Employees mixed about in-person return

After multiple online learning extensions, USC students and faculty returned to the classroom Jan. 24 for the second in-person semester since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. In a series of interviews with the Daily Trojan, professors, staff and teacher assistants expressed varying degrees of approval, dismay, and concern about the return to in-person classes. 

John Vidale, a Dornsife College Letters, Arts and Sciences professor of geophysics and seismology, expressed concerns about the University’s timing because of the omicron surge’s trajectory and said that, “ideally,” instruction should have returned two weeks later than it did.

“It’s unfortunate that [the return was Jan. 24], but they had to pick a date a while ago, and they’ve changed it a couple of times,” Vidale said. “So it’s a little risky, but actually, a lot of us are pretty enthused.”

Vidale also said planning involves an inevitable amount of extrapolation, and that maintaining scheduling credibility and adjusting the in-person start is difficult. Ultimately, Vidale said, the return is the “right thing given the circumstances.”

The Keck School of Medicine of USC Chief Mental Health and Wellness Officer Dr. Steven Siegel said he is “entirely on board” with the current in-person plan. Siegel cited concerns about the pandemic’s challenges for new staff members who have not had the chance to “support each other” over the last “18 to 20 months.” 

“Not only are we stressed by the risks to our health, but we don’t have the comfort of each other’s company,” Siegel said.

Sociology professor Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo said she is “delighted to be back on campus” after nearly 20 months away. Hondagneu-Sotelo, who only teaches during the spring semester, spoke positively about the University’s coronavirus procedures. 

“As one of the older people on campus — I’m 64 years old — I know I’m at higher risk than our 20 year olds,” Hondegneu-Sotelo said. “But honestly, with vaccination, boosters, masks — and I hope USC did make changes to our air ventilation systems in our classrooms — all of those things give me a sense of security.”

Because of high case numbers compared to last semester, and for personal comfort and pedagogical benefits, both Vidale and Hondagneu-Sotelo opted to return to in-person instruction with hybrid classrooms. Both professors, however, questioned the hybrid modality’s adaptability in settings outside their own — such as “language, theatre, music [and] hands-on labs,” Vidale said.

Hybrid options have not been afforded to everyone, however. Some staff members said they received mixed messages from the University both before the fall semester and for the spring semester’s in-person return. 

Initially, staff were instructed to submit requests of accommodation to the deans’ office in August, which offered from one to five days of hybrid work. These accommodations were promptly rescinded in an email released Sept. 8, reinstating a full five-day on-site schedule by Sept. 15 as sponsored by the Provost’s office. A staff member who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation and maintaining their employment said the University’s messaging felt “patronizing.”

“We were working the whole time,” they said, “We were not on some sort of extended leave or vacation or anything the last two years and getting paid for it.”

Another staff member, who also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation in their workplace, spoke to the University policy’s discrepancy between expectations for staff and those for faculty. 

“At the end of the day, we all work for USC,” they said. “We want to all be treated fairly and equally and safely”. 

The disparity also demonstrates the “hierarchy” and “old boys’ club” that exists in University leadership, the second staff member said, something meant to be the “antithesis to what USC and the Trojan Family stands for.”

For some faculty and staff, contention remains from last semester over the lack of transparency from University officials. After the University failed to disclose modeling calculations for the Jan. 24 return, Hondagneu-Sotelo said the absence of “reassuring evidence of the HVAC systems, the HEPA filters,” concerned her.

“USC is a wonderful university in many aspects. But transparency? Gets a C minus from me,” Hondagneu-Sotelo said. 

Emily Warren, a doctoral student studying the history of premodern Japanese food and a TA, said she questions the benchmark the school uses to derive its data. 

“I don’t know what the data looks like that the University’s banking its calculations on,” Warren said. “I don’t know if we’re privy to that as students, or which faculty are privy to that information.”

Warren said she is also greatly concerned about the flexibility and channels for coping offered by the University toward staff caring for immunocompromised individuals.“I just would like to be reassured from the University that those people do have the wider support and flexibility,” Warren said. 

The staff members interviewed anonymously said the limited flexibility they’ve been allotted this semester can be “solved through hybrid work.” Coronavirus state-mandated sick hours that expired in September 2021 did not roll over, according to Cal Matters. At present, staff who care for ill family members or who become sick themselves need to pull days from standard sick leave. To decrease the incentive for staff to come into work sick, one staff member said they’d like to see the University offer extended hours for employees affected by the coronavirus.

“Having that safety net of the extra hours would be something that USC could look into reinstating despite what the state legislature says: Let’s do something not just because we’re told we have to,” the staff member said. “This is where you could have some olive branch to employees … Let’s reinforce that idea of community.”