar reaching 80 compliance with masking stops the spread of infection. This really is very central. Im hopeful that we will do everything all summer long at all fall to try to foster it. Dr. Hampton. We had some practice with this, this spring when we went to remote instruction and we had about 200 students that remained on campus and we begin to practice the cdc guidelines. We had a group of student who decided to have a party, and it took teachers and posted. Well, let me just say they had very good conversation with the dean of students following that. So i have every confidence in our student body. After that our student body practice, those 200 students, they practice going to the cafeteria, getting their lunch, going back to the rooms. They practice social distancing. They did operate in pockets though where you see a group of students moving around together. Thanks so much. Dr. Paxson . Thank you. And i can add, i think its very important that the protocols the students have to follow are one, crystal clear, ambiguous, not really complicated grounded in Public Health rules, that there is an expectation that a violation of those protocols is a violation of our student code of conduct and so they are enforceable. And ideally though you dont do this to enforcement of rules. You do it to change and culture in developing a set of norms where students understand that they are protecting themselves but they are protecting their fellow students, faculty members, people with the respect and love. If we can get that message through, im very confident we will do well. Thank you. Out submit a question for the record to dr. Benjamin i know we have to go. Sorry, senator casey. Senator murkowski. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for your leadership and your respective schools and the leadership that you are showing as your guiding your students enter faculty through very challenging and uncharted times. 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 through direct assistance. And as a look back through tears, it seems to me that one group that kind of got missed through tears were students. Those who are over 16 and were not dependent on their parents, were not able to receive direct assistance, parents were not able to receive it on their behalf, many times not eligible for unemployment insurance. So when i think about the impact to the students at the time, they are literally, and alaska specific is spring break is underway, and they get the word dont come back after spring break. In the university of alaskas situation with her able to do was provide Financial Assistance to many students from everything from ensuring that they had transportation back to their homes, shipping their belongings back or Emergency Funds. And i know that tuition costs in many institutions have been refunded, but to what extent have been able to make our students whole in terms of the costs that they incurred . As we know, most students dont 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 reimburse your students for their costs due to whether its unexpected travel, with housing, lost classes . To what extent were you able to that believed to students . We will start with you, president daniels come and go down the line. I cant say was fully. Im sure it wasnt as probably is wasnt in many of the context around the country, but hope it was adequate. We did refund for a substantial percentage of these come housing cost and so forth, and we had Emergency Fund which we augmented and came to the specific release of students who made application and were having exacted come troubles you are talking about. Im very attentive to watching for the fall. We increase our Financial Aid to the extent we could and will just have to, we learn a lot more in the next few weeks about whether students, preexisting and our incoming aspiring freshman have been prevented by Financial Agency from doing what they are very eager to do. President paxson . Thank you. Like other schools we pulled out all the stops trying to support our students, our highs need to students as transition zone. Wifi, books, et cetera, et cetera. I think that was very successful. Successful. What we found though is the needs are continuing and in some ways growing. As unemployment has increased, students families are losing their jobs. Students summer jobs have been, they evaporate. Theres nothing for students to do this summer. So while we are doing all we can to try to find them alternate things for pay over the summer its very hard to meet that school need. We have ways to meet the expectation students will save money over the summer to meet part of their tuition in the coming year, but were getting request. Thats we are. Dr. Hampton. We were able to use the student portion of the cares act straight directly to the students. We were able to do that on apri. 78 of our students communicated to us they need assistance with food. 73 indicated they needed assistance with housing. And so we prorated the amount of food and housing, and we also added in some support for transportation. We distributed those funds directly to the students. Now were using the funds to up students to return to college and to support their Educational Needs for any number of things, food, housing, or for digital supplies or digital resources for hotspot. Were supporting the students on a case by case basis. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator murkowski took with seven senators remaining and a but is doing a good job within five minutes which i thank you for. Senator baldwin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am wanting to ask a couple of question first to dr. Benjamin. Dr. Benjamin, you stated in your testimony that all schools should be prepared to have a least one case of covid19 on campus. Last week i learned from the university of wisconsin madison that they run out of the reagent 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 existing supply chains for things like reagents. Can you describe why schools need to all of the supplies on hand, not just the testing platforms, but all supplies in order to respond to the very high likelihood of new cases . The challenge of question is and youre going to have to test someone. If you dont have the capacity within the onCampus Health program, youre going to have a strong linkage to someone else who does. The biggest challenge with ad hd with all of this testing frankly fundament has been the supply line issue. Its going to require some partnerships, going to require on a daily basis making sure that jeff adequate testing capacity, and just because its going to happen and is going to the way things work in the world as you know, a test comes in and the test in the bill and all of this occurs after that which are problems. Just the inability to test. So they will have to have adequate testing, otherwise it cant 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 there were references to the fact that most of the Severe Health outcomes from the coronavirus are among older people. Certainly students in the typical student undergraduate age range are predicted to be more healthy. What i want to just consider several things as we move forward to seeing more campuses reopen. According to the American Federation of teachers, 40 of adjunct or contingent faculty who comprise 75 of total instruction staff are over the age of 60. And im also thinking a lot about our technical and vocational colleges that will probably during the time of excessively high unemployment see a new age demographic beyond what they already have seen as result of the Great Recession. And so im very concerned about not only the safety and health of undergraduate students, but also faculty and the staff that work on our campuses. On top of the college and universities want to do the right thing, but they need very clear rules of the road and workers need to know that they are protected. Its why i worked with several of my colleagues to introduce the every Worker Protection act, which actually requires the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue emergency temporary standards that cover all workers in workplaces, requires workplaces to implement Infectious Disease exposure control plans to keep the workers safe. You stated in your testimony that osha needs to promulgate such a standard. You agree its important for the safety of faculty and staff as will the students they serve that such a standard, not as, voluntary guidance, but a standard being placed place before colleges and universities moved to reopen this fall . And less your standards that everybody can rely on, youre not going to anyway. Those standards are absolutely important to protect workers because they create frankly a floor that everybody can rely on. It doesnt mean you cant do more than that but ive always argued that those kinds of standards or absolute essential. They reduce a whole range of risk and so i would also agree with your statement, senator. Thank you. Thank you very much, senator baldwin. Senator cassidy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the University President s for thinking creatively about reopening schools. Dr. Benjamin click the point that even though yet less risk. The risk is not zero but what we do know is if you miss out on critical years of education, its an absolute 100 risk that your future economic prospects are minimized. And dr. Paxson, so for cdc recommendations seem to be the kind minima standard. They are not what we dr. Benjamin, first to you, knowing that the federal government has been slow coming out with testing strategies for settings like universities, and what they do at lane a can be different than what they do at brown, different than what they do at purdue, louisiana State University or two lane just because different size of the schools, is your organization promulgating or suggesting different strategies so that someone like president hampton is able to get his university reopened and what have strategy about how to use the testing which is available . Were not specifically developing standards. We are encouraging schools and others to develop an learning [inaudible] my apology. Minimal time. I do think its important to have strategy. I think its a portal the government, i think it support for others. President paxson, it appears you put together a strategy. I just want to explore that all of it because i think you can inform others. We understand that if you have an outbreak in a particular dormitory and its not in other dormitories, intuitively you would devote resources to the folks in a dormitory. Is that the beginning of your approach or how would you say that . So even the optimal testing study something were working on carefully, and is going to be data informed and it will change over time. Depends on prevalence but certainly one of the components would be if there was a student who tested positive, their dormitory, their classmates with the people who would do, standard Contact Tracing particles would be tested next. One thing weve been interested in because there might be a limitation on number of tests available is the ability to batch test, to do 100 in a dorm but if a test positive been to each individual. Is that part of your strategy . Were explained that and that something that is still relatively new, free much in tacoma. Batch testing promising as well as wastewater testing where you can test stuff come out of the dorms and to get if anyone in the dorms hasnt. Your delicate when you say stuff come out of the dorm. Yes. President hampton, as you put together your stratagem these folks of medical schools that god bless you, you are much more constrained in terms of resources. Where are you developing your testing strategy from, and what could be done to a few are those situated to implement such a strategy knowing that your student body may have an increased incidence of those comorbid conditions which increased risk . What i begin with, number one, make the investment in our institution. Make that 1 billion investment in the historical black colleges and universities, tribal colleges, and a 46 billion make that investment. We had a little bit of practice with this past spring. We implement protocols where students present at her Health Services and was tested for flu and others and they were screened. We had one incident on our campus in the spring with a student would come in contact with first and we able to isolate the person into an apartment complex, allow the person to go to those 14 days and then had the person to not show any symptoms. Let me ask you because im almost out of time. The strategy that president paxson is put together where you may test wastewater by java micro committee within your campus on whom youre focusing because they have shown to be positive or at least one person within them. Do you all have similar set of protocols or would benefit you for those to be promulgated by some organizations at the cdc or another Public Health organization . A void in fact, benefit us to have those, gated but we do, in fact, have partnership with our Madison County Health Department, with our Health Department to be able to do testing for any of our students or any of our public who believe that they have go get tested and get the results back in 24 hours. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, dr. Cassidy. Senator murphy. And give a much mr. Chairman. This is been and it really helpful 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 it to come back for the right reasons and i wanted to come back safely. And so i wanted to ask a series of questions on this topic because i think its important. Maybe ill start with you, mr. Daniels. I think its interesting that College Sports teams are coming back for practices before professional Sports Leagues are feeling that its safe in him to come back. While ive read through what your universe is doing to try to protect students that are returning, is a contact sport. Theres no way ultimately develop social distancing or Football Team or a soccer team. And so what happens if you have an outbreak over the course of summer training or in the early fall on your Football Team, or on your womens soccer team . Whats your protocol . Do you shut the team down . Did they stop playing this season . Do you just segment all have tested positive . This is a potential for a super spreading environment, if youre not careful. I completely agree with you. I think it would shut it down and i think we will all, someone may face this situation. Our teams are resuming individual workouts, later then some but they are coming back. The conference we belong to has prescribed some guidelines and we will follow them. In some cases exceed them. I think you are quite right, and we love sports, too, but first things first, and that starts with the safety of people, players, coaches. Dont forget the people who may be most risk of spreading of the older folks who coaches and others. I hope we get back, but if it takes longer or if it is subject to interruption, then so be it. Let me ask you a specific question if i could drill down. What happened cq got a scholarship player who doesnt feel comfortable coming back . Lets say theyve got a mother at home or a grandfather that scott medical complications here if they decide not to play football this year because i just dont think its right for them, do they maintain their scholarship . Yes, they would. Weve honored scholarships at purdue for a long time for people who couldnt play or continue for some reason, could be injury or some personal tragedy. So that would be consistent with our policy, and i think i can speak with authority for our Athletic Department that we would see that as right thing to do and the thing we ought to do. I appreciate that. I will note that that is not right now the standard for all ncaa schools and i think would be important for us to make sure it is. Lastly and most important, what we do about attendance at sporting events this fall . Thats what i really worry about. You have the iowa Athletic Director on the record, a member of your conference am saying right now his plan is to let everybody into the football stadium and anybody who wants to come watch can. We had a situation 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. So it worries me we are contemplating putting hundreds of thousands of adults in students into stadiums, especially when a professional Sports League still to be entertaining that i give it what your today . Are we going to have fans in stadiums for events in your conference this fall . Cant speak for any others, but we are not looking at going beyond onefourth of the capacity of our 57,000 stadium right now. This has been mapped out just as weve mapped out classrooms and dorm rooms to measure distance and then exceed the requirements. We would be doing that also succumbs out to about onefourth on the work weve done. Now we know that outdoors is very different, its very hard to spread this outdoors we are still going to take an abundance of caution approach. I cannot tell you about indoor sports. When i dont think i see a way we can pursue anything like the basis that weve all been familiar with. I appreciate that. That is still ten20,000 people altogether for for instance. I think that may be a pretty dangerous endeavor and and i tk its interesting compared to professional sports will decide to make a difference as he i think a topic worth continue to talk about. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator murphy. Senator warren. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to start faq by quickly thinking for comments, acknowledging whats happening in our country. We cant ignore the racist violence that has killed george floyd and im on rbn Breonna Taylor and the many others. We must change pressure using this committee as well as others to advance antiracist policy in health, and education and for workers, including todays hearing as reopening colleges. Millions of families, but insistence across the country are wondering when and how colleges will see if we open know this is a hard question. Thats going to very from campus to campus that president santos, you wrote a recent oped entitled why reopening this od and unacceptable breach of duty. Your oped make systolic you are decided youre going to reopen no matter what this fall. In that oped you discuss how youre going to mitigate risk to but i notice theres almost no discussion of addressing workers or faculty tend to be older and more at risk. They are getting sick at dispr disproportionate. Perhaps 17,000 employees, only half of staff wont be able to work, might get sick, might need to care for a loved one, might have small children that need care or because of their age or Persistent Health conditions may not feel safe coming onto a College Campus during a pandemic. So i want to know if youve laid out publicly a plan for these workers . Well, thank you, senator. And do you agree to continue paying them if they cant come to work or if they decide its too risky to show up for work . Well, thank you. Im so glad you asked the question because first of all, you could not have better expressed our strategy. I dont know if you were here for the opening presentation, but i enunciated with then. Our entire strategy is built around the protection of the vulnerable and that starts with faculty and staff. Starting next week, we will have onetoone visits with our faculty to try to figure out what their we have a grid that attempts to estimate their degree of vulnerability. There are some we dont want near campus at all and well make accommodation. If i can understand, i am im sorry, im limited on plan. Your plan you havent worked it out, but youre planning to work it out oneonone with your employees, is that right . Our plan is based on the protection of the vulnerable and that will include trying to make individual accommodations about whom we have the most concernments i was asking whether or not you already laid out a plan and i take the answer is no. Yes, its very comprehensive and repeat it publicly, i hadnt seen this plan laid out because my question is really about who has power and who has voice in these decisions. You know, best practices are best practices, only if everyone is at the table who is going to be affected when those plans are being laid out. So i just want to move on for the time being, but ill follow up and try to get public commitments that Going Forward youre going to include both faculty and staff at the table and going to explain how this is going to intersect with their pay, and how you safely reopen this campus. Dr. Paxton, i want to stay on the topic of power and accountability. In addition to being the president of Brown University, youre also the vicechair for the board of american universities, which signed letter last week from the American Council on education, which is the very powerful College Lobby urging congress to, quote, quickly enact temporary covid19 related Liability Protection for Higher Education institutions and systems. Doctor, liability only when a college has been behaved unreasonably. They do not impose liability when somebody is sick or dies. And its, for example, in a pandemic, a college doesnt take reasonable efforts to clean up common spaces or to separate desperately sick students. When colleges lobby could change that standard and to walk away from it, even as 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 . You know, would it make you more comfortable or less comfortable as the parent of an incoming student . Dr. Paxon, were 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 were about and if we are careless, if we dont follow guidelines, thats something that should not be protected in any way, shape or form. The fact is though, were in a brand new pandemic, weve never seen this before, in uncharted territories. Many institutions are nervous, even if they play by the rules scrupulously that they will still be subject to class action lawsuits, lawsuits, and probably prevail if theyve done them right, but the cost of defending those lawsuits would take money away from tuition, Financial Aid, not from tuition, but from Financial Aid and the support that we provide for our students. And i am in favor of very carefully crafted Liability Protection that did in no way, shape or form permits us to be careless with peoples lives. Senator warren i want to ask unanimous consent to enter statements for the record on this issue from american for financial support. The borrower protection center, public citizens. American association for justice and georgetown law professor david vladik, people should know that a thank you, senator warren, so ordered. The law requires thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator braun. Im going to lead in with senator warrens question, i think its a valid one to ask in the sense that the safety of your employees, staff at universities, as well as your customers, which would be the students, very important, but underlying the way she phrased that question would be that its not in the extreme interest of the university, of businesses across this country, to keep not only your customers safe, your employees as well. And also, to me, by the way it was stated, assumes that theres not going to be the agility and the ability to do both of them. And my question is going to be tore president daniels and you can continue a response if you want to, but i think rest assured for the people that run the real economy, including teaching our students, they have in their own best interest to do all of the things this kind of bureaucrat particular approach has been to where its tamped down economies maybe unnecessarily, were 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 error in how weve addressed it in the first place. So, president daniels, as any entrepreneur, sometimes your plans dont work out the way you might hope they will. I know in building a business in 37 years, if something went great in the moment, hey, something might come along to derail it. Had the data not shown you or something would change where you bring students back to school, and i think everything youve laid out makes it sound like a great plan. Lets say, if not, how does your involvement with Online Education, i think you call it purdue global, would that have been a backup plan that would have come into play for your students that would want to attend on campus . Tell me a little about that and then more broadly, how you think that part of post secondary education might break the cost curve thats been so tough to do, with traditional education on campus. Senator purdue, global is a separate branch of our university. It serves a very different clientele. The typical student there is a 33yearold woman with a job and usually family responsibilities. Its really aimed at that enormous universe of americans who started college and didnt finish, and helping them get to the finish line and we hope a better station in life. Now, we learned a lot and weve learned a lot about Online Education. As i mentioned, we will be offering to those students who cant get here this fall or choose not to come in person this fall, an online option for their undergraduate education. The purdue global is aimed at basically working americans and i will say, and your question, i think, surfaces this, with the damage that weve done to this economy, it may be that theres a much greater need or a greater market for very affordable, purely Online Education of the kind that purdue global and many other fine schools provide. And dig into that a little more deeply. How long do you think that cost curve will take from the involvement in online undergraduate as well as what youre learning from the trying to educate older students, do you think that is something thats going to be disruptive enough to where like health care, for instance, it costs us double here in our country, roughly, what it does in most other countries, with results that arent any better. Do we have that opportunity through disrupting education in a way, since its the next most stubborn cost increase each year, through technology, through Something Different that most of us might not see at this point in time . The exorbitant, even staggering cost of Higher Education has been an issue for quite some time now. Thank you for voting at purdue weve not changed our tuition in the last eight years and have pledged that that will last at least through a ninth. And we are at nominal terms from 2012. I think weve been able to attract more students and for whom affordability is an issue. In the wake of this terrible pandemic, it seems very clear, i think, that there will be a new pressure on schools and on everyone to find every way possible to make this Vital Service we sell more affordable and i cant imagine wed have any other outcome than that. Keep it up. I think leading the way on trying it make something that is along with health care for most families, the demand is any that we all wanted. Ironically, of course, classic economics, thats where it costs us the most in this country and we need to do much better. Thank you. Thank you, senator braun. Senator king. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for this important hearing and to our witnesses. I have been very, very critical of the administrations handling of the Public Health crisis of this situation. Theres no reason the United States should have more than 100,000 deaths and that the economy should have been hammered by this in the way it has, especially if you look at whats happened in other countries. Since of been critical and im going to continue to be, i feel ive got to give credit where credit is due. The administration has done some things i want to thank them for and some are in this baliwick of helping us work out implementation to the cares act. After it was passed some thought that the aid to students that it would be taxable. The administration was quick to clarify, that its not the case. And some trying to get the ppp loans, and some would looking at students to disqualify them for the ppp loans, and that wasnt the case and ive got to give credit where credit is due because im going to look at how opening is complicated. Folks who play football are amateurs, theyre not getting paid. Folks who play football are disproportionately minorities. Theres been a number of articles in forbes and Sports Illustrated about how football, especially in the power five 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 minorities by going back before we can especially because the ncaa figured this out. When they canceled spring sports like baseball. They told if you want another eligibility you can get it and many who lost their last year of basketball or baseball and were sort of heartbroken about it, figured out a way to get a masters or get an extra year of eligibility. We can provide that for students if they want to without jeopardizing their health because football is a money making proposition, i hope well consider that. Let me get to the critique. Mr. Chair, you said a couple of times, your Opening Statement lays it out so well, the road to reopening is through testing. The road to reopening is through testing and i deeply believe that theres other issues obviously, but the road to reopening colleges is it through testing. The c. D. C. Has a document that they have put out and continually updated. Its online right now, its called considerations for institutions of Higher Education. The most recent update was may 30. Its a very comprehensive document. I just got it here on my iphone. You go through it, principles to keep in mind. Higher education general settings. Housing settings, promoting behaviors that reduce spread. Subpoints under all of those, multiple under all of those. Maintaining healthy environments. What do we have. Maintaining healthy operations, room layout. Water system supplies. Sub point, sub point, sub point and you go through the endest will document not a mention of testing. The c. D. C. Guideline preparing for when someone gets sick, endless sub points, theres not a single mention of testing in the document mentions to give to our universities. And i know our universities dont need a mandate, test everybody or one sixth. But universities dont have c. D. C. , they dont have nihs. They need guidance. If youre going to give universities guidance how the water system is safe or limit the size of activities or what to do when a student is sick. It seems like you would give them some guidance, some recommendation about testing protocols. Mr. Chair, maybe you test everybody who is sick or everybody in vulnerable population, and then maybe youd want to do some sentinel testing randomly to determine the spread of anybodys. And it strikes me you could give that guidance to our universities without a mandate that is too restrictive. My suspicion is this because this has been more general with the administration. They dont want to set goals for testing because they dont want to be measured against those goals, because they know that if they are measured against the goals, were falling short. The only way to get to a goal is by stating it. If you dont state it, youre not going to get there. I think our c. D. C. Does a disservice to colleges small, medium and large if they dont provide some basic guidance about what a testing protocol that would be successful would look like. With that, mr. Chair, i thank you. Thank you, senator kaine. Senator hassan. Thank you, mr. Chair. And 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 in our institutions of Higher Education and as we grapple, with the safety of the Global Pandemic we must remember that Higher Education institutions have historically served as places of civil discourse. As our local communities make our systems equitable and just, i look forward to working with all of you. My question to the three College President s, last week i sent a bipartisan letter to betsy devos, and that students save the Financial Aid that they are eligible for due to the Economic Impacts of covid19. Specifically we asked the department to issue guidance to colleges, to help ensure that students Financial Aid eligibility could be appropriately adjusted and to update the online form to capture recent changes in income for Financial Aid applicants. So, to reach the College President s and ill start with you, president daniel. Can you speak to how your students have been economically impacted by covid19 . I know youve done it through t the and to help the students get the financial help theyre eligible for. Were in the process of finding out which students who have expressed the desire to come to purdue, will finally come and can manage it and i dont doubt that many of them have encountered economic, significant economic setbacks since they expressed that intention. Well know much more over the next few weeks. Im hoping that most of them will be able to do it, but i applaud the initiative that you led and those who joined you in it, clearly we all do all we can to get aid more swiftly and directly, and flexibly which is a point i think you just draw our attention to, to every young person who needs it. Thank you. President hampton . Grant. Its no question that our students have been negatively impacted by covid19. After a majority of students helped and reported back to us while at home. 78 of them said i need help with food. 73 said i need help with health. Our students need the help now. They will need the help in the fall. Based on the previous income, those incomes have now dropped. Their families will have less means to help them. Whether were facetoface, our students need the help. As a result of covid19 and the vicious effects of racism on their parents income. Thank you, dr. Paxson. After the 2008 recession, Financial Aid at brown rose by 12 . The maximum Unemployment Rate during that recession was 10 . Were headed to 20 . Were also hearing from students who are saying i know my was correct, but its no way an accurate reflection of my familys circumstances. So were having to go back to revisit the aid awards because were in an extraordinary time for students and their parents. Well, thank you. I want to turn to dr. Benjamin now, if i can, and i know, dr. Benjamin, you have 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. But youve also spoken about even with the best Public Health protocols in place to ensure that faculties, students and staff practice social dancing and recommended hand washing and wear mavericks. Its inevitable there will be spikes on College Campuses. And what do you think should be for spikes in College Campuses. If colleges are forced to close, what could be done to ensure that students who are leaving campus do not spread the virus in their own communities . The reason i recommended that they closely with their state and local Health Departments is so they can bring quickly, get involved in Contact Tracing and disease containment. Because in many cases these will involve the community as well and you know, the they should have planned for that. They should have written guidelines for how theyre going to handle it. How theyre going to manage it. The spokesperson for the university. How, you know, how do they link protocols with the state and local Health Department, so that theres no debate about who is actually managing the disease outbreak. I would assume in most cases the Contact Tracing activity would be done by the state and local Health Department and not the university, but it depends on how big the community Health Program is at the university. And it may very well want to be involved in that. If you dont have plans for that, it will be at best a mess. So it does require a fair amount of planning upfront and for all of the scenarios that they can possibly think of, would be important. Well, thank you. Mr. Chair, i have lost sight of the clock on my screen. Im afraid i assume thats about five minutes. Thank you. Thank you, senator hassan. Now, i say to the witness is, we only have two senators remaining, senator jones. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i really appreciate your leadership on having this hearing and Ranking Member murray. And also, thanks to all of our witnesses. Let me first associate myself with all of my colleges comments regarding the issues were facing in America Today and the problems were facing, but as we see the issues out there, im also seeing some rays of hope. Im seeing hopes that are peacefully demonstrating. Im seeing people that are getting together to raise their voices, but doing it together locked arm in arm, black and white, folks of all races, religions and walks of life, and i dont think the media often focuses on that as much as they do on some of the more violent protests, but we see it happening all the time. So, i do think theres rays of hope out there. Dr. Hampton, id like to ask you, id like to follow up a little bit with you because as you probably know, i have been one of the champions, i think for hvcus, we have 13 in my state. Senators alexander and murray have a lot of funding for that recently. Ive joined with a couple of colleagues in send ago letter, asking for additional 1 billion funding. How would that be invested, how would that be used by around the country. To make up shortfalls to help with students, infrastructure . How would you use the additional funding that Congress Might could give you. We have a strategy using those funds for. Number one, were using it to make our campus more safe for our students as they return to our campus. Ill look at our numbers and our estimates in terms of where we are. I mean, were going to need anywhere from 3 million to 6 million, to 13 million to fully be able to convert the college from a residential campus to a hybrid campus thats both developing Classes Online and facetoface. So for our purposes, were going to use those funds to support the students and make sure this campus is safe and to begin the conversion of this campus to be able to deliver at a high level, our online courses. I mean, well need those funds for a number of diverse set for additional staff, online services, purchasing digital devices and digital resources, data plans for our students. Our needs are significant. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, i appreciate that. Daniel, let me follow up. As you could probably guess, a Southeastern Conference senator is going to follow up on some of the sports questions that senator murphy and senator kaine said. They asked several that i had. One would be, what steps will you try to take to try to minimize the risk to these athletes and the coaches going in . Certainly you may have to shut down a program. What steps will you take to minimize the risk. Second of all, the loss of revenue is going to be significant. The loss of revenue for colleges is going to be significant. What can congress do to help make up for that . What are you going to plan to do to make up for the lost revenue that supports not only the football and basketball programs, but also, all of the other sports that you have at purdue . Senator, our Athletic Department is put together of very protective plan. There will be a lot of separation at least initially between athletes and lots of testing. Very regular testing to try to spot any infection at the first possible moment and do all the smart things about that. Again, we believe would he could, in an outdoor setting, have at least a fraction of the fans, theyd have to enter into different ways and obviously, be spaced in different ways. But we do think that that part is possible and consistent with safe practices. But were all in very new water here and we may well change some of these directions as we all learn more. But with regard to the dollars question, im not sure that a federal treasure thats already done what its done and borrowed what its borrowed wants to be making up athletic shortfalls. We at purdue, im proud to say, have always operated a selfsufficient Athletic Program which has meant weve never had to weve never imposed a fee or on our students, who are not able to play and may not be that interested in athletics, as much as some of us are. So, on the list of huge problems weve been discussing this morning, i dont want to minimize this one, but i i for one would not urge that you place that high, not nearly as high as helping hbcus and some of the other goals. I appreciate that very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator jones. Senator rosen. Thank you, chairman alexander. Ranking member murray, i want to thank all the witnesses here today for the work that you do to help our students and those that work at our universities. But i believe we really need relief for dreamers and our student veterans and the covid pandemic affected nevadas colleges and universities. The cares act which provided more than 6 billion to our institutes of Higher Education, to provide emergency Financial Aid to students most affected by the pandemic. The new law intentionally provides significant flexibility to institutions in determining how to distribute funding among students, including those who are most in need. Up fortunately, the department of education has decided that not only students who are not only students who are eligible to receive financial, federal aid qualifies for cares act assistance. This decision excludes student veterans, individuals who havent completed the application and daca recipients, many of whom have the added financial burden of supporting their parents, their siblings, their children, being the first in their families to attend college. In april i joined in a letter along with several members of the Committee Asking secretary devos to prohibit this, for institutions of Higher Education, for Financial Aid grants to undocumented students, but have not yet received response. So dr. Paxson, like our educational leaders in nevada you and your university have long supported protections for dreamers, yet, in this and the extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves, do agree with the department of educations position on the undocumented care act. No, i dont. Protecting the students of the future of our country. We should be protecting daca students, veterans, here in this country and thank you, i appreciate that. Id ask all the panelists this next question. That the department of education, this guidance was given that excluded our student veterans. Veterans that have served our country, protected our nation, sometimes theyre older students, they have families. Really important that they continue to get any support they need along with those who dont fill out the applications for many reasons, either they come from fastster families, theyre homeless youth, all kind of reasons the students arent filling out, dont know how to do that. We want to know how your students are going to help, how youre going to help these students and if you agree with that decision to exclude the student veterans and lets begin with governor daniel, and then we can go on to dr. Hampton and return to dr. Paxson again. Well, thank you, senator. I agree these dont seem like wise choices. I frankly did not know about the impact on veterans so thank you for drawing our attention to that. I can just say that as we did to a previous question, that were doing all we can to move money that to scholarships and to Financial Assistance and we do anticipate that whatever shape our applicants were in just two or three months ago, its very different today and were going to need to do more. Senator, a veteran friend willly institution, im not aware of any impact that this ruling had on the veterans act at the college. However for those several students that needed support, who were not eligible for the cares act, we were able to fund those students through our board of trustees that made donations to support all of our students. Thank you. Appreciate that. Dr. Paxson. I would just restate what i said before. I think all students are equally deserving, students deserve an economic ground deserve to be supported and we have not yet received any cares act funding, were awaiting some guidance during the department of education, but our intent would be to support students as well as we can. And i just have a few seconds left, but i just want to address the digital divide. Were going quickly, as we do distance learning, before coronavirus, far too many graduate students of course, they had less adequate broadband access, and that happened up and down the state in the underserved communities. What are you doing to address this digital divide, particularly in broadband, as it might apply to your students . Dr. Paxson, i see you first, and you can go first this time. Were making sure students have Internet Access at home or my phi hot spots. Done well with that. Another thing were helping the city of providence make sure that all of the High School Students in the area have Digital Access because thats been a huge problem for high school education. Thats fantastic, thank you. Go on to, lets see who would like to go next, i guess dr. Hanson. Sourcing and providing digital devices as well as hot spots for our students and were able to use the cares funds to fund some of that. Perfect. And governor daniels . Yeah, a very similar answer. We had problems. Fortunately, they were fairly limited, generally in rural spaces as suggested. And weve been able to come with individual aassistance, as far as i know. We have an Extension Service and we have offices even in small Population Counties and that gave us an advantage in helping those who were struggling. I appreciate that, i appreciate all youre doing, thank you. Thank you, senator rosen. I want to thank senator murray and her staff, as well as our staff for their cooperation and their Technical Expertise today in this hearing. I want to especially thank the four witnesses who all have demanding schedules who have made time for us. This is a more value than you might think, us and to our staffs and for the American People as they listen to president daniel, dr. Paxson, dr. Logan, dr. Benjamin. There is no more sure sign that the American Life is regaining its rhythm than when 70, 75 Million Students head back to college and back to school, which is where we believe they will go and our focus this month is to help make sure they go safely. Today our discussion has been about colleges, and next week, we have been talking about kindergarten through the 12th grade and going back to school, School Safely. Well be having other hearings this month on telelearning, telemedicine, on looking ahead to the next pandemic, as we continue our oversight responsibility. Im going to include in the record a letter from the American Council on education to which one of the senators referred earlier. Its that organization is an Umbrella Organization representing most of the 6,000 Higher Education institutions in the country. It asks 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 every one of the 90 tennessee Higher Education institutions with whom i had a discussion by teleconference last week. The issue of testing came up and my advice to colleges, for example, dr. Hampton talked about jackson, tennessee in our state, the governor said get a test and i know that works because i went down to the Public Health department in my hometown of maryville and waited about three minutes in line and got my negative test and fortunately turned out to be negative a couple of weeks ago. So for colleges and universities who dont have large hospitals or their own capacity to create tests, 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. And then if its needs cannot be met by the state, the federal government will help with that. For example, with swabs or reagents. The admiral testified before our committee 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 dr. Benjamin. He also said that he anticipated that there would be 40 to 50 million tests available per month by september. In addition to that, dr. Collins is heading up an effort at the National Institute of health which we call the shark tank could create a highly competitive environment for one, two, three four new ways for rapid tests which would be tens of millions of more tests. So that there would be an ample supply this fall for universities. So, my advice would be, if theres a question for college or institution about testing, become a part of your states plan and let the state look ahead and help with that. This has been a very helpful and i have some words im supposed to repeat. The record will remain open for 10 days, members may submit Additional Information within that time. Thank you for being here. Our next meeting will be next wednesday, june the 10th. Covid19, going back to School Safely. The committee will stand adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] some unexpected news today when the government announced the latest unemployment figures. The Washington Post writes the federal employment rate declined to 13. 1 in may down from 14. 7 in april. The department of labor said on friday, a sign that the economy is improving more quickly than economists had projected. The economy picked up 2. 5 million jobs in may. As many states and counties began to reopen with the slowing of coronavirus cases nationwide. And you can read more about this at Washington Post. Com. Today, congressman bobby rush, naacp president Derrick Johnson and the mayor of st. Paul, minnesota joined axios on policing and racial inequality. Watch on cspan2, online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Today, catholic archbishop Wilson Gregory of washington d. C. Talks about the ongoing protests across the nation that were sparked by the death of george floyd. Georgetown hosted the virtual event. Watch live on cspan2. Online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Today, the Congressional Black Caucus holds a virtual town hall on race in america, following days of protest over the death of george floyd. Watch live at 4 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. App. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. And be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily washington journal programs or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Provider. Next, attorney general william barr holding a briefing on the governments response to protests across america after the death of george floyd. He discussed how