 HPC Dutchess Radio, welcome back. Conversations with distinguished leaders from the historically black college university community today, friend of the show, dear brother of mine and the distinguished president of Paul Quinn College, Dr. Michael Sorrell, one of a handful of private HPCUs to recently announce that they will continue online and distance learning through the fall 2020 semester with the cancellation of events and athletics over the same period. But a few other things that Paul Quinn is announcing in the way of investment, particularly in students, as we adjust to what is soon to be, if you haven't realized it yet, a new normal. So, brother president, we appreciate your time as usual, man. Oh man, it's always good to be with you, man, always. The big question is how do you arrive, you and your board, at the decision to continue this? Because I think that a lot of presidents, a lot of alumni and students and faculty, everybody is going to be interested in hearing what one school or what data set that one school looks at and says, we can't bring people back, which may be a challenge for other schools to look at and draw the same conclusion. Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is that many of the schools share a different perspective on a shared reality. And what I mean by that is, if I am at a publicly funded institution, I may understand that I'm dealing with the threat of COVID-19, but I also understand that I've got to, I'm part of a system, perhaps. And that system leadership dictates that I do something else. Others may look at it and say, we're all dealing with a COVID reality, but I'm in a rural location. And maybe my risk profile looks differently. The one thing, though, that we all share is to succeed in this new environment. You literally have to say, I have the ability to restrict the behavioral patterns of 18 to 22-year-olds and my faculty and staff every day of every week, every day of every week for, at a minimum, the first semester. And, you know, from our perspective, we just, we didn't see a pathway to doing that consistently and successfully. So with that in mind, we looked at it and said, we didn't see a route to success. We only saw a route to maybe not losing as much. And that just didn't sit well with us. Unfortunately so. There is a certain flexibility that a private institution like yours has. And there's a certain flexibility that being stationed in Dallas, Texas affords you. And I don't mean that in a morbid way, but it is what it is. Numbers are high in Texas. What do you think is a, I guess an adequate point for a president who may have the same philosophy that you have, that we just physically can't do this, but has a harder road to hold in that they don't have the backdrop of some of the highest positive rates in the nation. And they don't have the context of, we are private so we can be flexible. Yeah. So I think some of this also has to turn on just what is the culture that you share with your community? What's your, how do people perceive you and what have they come to expect from you? Now, if there was ever a time to strike out a different relationship, it's now because we're in the midst of a global pandemic. So if you want to say to people, you know what, we're going to do this differently. This is the time. This is the time to say that. This is the time to do that. And, you know, as I look at this, I would tell them, number one, look at the science. I mean, look at the fact that effectively colleges and universities are at the perfect breeding ground for the spread of this virus. And again, you know, not to be overly simplistic, but do you have the ability to get people to behave the way you're going to need them to behave not to spread this? And putting them all together. Now, I think the argument you have to make with folks is when we put all of our students back together, when we do all of these things, and we still aren't successful, what is it going to do to our budget? Right, because a lot of the reason why people are making the opposite decision we made is because of financial considerations. So let's talk about the finances or the financial implications of this virus. Number one, you're going to have to have a COVID-19 department. You're going to have to have some people on your staff that are going around campus monitoring student staff behavior and forcing it. You're going to have to have people who are running testing centers. And see, we run a testing center most of the summer. But we understand what's involved in that. So you're gonna have to have people who do that, who manage the testing site. You're gonna have to have people who are doing contact tracing. So it is no small undertaking to devote significant staff resources to your COVID department. Then you're going to have to have money for PPE because you're gonna have to provide the students them. You're gonna have to provide the staff them. You, I mean, all of this stuff is expensive. You're gonna have to, I mean, even though there's this amazing deal that Howard and Harry and Morehouse Medical School have done around free testing, but that is still, you're still gonna have expenses associated with all this. And then you're going to have to lay out a residential option for people who test positive because you have to then remove them from the general population. So how are you going to pay for that? So these are all things that we have to pay for, or that the institution is going to have to pay for. And even with all of that, there's still the high probability that at some point in the semester, you'll have to send those students home and return the money. That was unused in residence halls and board, right, women board charges. So when I look at this, I just have to ask myself, is it really, is it really better financially to make the decision to return to people living on campus? And no, I forgot one other thing. To make it work, you're going to have to reduce your density in your residence halls, which means probably by 50% or more, you have to reduce your residence hall revenue. So then you've got to find some place else for those students to live. This seems really very expensive to me. And we know for the private schools that we try not to do expensive, if ever possible. So what has been the reaction? Obviously you got to work with your stakeholders to make this decision, right? There's a board, faculty staff, students, and we know that there's representation from each stakeholder group, but it would seem like the two that have the most, or the three that have the most to say something about it, faculty, students, and then one that we commonly leave out, your community partners. Paul Quinn has a lot of them. So what was the reaction or what was the feedback you were getting as you were making this decision and what have you heard now that it's done from those groups? The faculty's voice on this matter really hasn't been, probably has engaged as much as it should be, because we're asking them to essentially become frontline workers. That's a lot of stress. Right. So our faculty is supported by it. In terms of the community, it's interesting the community colleges here in Dallas aren't reopening in the same way that they had in the past. University of North Texas in Dallas down the street from us, isn't, to my knowledge, isn't going to return to in-person classes right now. So in this community, there seems to be some higher level of understanding of the magnitude of the challenge. Now the students, I mean, this is difficult for the students because, and I want to look at this to a different lens, 80 to 85% of our students are on telegrants, which means that they are coming from backgrounds of poverty and scarcity and economic resources. If you grow up in that environment, you are traumatized. You are traumatized by lack of resources. You're traumatized by poverty. We spend a significant amount of time in our colleges and universities, especially our HBCUs, trying to help our students heal from those traumas or at least, you know, it's difficult to do that in just four years, right? So what you try and do is give them a path forward out of the trauma and teach them habits that they'll be able to use. I mean, you know, at our school, everyone gets a mental health examination when they enter. So we have a unique understanding of the trauma they're dealing with. So you're trying to heal people and lift them out of trauma and then you reintroduce trauma. Right at the moment that you've given people a reason to think that they can move past that trauma and then to re-traumatize the students by bringing them back, sending them back home. I just don't think that from a mental health standpoint, enough is known about the impact that all of this is going to create. You know, I just, I don't. And so from that standpoint, what we are saying to the students is that we believe it is in your best interest to remain at home. Now, in doing so, we have to acknowledge that their lives are defined by incredible financial pressure. But one of the things that, you know, on our call today with our faculty and staff that we talked about was the need for everyone to be flexible this semester because what the data is showing us, what the surveys are telling us is for our students, they are working significant hours and they're working during the day. So they're working during the day and our classes are going to have to be set up differently and they're working jobs where the hours aren't necessarily predictable. Right. So now you're saying, well, on Monday through Thursday, I'm working eight to four. But for Friday and Saturday, my shift got was changed to, you know, four to closing. And you can't predict that week to week. And, you know, can they really go to their employer and say, listen, I'm in school and I need a more predictable schedule? No, not in the midst of an economic downturn and a global pandemic. You are just trying to keep your job. Yep. Right, just trying to keep your job. So, you know, when you look at it from this perspective, what you hope you can establish is a relationship built on trust with the students and with your community. And to say, you know, this is what I wrote about in my letter, I said, the number one priority to us was your health and safety. That's what we care about the most. So we're going to act in a way to try and keep you safe. And that's what we try to do. And with that, it's not just about keeping the students safe, obviously, as the priority, but it's trying to redefine and enhance the distance learning experience. So you guys have rolled out in that announcement about online learning continuing through the fall. You also debuted information about a new scholarship program, a new technology program that students will be able to get laptops and wireless connectivity. And other new programming. Talk a little bit about that strategy to enhance the distance learning program and enhance the, you know, the Paul Quinn experience, even with a new norm. Yeah. So here's what we decided to do. We looked around and we said, since March, it is entirely reasonable for students to feel that all that's happened is they've lost things. Things have been taken away from them. The normalcy that they come to count on, that's been taken away. Their, the creature of comforts, those things have been taken away. How about instead of framing this as yet another thing that you are losing, we focus on the 11 things that you're gaining. Yes, you are absolutely not coming back to classes this semester. Okay. But let's talk about what you are going to get in both the short term and the long term. All right. So in the short term, you're, we've partnered with Minerva Project out of San Francisco, which by the way, is the most difficult school in the world to gain admissions to. All right. I mean, and people are not so that familiar with it. They have a global student body. They have this incredibly innovative learning platform and that, that gives them, that gives their students an ability to engage. Right. Because probably the reasons why people don't like online learning is because it's not engaging enough. Right. Well, this is a proven commodity. Okay. It is absolutely been established that, you know, the Minerva learning platform is phenomenal. So we partnered with them so that we're going to beta test it with our honors college students this fall is let's try it as a broad based tool for our student body. And since, you know, we already engaged the hybrid learning as a right of, you know, just what we do because of the, you know, the work college format, we already knew about hybrid learning, but we also knew that we had to consistently look for ways to improve it. Minerva gives us the ability to do that. So we'll have a portion of students beta tested for the fall and then going forward, that will become our online delivery platform. Then we took a look around and said, you know, what if we offer students a way to complete school faster, but engage immediately on the issues of the day? Now, you know, you, you and I talked about this stuff a year. So you know that as an institution, we believe that we have an obligation to engage in the issues of the day, but never have those issues that as critical as they are today. And so we started this urban scholars program where, you know, students will double major in business and in public policy, because you need to understand the finance of reform as well as the policies of reform. And you can finish in 36 months. And we already had a pathway to finishing in 36 months. This is just a far more robust way of doing it because you're going to engage both, you know, academically, but community-wise, right? And you're going to graduate and the first year you pay. The second and third year between your Pell Grant, other sources of aid and the money from your work assignments, you won't pay anything. And you'll be using them another platform again. So all of a sudden in 36 months, you pick up two majors in public policy and business and you have jobs and you're working in three subject matters. Healthcare disparity, criminal justice reform and welfare disparity. So then we also took a look at it and said, okay, what else can we give the students? Well, we know that the first new buildings in 40 years will be done this semester. So they'll come back to those. We thought since we aren't bringing students back to campus, let's change the fee structure. So we reduced the fees by $2,300. We knew that one of the barriers to success was causing tremendous anxiety was access to technology. So in addition to making sure everybody had computers or laptops rather, we're making sure everyone has access to Wi-Fi. Then we looked around for what else can we do? You said, well, our website needs some work. So let's redo the website. We've got PQCX, which is our take on adult education. That debuts this fall. We're gonna restructure our entire enrollment management operation because we felt there was some other opportunities for improvement there. We have been studying and love the potential for e-sports and given the fact that we're going to expand our institution to locations throughout the country, creating an e-sports program that is easier to replicate than traditional competitive athletic makes all the financial sense in the world. And then we're in discussions to bring a K-12 presence to the campus as well. So these are all the things that we're adding to the students lives, either in the short term or in the next year. And we thought that was just a really, really important message to convey to our students. And then the final question I'll ask you, man, with all that you're mentioning to say, to give value to the students to create resonance even from a distance. Do you think at this point that you're designing for, I guess an expanded resumption of the norm when this is over? Or are you on a train that says, you know what? We're not going back there. We're not going back to the way we used to do it. We don't know when the vaccine is coming. We don't know when these things are gonna change. Let's prepare for what the future looks like. Obviously you're looking at the future no matter what. But is it a future to expand what you did before this? Or is it a future to say, let's build something new after this? Well, I think, I mean, one, it's a great question. I mean, from our perspective, we took a look at this and said, what would we do if the gloves were completely off? Like, why should we, there are inefficiencies that we can improve upon? That let's dream a different dream. We know what our students have said that they're concerned about. We know what we need to improve on. How about we improve on that? And then while we're doing it, why don't we be anticipatory? Because even if we get a vaccine in the next year, the scars of this moment will be present for the rest of our lives. Right. So we can go back to campus physically. We'll never go back mentally to where we were. And so we think you have to be able to offer more and offer it differently. And but to be honest with you, that's how we've always thought about this. You know, now we just have a little bit greater clarity because we understand the need that we need to meet. And that's the difference.