The Syllabus: Keeping track of COVID-19 cases on campus

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a slew of new words to higher education. There's hybrid (1; see below for more details), which is a class format that blends both online and in-person instruction. (Sometimes you'll see the word "blended.") There's cluster (2), which is five or more COVID-19 cases in a proximate space such as a residence hall, fraternity house or locker room. There's off-ramp (3), which is the term UNC-Chapel Hill used this week to describe its move to online-only classes for the rest of the semester.

And to continue the automotive metaphor, the latest addition to the higher ed lexicon is this word: dashboard.

As North Carolina's colleges and universities finish their first or second week of the fall semester, some have rolled out dashboards that give some information about the spread of the virus on campus. But as this Associated Press story put it, the dashboards contain "wildly different levels of transparency." One dashboard in particular contains a lot of data, but most of the others are less complete. And several dashboards aren't all that current because numbers are updated weekly instead of daily.

The UNC-Chapel Hill dashboard, for instance, contains a slew of data: cumulative cases, cases in the past week, dorm occupancy, student testing results and capacity of isolation and quarantine spaces. Of the UNC System dashboards, it's by far the most comprehensive. But if you want to keep track of outbreaks reported at UNC-CH, those notices are posted elsewhere.

N.C. State's dashboard has been a work in progress. The Technician, the student newspaper, called out the university Tuesday for including only positive cases recorded by the student health center. "It is hard to believe NC State has only recorded 20 positive COVID-19 cases since March 2020," the editors wrote.

Turns out the editors' gut feeling was correct. State's updated dashboard now includes results from tests conducted both on campus and off. The adjusted case count: 217 since March, and 41 on Wednesday alone. Two days after that editorial appeared, N.C. State followed UNC-CH up the off-ramp toward a virtual fall semester.

The dashboards at the four UNC System campuses in the Triad are more bare-bones affairs. The N.C. A&T and UNCG dashboards have weekly and cumulative case counts, but show numbers only since July 1. UNCG's also includes on-campus contractors who have caught the virus as well as a breakdown of how classes are being offered this fall. Winston-Salem State's dashboard displays only positive cases for the past week. The UNC School of the Arts dashboard — with current and cumulative cases, testing data and quarantine space in use — presents more numbers than the other three schools.

Three local private institutions, Elon University, High Point University and Guilford College, also publicly disclose their numbers, as does Duke University. But most private North Carolina colleges don't. (They're not compelled to, though the Clery Act would suggest that they'll have to disclose clusters like UNC-CH and N.C. State have been doing.) Elon's dashboard, by the way, has a four-tier alert system. Elon is operating at Level 1, aka the "new normal" during which "cases are rare and transmission of the virus is controlled." Guilford said in its back-to-campus plan that it would use an alert system, too, but I don't see it online anywhere.

The case counts are helpful if you want to see the spread of the virus on campus. But it's clear that university leaders are basing their change in directions on numbers that aren't always displayed publicly. As I noted in last weekend's epic piece on what college campuses would look like this fall, the number of outbreaks and clusters, the ability to care for sick students and the sufficiency of cleaning and safety supplies seem to be the difference as to whether a school will stop for gas, food and lodging at this exit or stay on the highway for a little bit longer.

Here are links to all of the dashboards put up by the UNC System schools:

Appalachian State: www.appstate.edu/go/coronavirus/reporting/

East Carolina: news.ecu.edu/coronavirus-updates/confirmed-cases/

Elizabeth City State: www.ecsu.edu/coronavirus/covidreporting.html

Fayetteville State: www.uncfsu.edu/confirmed-covid-19-cases

N.C. A&T: www.ncat.edu/coronavirus/confirmed-cases.php

N.C. Central: www.nccu.edu/coronavirus/confirmed-cases-covid-19-nccu

N.C. State: www.ncsu.edu/coronavirus/reactivating-campus/testing-and-tracking/

UNC-Asheville: coronavirus.unca.edu/confirmed-cases-covid-19/

UNC-Chapel Hill: carolinatogether.unc.edu/dashboard/

UNC-Charlotte: emergency.uncc.edu/health-advisories/coronavirus-information/confirmed-cases-covid-19

UNCG: update.uncg.edu/covid-19-case-dashboard/

UNC-Pembroke: www.uncp.edu/covidcases

UNC School of the Arts: www.uncsa.edu/coronavirus/dashboard.aspx

UNC-Wilmington: uncw.edu/bestnest/datadashboard.html

Western Carolina: www.wcu.edu/coronavirus/reporting.aspx

Winston-Salem State: wssu.edu/about/road-map-to-fall-2020/covid-19-case-dashboard.html

N.C. School of Science and Mathematics: www.ncssm.edu/protecting-our-community/covid-dashboard

The News & Observer plans to keep track of all of the dashboards in one handy chart. Click here to see if it's able to keep up.

(1) Hybrid instruction usually takes a couple of different forms. In some cases, students are in the classroom one day and online the next. In other cases, some students are in the classroom with the professor while others watch the lesson on a screen in a classroom somewhere else.

(2) Clusters seem to be a big reason why UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State announced this week that they'll go virtual for the rest of the semester. UNC-Chapel Hill has reported six clusters since last Friday — four in residence halls and two at fraternity houses. N.C. State has reported five in the past three days — two at sorority houses, one at a fraternity house and two connected to off-campus student residences. East Carolina, meanwhile, has reported three: two in residence halls and one among its football team, which won't practice indefinitely. Appalachian State also has a football cluster, and the team also has suspended practice.

(3) It's clear to me that English and linguistics departments were not involved in creating these fall 2020 plans. Many universities are calling their plans "road maps," and many use the terms "off ramps" and "dashboards." Yet these plans don't seem to mention of rest areas, speed traps, road blocks, spare tires or road rage, and the word that signals a change in plan is "pivot" instead of "U-turn." That said, critics of these return-to-campus plans would say that what happened this week at UNC-CH and N.C. State was as predictable as driving into high water during a rainstorm. Whether the two universities turned around in time remains to be seen.

Update, Aug. 24: I added NCSSM to the list.