photo by: Conner Mitchell/Journal-World

COVID-19 protocols adorn a doorway on the University of Kansas campus.

The chairs and directors of 38 departments and academic units at the University of Kansas on Monday chided the university’s leaders for a lack of transparency in handling the COVID-19 pandemic and asked KU to commit to additional testing and protocols.

The faculty leaders sent a letter on Monday to KU Chancellor Douglas Girod and Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer expressing concerns that were, in part, spurred by a recent Journal-World article that highlighted how KU had used survey data — that it didn’t share publicly — to justify its plan to hold in-person classes when the fall semester begins next week.

The letter challenged administrators on whether they were living up to moral and ethical obligations in how the university is approaching decisions about its pandemic plan, and asked for more transparency throughout the process.

“Because the entire Lawrence community must be treated as a stakeholder, any obfuscation or lack of transparency regarding policies that will impact the lives of local residents is morally unacceptable,” the letter states.

The letter also makes four significant requests of KU related to the pandemic:

• Commit to making relevant data broadly available when public health is at stake;

• “Continuously test” anyone who enters campus spaces. The letter didn’t provide more details on how often the group believes KU should do that testing.

• Ensure that contact tracing will be done via a pool of KU tracers trained to work with campus populations.

• Release data to faculty members to provide greater clarity on “tipping points” that would require the university to go to an online-only mode or undertake other mitigation measures.

A lack of transparency, however, came up time and again in the letter. The Journal-World reported on Thursday that a survey leaders have touted as evidence of students’ “overwhelming” desire to return to the Lawrence campus for for an in-person fall semester did not actually ask students whether they wanted to come back amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A KU spokesperson acknowledged in the article that the university based that interpretation on 78.5% of the survey’s respondents answering that they “planned” to take at least some of their classes in person. The chairs and directors indicated that many decisions at KU, from both faculty and administrative perspectives, were made using this data which didn’t actually indicate what leaders claimed it did.

“This lack of transparency about relevant data further erodes trust in administrative decisions,” the letter says.

Basic survey data only was released by KU after the Journal-World filed an open records request seeking it.

The letter then proceeds to take Girod and Bichelmeyer to task for publicly misrepresenting what the survey revealed, and said that action put instructors in a position where they are now committed to teaching in person, even as students have regularly requested online accommodations due to safety concerns.

In response to the letter, a KU spokesperson said the university welcomed the feedback, but did not address the lack of transparency or the concerns about misconstruing data that led to the letter’s requests.

“We appreciate input from faculty and staff as we continue to refine our plans for the fall semester. This remains a fluid situation, and we will continue to respond to evolving circumstances in accordance with the latest science and medical guidance,” spokesperson Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said in an email. “Our goal remains to provide our students an engaging on-campus experience to the greatest extent possible while maintaining our focus on health and safety.”

The letter also says that KU represented the survey to faculty members many times as reflecting students’ preferred mode of course instruction, in addition to the “overwhelming” desire to return to campus. Neither of those questions were actually asked in the survey, and in public communications KU had only mentioned the “overwhelming” desire portion of the results.

“KU’s chairs, directors, and faculty have been asked to make instructional arrangements based on this information,” the letter said.

Beyond the KU campus, the dozens of academic leaders also voiced concerns about how the lack of transparency from KU officials could have damaging effects on the greater Douglas County area.

“The need for absolute transparency in this matter is heightened given the inevitable effects that an open KU will have for the wider Lawrence, Douglas County, and Kansas communities,” the letter said. “We should fully expect that an open KU will affect, among others, the Lawrence Public School system, local libraries, local business, and other area institutions.”

The letter’s signatories also took issue with the somewhat hands-off approach KU has taken to contact tracing — the method of tracking down people who may have come in contact with a confirmed COVID-19 positive case. Peer institutions such as Ohio State, they said, have trained students, staff and faculty over the summer to conduct contact tracing and will require weekly testing of all students.

KU, on the other hand, will leave contact tracing up to Douglas County officials and contact tracers from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Part of this, the letter acknowledges, is due to a June law passed in Kansas that prohibits mandatory participation in contact tracing, citing privacy concerns.

The letter, though, linked to plans from other areas that suggest ways contact tracing could be conducted that do not compromise privacy.

“As the State of Kansas flagship university, a home to many experts essential to our fraught times, and a thought leader in the region, KU has an ethical responsibility to its employees, students, and the community at large to make decisions that prioritize their health and safety,” the letter says.

Finally, the letter was critical of a decision announced in a weekly video update last Wednesday that stated KU could and would not inform professors if a student in their class contracts the respiratory virus.

Bichelmeyer said that decision is based on the June law regarding privacy concerns and COVID-19, and that instructors could be notified by county contact tracers, but may not know for sure until the student requests an online adaptation of the course. The letter called such a practice “unacceptable.”

“Faculty are teaching in person to help their university at the behest of KU,” the letter says. “The university must assume a more active role in the event of COVID cases on campus and make information about risks transparently available.”