14 minute read
A Matter of Perspectives
Allegheny College Health Agency Combines Broad Expertise, Strong Support to Unravel Complexity Amid a Global Pandemic
by Patrick Broadwater '93
Allegheny College Trustee Sue Steven ’75 was excited to host an alumni gathering in her Southern California home to help bridge the 2,500 miles between there and the Allegheny campus.
In particular, Steven saw the event as an opportunity for her and her guests to connect pressing environmental issues in their area with Allegheny’s recently announced milestone of achieving carbon neutrality.
More than 40 people had committed to attend the event in March 2020. But on the day of the get-together, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, the strongest signal yet that the country was bracing for widespread impact of the emerging coronavirus.
The event went on as scheduled, but only about a dozen guests actually showed up in person. Among the absentees was Allegheny President Hilary Link, who was expected to fly out the day before but instead announced a temporary closing of the Meadville campus to comply with state travel restrictions. Link had made it only as far as New York City before returning to campus. But she and Steven, a retired microbiologist, would come to spend much more time together over the next several months as part of a multidisciplinary team of experts wrestling with the question of how and when the College should reopen.
The shutdown occurred during spring break, so the administration’s immediate focus was on how to resume learning remotely for the remainder of the semester and helping students retrieve their belongings from dormant residence hall rooms.
By early April, it was becoming increasingly apparent that COVID-19 would be around for the long haul. Link had received a briefing from former trustee Bruce McIndoe ’79, a leader in risk management, technology, and intelligence who had advised major corporations such as Pfizer and Twitter, suggesting that the virus’s trajectory would impact operations well into 2021. In the meantime, decisions would have to be made about the fall semester, set to begin in August.
Could the College reopen to in-person instruction for the fall? Should it even try? Would bringing students, faculty, and staff back to campus put community members at peril? What effect would extended remote learning have on the students’ college experience? Or on their mental health? The College remained on sound financial footing, but how drastically would another six to nine months of an empty campus affect the bottom line? What about a hybrid approach that mixed in-person and virtual experiences?
Link went looking for answers. She immediately recognized that no one individual — including herself — would have the expertise or knowledge to navigate the crisis alone. She needed a team of advisors who could provide in-depth analysis of different aspects of such a complex problem.
“Early on, I surrounded myself with trusted, accomplished experts, including alumni in public health, local medical experts, CEOs of hospitals, and testing companies. I put out a broad ask to our trustees and our campus and the local community to connect me with anyone willing to share advice, and I spent hundreds of hours talking to everyone I could find,” Link wrote in an essay for Academic Leader, a leadership journal.
“I have a doctorate in Italian literature. I needed people who knew what they
Hilary Link, Ph.D.
Allegheny President
were talking about,” Link explained. “My approach was to get as many smart people from as many areas as I could together to talk things through.”
Link initially leaned on McIndoe and Steven, who had dozens of years of experience in the military and private sector working on HIV testing and formerly ran an infectious disease clinical testing lab. In addition, Link consulted with Allegheny Global Health Studies and Biology Professor Becky Smullin Dawson ’00, an epidemiologist. The Allegheny president also kept an open line of communication with Gabrielle Morrow, M.D., a Meadvillebased emergency department attending physician who was on the front lines treating COVID-19 patients.
Those discussions were the genesis of the Allegheny College Health Agency (ACHA), an innovative approach to fill the gap in clinical and public health services in Crawford County, which lacked a county-level health agency of its own.
The ACHA would add experts in epidemiology, nursing, and mental health and serve as a resource to help guide the College’s reopening plan whenever it might be needed. Meeting biweekly by Zoom, the ACHA offered Link and other College
leaders high-level advice, a wide range of professional expertise, and a critical perspective from beyond the campus borders.
“It was a force multiplier for the talent she already had,” said McIndoe. “This diversified thinking and a broad spectrum of perspectives were really valuable. I think the knowledge brought in was the secret sauce that made this an integral part of the decision-making around critical issues of the College.”
Added Steven: “Together, we could help Hilary see around the corner a little bit.”
From a medical standpoint, the College was in a good position to resume in-person operations in the fall. The College’s geographic location in a rural, low-density county was a big factor in Allegheny’s favor. Only a handful of COVID-19 cases had been reported in Meadville by late spring 2020. A strong partnership with the Meadville Medical Center has provided medical care, nursing staff, on-the-ground experience, and support.
“The students wanted to come back, and we wanted to make that happen for them if we could,” Morrow said. “We knew enough from the Centers for Disease Control that we could mitigate the spread based on what we knew and that would allow us to open safely.”
The ACHA was not created to formulate policy. Still, it did prove to be a critical sounding board for Link, helping her think through various reopening scenarios and their respective ramifications. The agency’s accumulated knowledge and experience was a crucial factor in helping Link to make an informed, confident decision in a literal life-and-death situation.
By June 1, 2020, Link had decided to reopen for the fall. Students would be brought back to campus in waves before the start of classes on Aug. 31.
“This was the hardest decision I’m ever going to have to make as a leader,” Link said.
“It took a lot of courage for Hilary to make that decision. We knew that if we opened campus, we were risking students getting sick or a student or faculty member dying,” Steven said. “I wouldn’t say we were unanimous on opening, but once she made the decision, the ACHA was 100 percent behind her. We had to find a way to help make it happen.”
Figuring out how to open was nearly as big of a question mark. The logistics of bringing back nearly 1,500 students, creating safe living and learning environments, providing equal access to all students, and continuing to provide athletics, extracurricular activities, and other facets of student life was a major challenge.
But the ACHA and College leadership worked hand in hand overseeing 12 working groups dedicated to different aspects of reopening. Plans included instituting frequent testing for students, an aggressive contact tracing system, and strong support for students who needed to be quarantined or isolated.
The reopening blueprint also called for revamping the academic calendar to include 12 weeks of on-campus instruction ending in mid-November. Students could then travel home and complete the remainder of the semester online.
“If we could create an environment where students felt safer on campus than they are at home, then they would come to campus,” Steven said. “If students were
immunocompromised, we allowed them to stay home. Or if they had a sick family member, they could stay at home. Individuals could make their own decisions — the majority of our students said they felt it was safer for them to be on campus.”
The plan was a success by any measure. Allegheny maintained a very low COVID19 infection rate — less than 1 percent — throughout the semester, with no documented transmission occurring in a classroom setting.
“Our classrooms were the safest place to be,” Morrow said.
Student and faculty buy-in was essential to the success. Besides adhering to physical distancing recommendations, wearing masks, and washing their hands frequently, students and College employees were asked to pledge support to build a community of mutual care.
“The students will tell you it is hard, but they’ve found ways to adapt,” said Gretchen Beck, associate dean of students for wellness education. “They’ve found ways to connect and operate in creative ways.”
Added McIndoe: “It was incredibly important for the community to be engaged and cooperative. Students made it successful, and it’s just that simple. If you have non-compliant students, it could have been a disaster. If you have too many students who ignore the rules, those are the cigarette butts that start the forest fire.”
Steven likewise gives the faculty a great deal of credit. “We couldn’t have done this if the faculty hadn’t figured out a way to teach whether students are in the room, they’re in the room, students are remote, they’re teaching remotely, or some combination of the four. That was a transformational change,” she said. Hilary Link had been Allegheny’s president for all of seven and a half months before COVID-19 crept onto her radar.
Bits of information about the virus were trickling in from all sorts of places: from her networks of other college leaders, from Allegheny’s international students, from her friends and colleagues in New York City, and from Rome, where she had lived the previous six years and where her son was completing his senior year of high school.
“I remember talking to him, and on Monday everything was fine. He said it was all up north. By Thursday, he was on his way home,” Link said. “It changed within three days. By the time he came home, we knew things were getting crazy, but we didn’t fully understand what was going to happen.
COVID-19 has affected everyone in myriad ways, but it presented unique challenges to a new college president. Rather than taking an extended period to evaluate programs, learn the nuances of a new environment, and chart a long-range plan for the future, Link instead found herself in wartime mode. She faced an urgent need to act to protect the health and safety of the entire Allegheny community, preserve the College’s financial stability, and provide leadership in the greater Meadville and Crawford County area, which led to the formation of the Allegheny College Health Agency (ACHA).
“It’s been indescribable, honestly. I’m used to criticism and people telling me I’m doing the wrong thing, but to hold the responsibility of 1,700 students, 500 faculty and staff, and the community, and not only that, but the future viability of this College, it has been a heavy burden,” Link said. “Every college president has had to go through this, but none of us had ever done it before.”
Bruce McIndoe ’79, an ACHA advisor, said Link’s leadership kept the decision-making process focused on the most important priority. “While there was angst about the economics, 98 percent of the discussion was about the safety of the community, students, and people who work at the College,” McIndoe said. “That was always the conversation and part of having an empathetic leader like Hilary. She was the right president at the right time.”
With all that at stake, Link characterized the decision to reopen the College in the fall semester as the most difficult she’ll ever have to make as a leader.
Said Link: “I am someone who believes firmly in doing research and learning as much as I can and making the best decisions I can make. I know why I make those decisions, so I am not someone who wavers on them once I make them, but the unknowns in this particular area were just so completely overwhelming.
“But at the end of the in-person fall semester, I felt a tremendous sense of relief and pride. Not just for me, but for the all-in effort of our staff and faculty who made sacrifices and for our students who stepped up and did the right thing. It actually allowed me to see a brighter future ahead. If we can get through that, then we can get through anything.”
Sue Steven ’75, Ph.D.
Allegheny College Trustee
It’s hard to overstate the impact that the ACHA had on the reopening process. Not only did the agency bring together a wide range of perspectives and expertise to serve as a critical advisory body, helping Link gather as much information in as many different areas as possible to make an informed decision, but it also helped to carry out the plan.
The ACHA transitioned to be the leading clinical support resource for students. Morrow, with help from a team of nurse practitioners from the Meadville Medical Center, oversees the testing and medical care of the entire student body and monitors all students in isolation (COVID-19 positive students) or quarantine (those who had close interaction with a COVID-19 positive student).
The medical team works closely with the Student Life Office and other campus administrators to make sure that students’ physical and emotional needs are addressed. In addition, students have access to professionals in the College’s Counseling and Personal Development Center and a 24/7 line where they can speak with a counselor at any time.
“We’re all just figuring it out,” Beck said. “When we encounter new circumstances, Dr. Morrow often mentions that we’re building the plane while we’re flying it. I agree with that assessment wholeheartedly.”
Based on the success of the fall semester, there was little debate as to whether or not the College would bring back students in the spring, even with a double-digit COVID-19 infection rate in the local community. Mirroring the fall semester, the College adjusted the calendar for spring, keeping students at home throughout January. To begin the spring semester, students completed one course remotely during a three-week module.
Students then received at-home COVID-19 tests they had to submit before returning to campus in mid-February. That process allowed the College to start the new semester with a “clean campus,” which would be reinforced by two more rounds of testing after students came to campus and rapid testing of more than 150 students and employees per day.
By early March, many on campus had already received their vaccine, athletic teams were scheduling intercollegiate contests, and life was starting to revert ever so slowly back to pre-pandemic ways. “I think we’re coming out of it, but we’re not done with each other yet,” Morrow said. “There’s room to dance and sing and do fun things, but we still have to do it in a controlled way.”
In late March, Link and her President’s Cabinet announced that all classes will be held on campus and in person during the academic year 2021–2022. Beginning fall 2021, unless unexpected health conditions should mandate otherwise, the College expects that no remote classes will be offered. Plans call for residence halls to return to regular occupancy, administrative offices to be fully staffed in person, and athletic practice and competition to proceed per NCAA and ACHA guidelines.
The College will continue to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission on campus with directed strategies following the most current public health recommendations. After extensive consultation with local and national experts, however, Link and her senior leadership team have confidence that all students can be educated in person, safely, beginning in the fall.
“For 206 years, Allegheny College has been a residential liberal arts college offering students the opportunity to learn in the classroom from engaged faculty,” a message to the campus community noted. “In fall 2021, we plan fully to return to this mission.”
That decision has personal meaning for Steven. Her granddaughter, Claire, has decided to begin her college career at Allegheny this coming fall.
“The ACHA efforts not only helped many students this year, but made it possible to enable the College to open next fall 100 percent in person safely, for which this grandmother is grateful,” Steven said.
Gabrielle Morrow, M.D.
Allegheny College Health Agency
