Administration: B

This past year has been a communications struggle for a university administration that should be entering its stride. Closing in on two years since university President Darryll Pines took office, any vestiges of a honeymoon period have faded.

Navigating the administration’s actions and messaging on COVID-19 measures was like trying to avoid a fine on a winding road that has every traffic sign imaginable. Bifurcations, stops and speed limits took the form of inconsistent mask mandates, abrupt ends to services and unenforced testing requirements. The lack of clear messaging led to a confusing situation.

The messaging troubles carried over to other areas as well. Pines’ comments about sexual assault in Greek life and developing Guilford Woods faced backlash. The university eventually paused development of Guilford Woods, seemingly in response to the backlash. 

But the university does deserve some credit.

Dedicating the new dining hall to the Piscataway tribe, announcing new cultural centers and focusing on the importance of interdisciplinary research provided a forward-thinking outlook. 

The university made incremental yet notable pay raises for some graduate assistants, and Student Affairs Vice President Patty Perillo indicated some departments could offer a $15 minimum wage for student workers in the coming months. Without a commitment to a date, it remains to be seen whether this teased possibility manifests in paychecks. 

There is no substitute for clear communication. The university administration would be best served to convey timelines, priorities and rationales aptly and honestly.

GSG: A

The GSG continued its focused approach to advocate for graduate students.

The insufficiency of current graduate student housing options has been an issue the Graduate Student Government has been cautiously championing. The complexity of the issue requires a measured approach. Accessibility, proximity, zoning restrictions and negative externalities inherent to new developments present persistent challenges.

The GSG has made efforts to evaluate and advocate for affordable developments. Members brought a pragmatic voice to the Guilford Woods debate. The controversial proposal culminated with President Pines and GSG President Tamara Allard announcing a pause on the development. With interest in redeveloping Old Leonardtown to meet graduate student needs and the seeming inevitability of developments in Guilford Woods, the GSG has kept the issue afloat in the university consciousness. 

Many of the issues the GSG brought to the forefront had specific financial implications for graduate students. From standardizing internship policies to consolidating mandatory student fees into tuition, GSG supported measures with a clear course of action. 

Overall, the body gets marks for consistent, targeted efforts.

City Council: B+

An election year for the College Park City Council saw two contested races, one of which unseated a 10-year incumbent. The elections saw the lowest turnout in almost a decade.

Shortly after, the council moved into a dazzling new city hall building. 

Homeownership and housing development remained a focus of the council. The council expanded  eligibility for grants and allocated $3 million in federal pandemic relief funds to a neighborhood stabilization project.

The council’s continued commitment in this area helps address ongoing concerns about displacement from new developments. 

The council showed further resolve in opposing a redistricting plan for Prince George’s County, which  the Maryland Court of Appeals later overturned. 

Previous years’ funding cuts for live camera surveillance raised concerns in the community and strong support from UMPD to reallocate funds. This led the council to reconsider. 

The council demonstrated its ability to tackle issues relevant to the long-term vitality of the community. A council that listens and acts can perhaps be brought closer to the city it serves, despite paltry poll numbers. 

SGA: C

Perhaps the Student Government Association’s biggest struggle is to be taken seriously. It’s an enduring struggle that underlies many of its other struggles.

The one time the SGA demonstrated a sense of urgency this past year — when it pushed to move exams online amid a COVID-19 surge — failed to have an effect. 

It’s hard to make sense of the SGA’s sea of resolutions. With a lack of clear focus on defining what actually matters to the undergraduates, the SGA’s advocacy falls short. At least they still talk about improving themselves and substantially raised honoraria for top members. 

But the SGA does have the ability to tangibly help students.

The body allocated almost $100,000 for a community center exclusively for student members of the Multicultural Greek Council and the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

This is a positive, necessary step — and it should be the norm, not the exception.

Dorm Life: C

Dorm life continues to be disappointing for students. Water seemed to be a particular foe this year, with residential facilities kept busy with hot water pipe bursts that flooded St. Mary’s Hall and another burst pipe affecting multiple floors of Cumberland Hall. Both issues seem to be due to aging infrastructure.

The resident life department’s plans to remove air conditioning from Cumberland is a step in the wrong direction. Cumberland will become the ninth dorm without air conditioning. 

At least unlimited laundry will be included in housing costs next year, so students won’t have to remember to reload their Terrapin Express. 

Instead of proactively preventing issues from occurring, resident life is content responding after the fact. When the department does look ahead, changes are ineffective at improving student life — or simply detrimental. 

As long as the department prioritizes costs over residents’ lives, students will continue to have a fairly universally dreadful experience living in dorms. 

Dining Services: B+

Economic pressure certainly hasn’t made Dining Services’ job any easier this year. Dining halls struggled with ingredient and labor shortages that affected menu item availability. Costs were also one of the causes of the end of take-out dining in the fall. 

Dining Services brought Iftar dinners back in the spring to support students observing Ramadan.

251 North suffered the brunt of health issues, from being found non-compliant with two state health code standards to being the source of two alleged cases of food poisoning. 

But for all its struggles, Dining Services responded relatively well, raising union-represented workers’ minimum wage to $15 — though non-union workers still lack certain important benefits — and reverting dining halls to take-out only during the omicron variant surge at the end of the fall semester. 

Plus, a grill and cafe opened in the South Campus Commons Shop, 251 North debuted new burger stations and the new Yahentamitsi Dining Hall is set to open next semester. 

Dining Services stumbled a bit with its execution, but its efforts to respond to community concerns despite difficult economic circumstances is commendable. 

Devon Milley, editor in chief, is a senior information science and journalism major. She can be reached at diamondbackeditor@gmail.com

Ella Sherman, managing editor, is a senior journalism major with a music and culture minor. She can be reached at diamondbackeditor@gmail.com

Nataraj Shivaprasad, managing editor, is a junior electrical engineering major. He can be reached at diamondbackeditor@gmail.com

Anthony Liberatori, opinion editor, is a senior environmental science and policy and philosophy, politics and economics major. He can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.com

Jessica Ye, opinion editor, is a junior economics and government and politics major. She can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.com

A key policy for the upcoming semester is requiring KN95 masks in classroom settings. Despite this sweeping requirement, the university continues to only provide one free KN95 mask to each university community member. While KN95 masks can be used multiple times, they need to be replaced to remain effective and hygienic. The university provides no guidance on procuring additional KN95 masks, leaving students to meet the requirement at their own expense. This raises accessibility concerns, given the higher cost for KN95 masks, with prices up by almost 400 percent since November according to data from one Amazon price tracker. 

The lack of guidance on obtaining KN95 masks, seems especially imprudent given the deluge of counterfeits on the market. A September 2020 analysis by health care advisory nonprofit ECRI found that 60 to 70 percent of imported KN95 masks don’t filter the 95 percent of particles they claim to. Without making proper KN95s more accessible, the university risks implementing a half-masked mandate at great cost to students. 

The costs extend to COVID-19 testing. Maryland is no exception to the national testing shortage. Ahead of the holidays, Prince George’s County saw close to three-hour wait times to get tested for COVID-19. Rapid at-home coronavirus test kits have also been costly and hard to come by. Individuals can register for free federally distributed rapid tests starting on Jan. 19 — but they would have to wait over a week for their tests to arrive. By then, spring classes will have already begun. This raises concerns on how the university expects all students to get tested for COVID-19 before coming to campus.

But the university’s self-described “testing requirement” falls short of being a requirement. 

In the latest campuswide email from University Health Center Director Spyridon Marinopoulos, the university clarified that its testing requirement did not require proof of test results. This can understandably cause confusion when other requirements, such as the vaccine booster requirement, do require proof. A requirement without enforcement should not be called such. The university would be better served to honestly communicate its reliance on shared responsibility, instead of engaging in hollow dictation. 

The sincerity of these policies is further diluted in a blend of inconsistency. After dining halls shifted to carry out in the last days of the fall semester, the university has not announced plans for the spring semester. If last semester is any indication, however, dining halls could remain dine in only, in favor of Anytime Dining. The university has cited the environmental impact of carry out, program cost concerns and creating community experiences as support for the Anytime Dining model. At the very least, the university should provide flexibility to students who are concerned about eating in dining halls operating at full capacity. Otherwise, the university would be signaling to students that its COVID-19 safety policies only go so far as to limit costs for itself. 

At a time of great uncertainty, one thing students should not have to be uncertain about is the university’s commitment to its precautionary measures. Without clear communication and support for broad policies, the university merely makes a gambit to save itself from legal and financial jeopardy, leaving students agonized over costs, safety and the merits of “requirements.” It also raises questions on how much additional risk is mitigated on a campus that is already 98 percent vaccinated and required to receive a booster for the upcoming semester. Students deserve clarity from the university administration — not sanctimony.

Sexual assault is not a new issue at the University of Maryland. For half a century, university students have fought against a systemic culture of sexual violence at this university, from marching in support of survivors to distributing rape whistles to fighting for the creation of assault prevention programs. For decades, students have endured trauma, yet still shared their stories to the campus community in hopes of protecting others. 

So when the president of this university speaks on sexual assault and rape culture, you’d expect a statement that’s both sensitive to the experiences of students and understanding of the complicated factors surrounding sexual assault.

Instead, when university President Darryll Pines was asked by The Diamondback last week about sexual assault on the campus, including within Greek life, he said, “I don’t think we have a big problem here in Greek life.” He further explained that he hasn’t heard of many cases of sexual assault at this university, yet idealistically opined that he wished he could eliminate the problem altogether. 

Statements like the ones Pines made aren’t only out of touch or insensitive: they’re dangerous. Pines’ uninformed comments on sexual assault within Greek life enable rape culture and discredit survivors on this campus. 

Sexual assault is undeniably an issue across universities in the U.S. An Association of American Universities survey found on college campuses, around 26 percent of female undergraduate students experience rape or sexual assault. For men, seven percent of undergraduates and 23 percent of transgender, genderqueer and nonconforming college students experience rape or sexual assault. 

While the issue of sexual violence on campus is already pervasive, those statistics are more than doubled when looking at women in Greek life. Students in sororities were found to be over three times more likely to have experienced “nonconsensual sexual contact” than non-Greek-affiliated women. 

A federally funded study even listed “sorority membership” as a risk factor for sexual assault. In September, another study reaffirmed these findings, concluding, “Greek membership is consistently associated with higher sexual assault prevalence rates.”

The statistics are entirely clear: there is a sexual assault epidemic on college campuses. This university is no exception.

Last month, sexual assault allegations emerged involving the Maryland chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. And this is only the most recent example of the dangerous culture within Greek life. A former university student rose to relative prominence after releasing SNAPPED, a podcast that called out her experiences with rape culture, misogyny and slut-shaming in and around her sorority. Her story isn’t an isolated incident. Recently, students at universities across the country have been protesting incidents of sexual violence instigated by members of Greek life. At this university, students and alumni are speaking out on social media to express their outrage over Pines’ comments. 

As president of this university, it’s not Pines’ job to be the first line of emotional support for sexual assault survivors, and we don’t expect him to be. But we do expect better from him than “not a problem” — because there are thousands of students and alumni who would likely say otherwise.

In 2020, there were 30,875 undergraduate students enrolled at this university. If we apply the AAU statistics on sexual assault to this university’s undergraduate population, approximately 3,840 out of the 14,828 female undergraduates and 1,091 out of the 16,047 male undergraduates on campus would have experienced sexual assault.

Yet, the number of cases actually investigated or logged through the university and University of Maryland Police would suggest there are effectively no cases at this university. According to University Police, 11 rapes were committed in the four years before the pandemic. At the Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct, 148 complaints were filed for sexual assault in the same period. 

These suspiciously small figures aren’t emblematic of a lack of sexual assault at this university. Instead, they’re just a reminder of how underreported sexual assault is. The university’s statistics only represent those who decide to come forward to report their case, formally file and submit a complaint and, in the case of the police, prove their trauma. 

Reporting sexual assault is painful enough as it is — Pines’ dismissive comments doesn’t make it any easier. His assertion that this university’s Greek life doesn’t have an issue not only ignores and disrespects survivors who decide to come forward but also erases the valid experiences of those who decide not to. 

Pines’ statements are irresponsible, ignoring sexual assault survivors’ trauma and strife. In one fell swoop, he blamed both survivors of sexual assault for not speaking up as well as dismissed any possibility of widespread sexual assault existing at this university. Why would survivors of sexual assault at this university report anything when their own president won’t acknowledge their existence or experience?

Not acknowledging sexual assault and rape culture at this university won’t make it go away. Pines couldn’t have done a worse job speaking about sexual assault at this university. Instead, his comments beg a host of questions about why he said them in the first place. What proof does Pines have that there isn’t a problem with Greek life at this university? Why would he say something so against what student advocates have been vocalizing for ages? 

It’s too late for Pines to take back what he said, but it’s not too late for him to listen to student activists and educate himself about the reality of sexual assault at this university. If Pines doesn’t think there’s a “big problem” with this university’s Greek life, then he’s truly not in touch with the students he claims to lead.

The University of Maryland’s CARE to Stop Violence crisis line can be reached at (301) 741-3442. The university’s counseling center can be reached at (301) 314-7651. Individuals can file sexual misconduct or discrimination reports through the university’s Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct here.

This story has been updated with statistics that reflect a wider set of data.

Administration: B+

In a year ruled by confusion and fear, university President Darryll Pines and his nascent administration did surprisingly well. Their stringent COVID-19 safety measures — including keeping almost all courses online, changing the dining halls to a takeout system and requiring testing every other week for students on the campus — prevented a significant outbreak of the virus on the campus, even if many of their decisions felt reactive.

Beyond COVID-19 safety, Pines and his administration took progressive action unmatched in former university President Wallace Loh’s tenure. Pines announced major action on climate change and Black student issues — and set up dashboards to ensure transparency. Perhaps most notably, the administration finally discontinued their contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

But several major lapses stand in the way of a stronger grade for this university’s administration. While the university generally worked hard to protect students, some low-wage workers reported unsafe working conditions — and the administration refused to negotiate with the union on the issue. Despite a massive student movement, the administration wouldn’t add a pass/fail option for the fall semester, and only implemented a partial pass/fail approach in the spring. And many longtime issues remain unaddressed, including the university’s relationship with defense contractors, the stagnation of Black and Hispanic enrollment representation and the failure to wipe the names of racist historical figures off university property. 

In all, this appears to be a positive step for this university’s administration. However, Pines must prove that these changes are more than performative. The university must follow through on its commitments and continue to serve students beyond the pandemic. 

SGA: A-

This year’s SGA slunk by with little fanfare or drama, managing to do surprisingly well given the ongoing pandemic. The body made several notable, positive moves: It submitted a bill to the Maryland General Assembly that proposed adding a layer of student review to the way the University System of Maryland allocates student fees — which was prudent, given that it’s students  paying those fees. It allocated $350,000 toward supporting students’ financial needs through the Student Crisis Fund, which was part of about $1 million the body allocated to student services in total. It began to build bridges with Latinx organizations on campus; and with a legislature entirely led by students of color for the first time in the Student Government Association’s century-long history, it established its first-ever Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American caucus in the fall, bringing wider representation to its deliberations. 

But it wasn’t all good. Sure, this year’s election lacked drama — but it also lacked a second party. Despite the body’s unanimous support for a bill urging university administration to reconsider its decision not to offer pass/fail grading options in the fall, no such reconsideration occurred. And, having learned nothing from last year’s last-minute veto, the SGA spent nearly eight grueling hours amending its bylaws during its final session. 

Overall, though? Not bad. Maybe there’s hope for the SGA yet. 

City Council: B-

This year, the College Park City Council focused heavily on housing and business development. The council approved new housing plans along Knox Road, and it seemed that both the council and housing developers cared somewhat about ensuring affordable rent prices for both students and local businesses. With the destruction of existing housing making way for the construction of much more, we’ll see how committed the council is to ensuring affordable housing for its constituents and avoiding further displacement of local businesses. 

Despite it not being a usual election year for the council, the body saw some turnover with the resignations of former city manager Scott Somers and former District 2 council member P.J. Brennan. In November, Llatetra Brown Esters won the election to replace Brennan, and Natasha Hampton was named as Somers’ replacement in May. 

The council also created a steering committee to approach restorative justice in the city’s Lakeland community — a historically Black neighborhood that suffered under a city-approved urban renewal plan in 1970, which forced many residents to leave the area.  

After last year’s unruly social gathering debacle, the council found that as of October there had not actually been any violations of the ordinance. However, the council voted to penalize ordinance violators without a warning in the case of an emergency. This absurd decision made no sense as the pandemic limited opportunities for gatherings or parties. There were no violations of the ordinance, so why continue to penalize students for transgressions they haven’t committed? This ordinance continues to drag the council down, and points to a continued disconnect with students. 

GSG: A-

Throughout the past year, members of the GSG have advocated for actions and policies that address important topics.

One such topic was the need to protect international students from federal policies that threatened their ability to attend this university. In September, the Graduate Student Government created an International Student Affairs Committee.  

In November, the body passed a bill to fight marginalization of students from underrepresented communities in this university’s physics department. 

The advocacy for students didn’t falter throughout the year, earning the governing body a high grade from this editorial board. During a town hall with university administrators in February, members continued to press for action to support international graduate students. In the spring, the body pressed for improved parking signage and ticketing across this university’s campus — urging the Department of Transportation Services to clarify whether or not students who work as graduate assistants can park in spaces designated for faculty and staff. 

The consistent advocacy for international students, as well as the graduate student experience on this university’s campus, shows cohesive goals and agendas set by the governing body that aimed to serve the community of students it represents both near and far from campus. 

Res life: D- 

The Department of Resident Life was no friend to students this year. Quarantine units set up by the department to house those who contracted COVID-19 were, by many accounts, dismal: Students had frantic moving experiences followed by flooded floors, sewage leaking up from shower drains and strange meals that cost students without a dining plan $21.25 a day. 

All dorm rooms became singles for the year, except suite and apartment-style dorms. But that didn’t stop the coronavirus from spreading through Denton Hall — or later, La Plata Hall. It didn’t stop quarantine housing from filling up halfway by late September, prompting the university to consider adding more dorms to its quarantine and isolation housing effort. 

All of this, of course, is awful icing on the disastrous cake that was the university’s failure to adequately heed the cries of students trapped in lease agreements at South Campus Commons and Courtyards apartment complexes. The eventual agreement between this university and the company that manages the apartments resulted in measly measures: Students got rent forgiveness on just five months of their 12-month leases during a majority-virtual, virus-ridden, anxiety-filled year. 

It wasn’t all awful. Construction on the new dorms continues to plod along — the buildings will be named after former students who broke racial barriers. Dining halls implemented a grab-and-go model that kept students fed, and Dining Services managed to debut some new dishes for tasting in the spring semester. 

Tastings and continual construction aside, though, Resident Life has — yet again — proven it doesn’t have students’ best interests at heart.

Angela Mecca, editor in chief, is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at diamondbackeditor@gmail.com 

Sahana Jayaraman, deputy managing editor, is a senior journalism and criminology and criminal justice major. She can be reached at sahana@terpmail.umd.edu 

Jake Foley-Keene, opinion editor, is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.com 

Maya Rosenberg, opinion editor, is a senior journalism and public policy major. She can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.com 

Students are grasping at straws to gain some semblance of control over their education. Yet when presented with the chance to give students some agency about their grading method, the university refused. 

Earlier this week, Provost Mary Ann Rankin announced that — instead of implementing a pass/fail grading policy like last semester, something thousands of students have asked for — the university is extending the deadline to withdraw from a class by three weeks. 

The extension is not an equal trade for a pass/fail system, and this measure mostly ignores students’ needs while prioritizing profit — something this university’s administration has done time and time again.  

Students who anticipate doing poorly in a course now have more time to decide to withdraw so it doesn’t affect their GPA. However, taking a “W” means they will have paid for a class without receiving any credit for the work they did for most of a semester. In a pass/fail system like last semester’s, students with low but passing grades would have the option to earn a “P” on their transcripts instead, leaving both their GPAs and their hard-earned credit intact.

In her announcement, Rankin argued that a pass/fail system would hurt those who want to apply to graduate school or other post-graduate accreditation programs. This makes no sense. First, the pass/fail grading system would be optional. If students want a letter grade — for any reason, graduate school included — they can take a letter grade. 

But also, universities across the nation, including those as prestigious as the University of Virginia, are amending their grading systems amid the pandemic; thus, graduate and accreditation programs will be viewing thousands of transcripts with grading methods altered by COVID-19. This university’s students would likely not look any less competitive with a pass/fail system. 

Rankin also asserted “it is in the best long-term interest of our students” not to implement the spring grading system again. But students have repeatedly shown they have thought through the implications of a pass/fail system. More than 7,500 people have signed a petition asking for the system, and both the Residence Hall Association and the Student Government Association unanimously passed resolutions asking for the system. 

University officials are fine — happy, even — asking students to make life-altering decisions about whether to take on thousands of dollars in student loan debt or whether to come to the campus amid a pandemic. Yet when it comes to a decision about grading, they are patronizingly sure they know best.

They don’t. 

But, instead of giving the community clear and accessible numbers, the dashboard is full of mysteriously disappearing data and arbitrary categorizations. The university is using the dashboard to paint an inaccurate picture of COVID-19’s presence in College Park, downplaying the very real toll the virus is taking on our community.

Right now, the dashboard claims — in big, bold lettering — “New Cases Week of 8/30/2020 – 9/5/2020: 85.” But that’s not the whole story. When you read the fine print, you see there are actually 100 more “unverified” cases, self-reported by people who have been on or near the campus in the last two weeks. So it’s not 85 new cases. It’s 185. 

The university’s separation of university-administered positives and self-reported positives is a dangerous, self-serving categorization, put in place only to make the virus’ spread look less extensive than it is. And labeling these self-reports as “unverified” is a laughable attempt at undermining the validity of self-reporting. Community members are not fabricating positive COVID-19 cases. The university has proved — in its failed attempt to show that it’s cracking down on unsafe behaviors — that reporting positive tests could actually result in more sanctions than keeping it to yourself.

Plus, the implication that other testing centers are any less trustworthy than the university’s — which has mistakenly communicated incorrect results to 14 students — is absurd. And off-campus testing was the only option for many students, as the university didn’t have the resources to test everyone who wanted or needed to be tested. Their results shouldn’t be discounted because the university failed them. 

And let’s not forget, there is no more mass on-campus testing until Sept. 15. Does this mean the university will simply report zero new cases for the week of Sept. 6, with the inevitable hundreds of self-reported cases disclosed in the fine print? This separation of on-campus and self-reported positives is an inexcusably inaccurate representation of the current situation, with a stupidly easy fix.

The university — or at least someone at the university — knows this. For a brief period early Sunday morning, the two statistics were presented in sum. But by 2 p.m. the same day, they had been separated, in an obvious attempt to spin the dire situation into something a little less dire

That kind of change isn’t out of the ordinary for the dashboard. The metrics the university chooses to display have changed repeatedly, and data are mysteriously and inconsistently updated, sometimes changing twice or three times before they settle into their final form.

Just this week, the numbers detailing quarantine/isolation housing capacity dropped dramatically, initially with no explanation. For example, on Saturday, the dashboard showed Thursday’s on-campus quarantine/isolation total capacity as 300, with 64 spaces occupied. By Monday, Thursday’s total capacity had been changed to 109, with 32 spaces occupied.

By Monday evening, the university had provided a clarifying note at the bottom of the site: “The quarantine and isolation housing data has been adjusted from a per-bed basis to a per-room basis to more accurately reflect how space is allocated.” But, really, what does that mean? Why was using the number of beds inaccurate? Is the university still able to house the same number of students? Are quarantined students sharing rooms? How exactly is space allocated? Transparency is telling us what’s going on, not making us guess.

Providing the university community with a half-baked dashboard is not transparency — it’s PR damage control. In this uncertain time, information is key to staying safe. And this university is preventing its community from doing that.

So, when the reopening accelerates the virus’s spread and the inevitable outbreak on campus threatens the health of hundreds of students, staff and faculty, know that this university’s administration is to blame. 

Other schools that have tried to reopen have failed miserably, with dangerous repercussions. Michigan State and Notre Dame have already suspended in-person classes after cases began to surge. And the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was forced to cancel its plans for an in-person semester after well over 100 students tested positive in the first week. In a scathing editorial, the editorial board of its student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, wrote, “We all saw this coming.” The same is true in College Park. Everyone can see the outbreak coming, yet university President Darryll Pines and the rest of the administration are choosing to stay the course, knowing full well at this point the consequences that will meet the decision. 

The move to reopen isn’t coming out of nowhere. The University System of Maryland has been pushing its member institutions to plan a hybrid fall semester since May. And a dearth of public funding — which has been worsened by the pandemic — has left the university overly reliant on money from tuition and room and board. Housing revenue depends on students coming to campus and living in the university’s dorms. 

But chasing that money means literally risking lives and contributing to the spread of the virus in the state and the county — an area that has already been hit hard. Jeopardizing the health of the community by reopening is unconscionable, especially considering that, with about 86 percent of undergraduate course sections already fully online, there is no need to invite most students back at all.

When there is an outbreak on the campus — and there will be — the responsibility lies with this university’s leadership. University officials have already started shifting the blame for a potential outbreak on students. University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay Perman has said that the success of reopening depends on the students. Similarly, Pines said in a recent statement that “our success will rest on the active participation of every one of you. If one person does not comply with requirements, it jeopardizes everyone’s health and safety.” Pines doubled down on this sentiment in a campuswide email Thursday.

Let there be no confusion: Pines and the rest of the university’s leadership are the ones knowingly facilitating the spread of the coronavirus and risking the health of the university community. 

Of course, students who are behaving recklessly should know better. They are at fault as well. But there is no way around the fact that they are only allowed back on the campus because of the willful ignorance of the administration. And it’s not just students at this university who will get sick — workers are fearing for their health while the university is refusing to bargain with them for better protections. 

So in a few weeks from now, when students and employees are getting sick and College Park is overwhelmed by the virus, remember who’s really to blame.

The decision to open campus — especially while 92 percent of undergraduate course selections are at least partially online and coronavirus cases are again on the rise in Prince George’s County — is simply irresponsible. 

Of course, this university isn’t alone in its decision-making process — it’s partly beholden to the state and to the University System of Maryland. Long-standing underfunding from the state has pushed the university toward reopening amid fears of losing even more money without tuition, housing and dining fees.

The university is making an effort to promote health and safety in the fall. It released a reopening plan, “4 Maryland,” which has a number of health and safety guidelines for students, staff and faculty to follow. The big points: Wear a mask, report your symptoms, wash your hands, practice social distancing. 

It has also released vague plans for quarantining students who test positive and for contact tracing, and it has discouraged “non-essential” travel and large student gatherings. Officials have also announced that, with dorms at 48 percent capacity as of last week, most students will have no roommate, and students in dorms will have to sign a pledge saying they’ll follow all the regulations.  

But how exactly are these expectations going to be enforced? The university has provided little insight into the processes in place to make sure students follow university, county and state guidelines.

And what about the students not in dorms? The approximately 3,000 students set to live in South Campus Commons and Courtyards, who can’t get out of their leases? Who’s going to be monitoring the students living just off campus in The Varsity and the University View? Terrapin Row? Landmark? College Park Towers? The houses in adjacent neighborhoods?

As Perillo said in an interview with The Diamondback earlier this month, the main plan for actually enforcing these rules is to instill in students an understanding of what it “means to be part of a community” and to motivate them to make the safest choices. 

“What we are hoping is that students understand the enormous risk that they are taking,” she said. But the university is delusional if it thinks that is going to do enough to protect the community. 

It’s not as if the university community stops at the borders of campus. Students are free to roam into College Park proper — to go to bars, fraternity basements and all the kinds of social gatherings that led to 121 infected University of Washington students and more than 70 sick students at the University of California, Berkeley. 

The same will happen at the University of Maryland. It’s already happening. The Washington Post reported last week that Cornerstone Grill and Loft and R.J. Bentley’s — two of the five main bars in the city — were “buzzing.” 

A lot of reopening arguments hinge on the belief that young people are less vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus. But the University of Maryland community is not only made up of young students: There are staff, faculty and older students.

And there’s more than 30,000 residents of College Park, all of whom will not be immune to the effects of the university’s reopening. Areas adjacent to the campus, including sections of Hyattsville and Riverdale, already have some of the highest number of cases in the state. Adding thousands of students from all over the country into the mix will do nothing but make the situation worse, especially considering that the area’s large Black and Latinx communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19.  

With 86 percent of undergraduate course selections fully online and 6 percent partially online, reopening campus is not necessary. And it’s certainly not worth losing lives over.

Despite these glaring health concerns, South Campus Commons and Courtyards — on-campus apartment complexes — continue to insist that students are not allowed to cancel their leases, meaning students are on the hook for a year of rent. 

Capstone On-Campus Management, a private company, operates Commons and Courtyards, but the communities are on university property, the product of a “public-private partnership” with the university. The South Campus Commons website states that Capstone “share[s] governance” with the university’s Department of Resident Life; while the company manages leasing, maintenance, service desk operations and all financial matters for Commons, Resident Life manages the “judicial and programmatic” parts of the community. 

The university is so closely connected with Commons and Courtyards that all residents must be university students approved by Resident Life, and when the campus was evacuated in March, almost all residents of Commons and Courtyards were forced to move out. 

But while residents of dorms had the option of getting out of their fall housing without penalty, renters at Commons and Courtyards are trapped. 

Many students are trying desperately to terminate their leases with the company for the coming academic year — leases they signed before the full scope of the pandemic was known and before any information was released about the coming semester — because it is in many cases both safer and more financially prudent to stay off-campus. But Capstone has refused to budge. 

Capstone representatives have said the only option for residents wishing to cancel their leases is to go through their re-leasing process. Despite the company’s insistence, re-leasing is proving difficult — if not impossible — due to both the enormous health risks associated with living on the campus and the high number of students trying to re-lease their apartments. One student failed to re-lease his apartment even when he and his roommate offered $1,000 per person to anyone willing to take their leases.

With re-leasing likely impossible for the majority of students in Courtyards and Commons, residents are left with a decision they should never be forced to make: They must either live in conditions they rightfully believe are unsafe or pay 12 months of rent for an apartment they plan to never step foot in. 

These students are also being forced into insecure housing. In the event this university closes again due to an outbreak of COVID-19, students in these apartments will likely be kicked out, just as they were last semester. 

Right now, Capstone gets to have it both ways: It can force students out of their apartments if school closes, but many residents who have cited concerns about the pandemic have not been allowed to terminate their leases before the semester starts.

What is this university planning to do about this? Nothing, it appears. Despite the extent of its partnership with Capstone, the university is looking the other way while its students are being pushed around by a private company. When contacted by students or reporters, university representatives reiterate that they have nothing to do with the leases and simply point their fingers at Capstone. 

It’s clearly stated that Capstone, not the university, manages the leasing process for these apartments. But Courtyards and Commons are still apartments built on university property through a close “public-private partnership” with the school; the university needs to use its leverage to advocate for students, even if it can’t terminate their leases.

This university certainly has some power to lean on its close corporate partner and advocate for the residents literally living on its campus — unfortunately, it has given no indication that it cares about its students enough to actually do so.

The same day, University of Maryland President Wallace Loh penned a letter to the campus community, citing the DACA decision — and the Supreme Court’s earlier decision to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — as steps forward for “democracy, equality, and justice for all in America.”

It’s a noble sentiment and one this editorial board agrees with wholeheartedly — DACA recipients deserve the same right to live and work in this country as anyone else. But Loh’s words about concrete steps to protect them (“What can secure their future is action by Congress”) ring hollow, given this university’s tepid inaction to actually protect them.

In 2017, in response to ProtectUMD’s demand for the university to become a sanctuary campus, Loh called such a designation “unnecessary.” The administration largely side-stepped the issue, saying Prince George’s County was already a sanctuary county and marginalized groups’ concerns and this university’s “institutional values” would be taken seriously.

Yet this university has an active contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency at the center of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration stance. Exposed in November 2018, the contract has this university’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism giving “cultural competency and counterterrorism” training to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division.

This university can’t invest in the system that jeopardizes the lives and liberty of its own students while simultaneously claiming it cares about them. In 2018, students marched to demand the university terminate its contract with ICE; this editorial board called for the same. Yet, the university did nothing: The contract is set to expire in 2022, as originally planned.

And Loh’s latest email about DACA comes after the university, forced into a hiring freeze by the COVID-19 pandemic, announced that the undocumented student coordinator position will remain vacant in the coming academic year. (Since the original publication of this editorial, Stamp Student Union Director Marsha Guenzler-Stevens has indicated plans to fill the position sooner than previously thought.) The announcement came after years of student efforts to make the position, which was created in 2017, permanent — only to have the administration attempt to change its description to include first-generation and transfer students.

This university constantly fails to live up to its values, with a clear mismatch between its public statements and its actions. But its threefold missteps on immigration — passing on sanctuary campus designation, actively working with ICE, and drawing out a decision to make undocumented student support permanent — are particularly disappointing given the fact that the 120 student DACA recipients at this university are uniquely marginalized. Given that these students are more likely to be essential workers or unable to receive federal financial COVID-19 relief, the past few months have only further proven that what they need now is real protection, not empty words about how “progress in forming a more perfect union is possible.”

This university has a persistent problem of not backing up its supposed values with concrete actions. Even while advertising its support for marginalized communities on the campus, the administration has done too little to actually support these students. For undocumented students at this university, support must go far beyond a few open letters to the campus community.

This editorial has been updated.