Fresno State considers ending all in-person classes. Some students want it to happen now

Just weeks into the fall semester, Fresno State students are voicing their frustrations with what they’re calling lax health guidelines, stringent attendance policies, and sudden class changes.

Some have called for the president to stop in-person courses altogether, while others are frustrated their classes have gone online after signing leases and purchasing parking passes.

Meanwhile, Fresno State leaders are considering switching to all-virtual classes after the Thanksgiving holiday, when many of the campus population would be returning from spending time with others in the community.

“The University is considering a number of options, if necessary, including the transition of all in-person classes to virtual after the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Fresno State spokesperson Lisa Boyles Bell. “A final decision has not been made. Any such decision will take into consideration guidance from local public health officials and from the CSU Office of the Chancellor.”

As of Sept. 10, 248 members of the campus population have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. That’s an 84-person increase since the last update on Aug. 9. In addition, 43 additional cases are being investigated, according to the university.

Some students say they are increasingly feeling unsafe, and were not prepared for the ups and downs the pandemic has caused at the university.

“They aren’t social distancing, they aren’t providing masks nor sanitizer, they aren’t enforcing that students actually wear the masks correctly, and they aren’t contact tracing anywhere near as accurately as they should,” said student Nicholas Ctibor, about on-campus students and employees.

Ctibor, a business administration major set to graduate in the spring, started a petition this week urging Fresno State to switch to mainly virtual classes again. Already, hundreds have signed, citing rising COVID cases and deaths that are leaving scarce beds available in hospital ICUs.

Anyone on campus must be vaccinated or have an exemption form on file by Sept. 30. Unvaccinated students and employees must be tested weekly.

Fresno State has published its protocols for coronavirus cleaning, testing, vaccination and more on its website. It includes masking indoors and, when social distancing isn’t possible, outdoors, and a “rigorous cleaning and disinfecting schedule.”

Ctibor said he felt safe attending in-person classes earlier in the year as cases waned, but “now they aren’t taking action when hospitals throughout our entire Central Valley are over capacity.”

He said some students never had an option to start virtually.

“Many majors, including mine, have very few online options. In finance specifically, there are only two classes offered online.

“It wasn’t possible to switch schools so close to the start of the semester as new COVID cases arose, and I expected the school to make corresponding actions in the event of a crisis.”

Some students signing the petition say they were never officially notified that someone in their class tested positive for COVID-19.

Boyles Bell said normally faculty are advised via email of a positive test in their classroom, and “our Environmental Health & Safety case investigators follow up with impacted students to provide guidance about quarantine protocols depending upon their vaccination status.”

Whether or not a student is contacted depends on time and proximity to the ill person, she said.

Students said that means not everyone in the class is notified.

Boyles Bell said Monday afternoon that, going forward, the university is adjusting its protocols.

“We will advise all individuals in a classroom if someone has tested positive, regardless of the risk exposure,” she said in a statement. “Individuals needing to be notified are identified through class rosters.”

Other students said instructors are still enforcing strict attendance policies during the pandemic, causing some to question whether they should still attend school when feeling sick so their grade won’t be affected.

Others are frustrated at what they say is a lack of communication.

Margaret Wareham said she was frustrated that her daughter, a Fresno State student, signed a yearlong lease in Fresno, purchased a parking pass, and signed up for in-person classes, only to be informed a week before school began that three out of her four classes had moved online. Because of how her class schedule changed, she had to take the option of attending the fourth online.

Wareham and her daughter are from Bakersfield.

“We moved her down there to attend classes in person, so she’s basically living in Fresno for no reason,” Wareham said. “She’s very very lonely and she doesn’t really know anybody there.”

Her daughter, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said not interacting socially has been hard on her mental health, and also on her studies.

“It definitely is not as easy to learn that way, which is another reason why I was so disappointed that the classes were moved online,” she said. “It is harder to focus and these are my core classes. I need to focus and learn this material.

“I talked to some of my classmates and some others in the same major had the same issue,” she continued. “They moved their entire lives from different towns to Fresno and just less than a week before classes started, they were told, you know, they’re online.”

But she said despite the hardship, she was not going to drop out.

Boyles Bell said the decision to move classes either online or in-person is not an “individual faculty decision.”

“When the University developed its in-person course schedule last spring, our faculty were advised that our plan for fall could change depending upon the continued impacts of the pandemic.”

She said the plan for fall 2021 included an assumption that courses could be transitioned, but the majority of courses remain in-person.

But, she said, Fresno State is allowing instructors who teach large lecture classes, between 70 and 300 students, to switch to virtual either temporarily for September, or for the semester.

Boyles Bell also said students who have had their courses unexpectedly switch from in-person to virtual are eligible to receive refunds on parking permits.

Wareham, who works in education, said she wasn’t expecting things to be perfect, but she would like acknowledgment from Fresno State about how things aren’t working.

“I just think it’s really disheartening, how Fresno State has treated this, and I feel like it’s affected a lot more people than they’re putting out there.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab here.

This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 5:00 AM.