“The university is devoted to being a good citizen,” Gordon Gee, president of West Virginia University, said when he sat down (virtually) with members of The Dominion Post Editorial Board Monday. But the university expects a certain amount of cooperation and support from the community.
At the top of the meeting, Gee talked about a phone call he’d had with the father of freshman who committed suicide after being sent home when the university shut down in-person classes in March. He died of loneliness, the father told Gee. And according to Gee, mental health and (safe) socialization were a defining factor behind choosing to open WVU to in-person classes this fall.
Many have speculated that WVU’s motives for reopening are primarily financial ones, and Gee said, adamantly, that this is false. On the contrary, he said: Bringing students back to campus has been expensive (testing, cleaning, etc.) but “on-campus experiences are powerful” and a key part of students’ mental health. Sitting in a basement, said Gee, isn’t healthy.
The timing of classes going online right after tuition payments were due is largely coincidental. The three-week (now two-week) hiatus of in-person classes was a direct response to the spike in university-related COVID cases and the house parties — a chance to let the rapid increase in positive cases calm down. WVU has every intention of starting on-campus classes again on Sept. 28. “I hate to punish the many for the sins of the few,” Gee said, but such decisions are made to ensure the safety of students and townies alike.
Gee likened WVU and Morgantown to the Vatican and Rome: A sort of sovereign entity within the city. Gee sees it as unfair sometimes that the university and Morgantown are so closely linked, and it’s doing everything it can to help get Mon County schools back in class and sports back on track. Along those lines, he’d like to see the WVU COVID numbers excluded from Monongalia County’s cases.
This is where we disagree with him. Gee perceives the university as distinct from the city; linked but separate. But WVU and its students don’t exist in a bubble: Students, staff and faculty live in the Mon County community. They shop at the same stores as us; they visit the same doctors’ offices and hair salons as us; they work in our businesses and live in our neighborhoods.
We may not agree with everything WVU has done — or not done — in response to the coronavirus pandemic, but our meeting with Gee indicated a genuine concern at the university for the wellbeing of the students, the town, the county and the state. There are more factors to take into account than we as outsiders would even consider. We hope the university continues to make decisions with the town’s and the students’ best interests at heart. And if we disagree with it, we won’t be shy about saying so — and we’re sure you won’t be either. For now, though, we’ll take Gee at his word.
