Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins: ‘We Will Have A Plan In Place’
One day after Notre Dame released its plan to begin the fall semester on Aug. 10, eliminate the fall semester break in mid-October and conclude the term by Thanksgiving weekend, school president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., reiterated to MSNBC on Wednesday that the campus can be a safe haven.
Entering his 15th-year in office this July 1, Jenkins told MSNBC journalist Ayman Mohyeldin that he and the university are realistic about COVID-19 having the capacity to have another outbreak. He also was confident that measures to have facilities for isolation or quarantining students are and will be in place.
“That may happen, but we have the facilities to treat them,” Jenkins emphasized. “For young people, this is not a highly dangerous disease. If you’re young, if you’re healthy … sometimes you don’t even show symptoms, but you can get back. That we can certainly manage.”
A significant part of the “Notre Dame experience” is the campus residential life and daily interaction in a relatively smaller, private university setting. Returning to that way of normal is vital to the school’s culture, according to Jenkins, but it has to be balanced with the knowledge of the dangers that come with potential exposure to the virus or behaviors that put you at risk to it.
College campus life, or off campus for that matter, will have its own inherent perils, especially in regard to social distancing. Still, regular testing for the coronavirus, and other precautions, will be prioritized.
“If we get to a point where it’s massive or it overwhelms facilities … we will have a plan in place to deal with that,” Jenkins said of a potential outbreak. “But if that’s the case, it’s probably the case for society in general and we have to manage that.”
The Aug. 10 start is two weeks prior to the original semester plan. Eliminating the mid-semester October break helps keep the students mostly on campus rather than spread out for a week throughout the country and then return. Finishing by Thanksgiving means it will occur before peak flu season from December through February. By the start of the second semester in January, hopefully far more answers and solutions will be in place.
“We’re pretty confident that if can get these students back [in August], that it will be a healthy and safe place, and we can complete the semester,” Jenkins said.
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