To the editor:

In the August 14 edition of the Journal-World, an article reports on concerns that KU misrepresented survey data to justify opening campus to in-person classes. Why on earth would KU administrators do that? So that they would have to work 24/7 all summer long? So they could spend millions of dollars and human hours providing PPE and creating socially distanced classrooms to make the campus safe? So, they could force people to teach in-person? That’s ridiculous.

They used the best data they had to make the difficult decision to have an in-person experience for students who want it. And, what 19-year-old college-bound student do you know who does not want to go “off to college?”

One can always second-guess survey data. The chancellor and provost have a fiduciary responsibility to keep the place going. A decline in first-year attendance would affect KU’s bottom line for years. The whole community depends on KU succeeding. Instead of trying to bite the hand that feeds us, why don’t you write about the tremendous work the Center for Teaching Excellence and the Center for Online and Distance Learning have done to help faculty prepare for “hyflex” teaching or about the efforts undertaken to make campus safe? It’s really quite amazing.

Susan Twombly,

Lawrence