 HBCU Digest Radio, welcome back. Conversations with Distinguished Voices from the Historically Black College University Sector. Today, we are joined by friend of the show, Morehouse College President, Dr. David Thomas, who is one of a triumvirate of institutions which formally today announced that they will extend online and distance learning into the fall semester with no residential or on-campus component. So Dr. Thomas, we appreciate your time and what we know is gonna be a busy morning for you. Can you tell us what obviously what led to this decision? When just a few weeks ago, the college was making preparations for a hybrid online in-person model and then obviously numbers have changed, but walk us through what those behind the scenes conversations look like for the school to be able to make this announcement today. Well, we had always, you know, take, or since we had to evacuate the campus in March, we had always been planning for three different options as possible for the fall. One was the hoped for, everything would be back to normal. Two was the low-density hybrid model that we announced on July 1st and three was that we would remain virtual for the entire semester. And it was really a matter of following the science and the conditions taking place here in Georgia as well as from a number of other states where we get a substantial number of our students, you know, and many of those states are, you know, in the South, Texas being one of them, Alabama being another. And we have always worked off of the idea that our number one priority is the health and welfare of our students. And, you know, some of your listeners may recall that Morehouse College was the first college in the nation actually, it turned out, in division one and division two, to announce the cancellation of the fall football and cross-country season. And that again, and that was when we thought we might be in the hybrid model, but we were still putting our students' health and safety first. And as we started again to look at what's going on here in Georgia, in Atlanta, in particular Fulton County, it became very clear that we would not be able to avoid even with the stringent testing protocol and monitoring and social tracing protocols that we were gonna put in place that we probably couldn't avoid Morehouse becoming a hotspot and not just Morehouse, but the entire AUC. And that led all three presidents to the same conclusion that we didn't feel that the probabilities were high enough that we could avoid this becoming a hotspot. And two reasons. One is the extent to which the disease seems to be spreading and in particular among young people. And right here in Atlanta, we're watching the ICU bed available move to over 90%. And that raised issues about if students do get sick, the availability of healthcare and our ability to guarantee high quality access. So those things came together. And I think the other decision rule that we've used here at Morehouse and I think it applies to my colleagues at Clark and Spelman is that we're not about being right. We're about making the right decision. So we had made one decision to go hybrid, but in the face of new information, we realized that that was no longer the right decision. And that's been our posture. You know, we've talked before about the great flexibility that the private HBCUs have because they're not as constrained by, you know, what legislature or governing board in terms of a state or state politics has to say. But when you make these decisions, obviously, you know, whether they're with the primary focus of the institution's wellbeing, but is there any discussion with you or your board or the faculty, staff, alumni, students when talking about these things, about the politics outside of Morehouse and do they have any impact on the decision-making process at all? Yeah, great question. And ever since we've been in this COVID moment, I have purposely avoided making those considerations central to any decision. Because for example, Georgia Tech is scheduled to open. Essentially, you know, that's driven by the politics of the state in my view. And Georgia State similarly, Albany State, a fellow HBCU, Fort Valley, which are all under the state system. But we've not made that a special consideration in any of our decisions. And I guess the reason I asked this as a follow-up is because we've seen, you know, the posture taken even as high as the White House, where, you know, let's be frank, if you institutionally follow the narrative of the administration or the Trump administration, that you'll be rewarded will help you get resources, will help you get, you know, equipment and protective, you know, items and will help you probably establish new programming. And so there would seem to be a pressure that if you don't play ball, so to speak, that there's going to be a political price to pay, even for a private school. Is that something as a president, you have to let your folks know like, yeah, we can do this and we know, you know, that we're a leading institution regardless of what, you know, help crisis we're in. And we would like to do things that speak to the Black American experience. And we know that coronavirus has a prominent role in our experience today. And so we'd like to lead in that way, but you got to know that there may be a price if we do this. Yeah. I'm sorry. You know, the answer, I mean, you know, you frame it perfectly. That is a potential price. If you look at our announcements, I think what you'll find is that, you know, we don't talk about the political debate. We put it all in the context of doing what's best for our students given our capability. You know, there may be some larger schools. For example, you know, Georgia State with much more, or Georgia Tech, much more in the way of resources than we have, more space to do social distancing, residential area and other things. So we try to keep it, you know, or at least, you know, our messaging as far away from the political side of it as possible. I mean, you know, what's happened here in Georgia, you've got the mayor of the city of Atlanta being sued by the governor of the state. You know, we've tried to be very clear that, you know, we don't have a dog in that fight. We're just focused on doing the best we can do for our students. From a public health perspective and even from a moral imperative, do you feel that it is a privilege for schools like Morehouse and the HBCU sector when it comes to sports, when it comes to in-person instruction to bear the responsibility of saying, we're going to take a stand, and regardless of the politics, as you mentioned, regardless of, you know, the social stuff, we're going to take a stand for black people and say it's not safe to be together at this time. Is that fair or is that a privilege for the institution or is that a burden because we're kind of out front of everybody in the industry to say it? I think it is a privilege and a responsibility. And, you know, as we've made our choices, we've been very aware of the fact that many of our students are coming from predominantly black communities that are hotspots for, you know, the spread of the disease. And if our students are on campus and we become a hotspot, as try as we might, our students will go back out into the communities at some point in the day, and potentially, you know, the spreaders. So I think it's a privilege that, you know, schools like Morehouse can focus on the black community and our service to it. And at the same time, I think it's a responsibility for us to do the best by that community, given what we know. And I think we have a responsibility to lead. You know, even when it requires sacrifice. So the reality of Morehouse College is that a substantial part of our financial model is housing and meals. That's what pays the rent and upkeep on our building is that income. And we will forego that income next semester. But that's our responsibility in my view. And it is a sacrifice, quite frankly. Are you worried that you may have some current or potential students who say, man, I got to get about this house and that they may be induced to say, well, let me seek opportunities elsewhere. They may serve that. Whether it's in their health interest or not, is that a concern of yours? Well, it's definitely a concern. You know, and there's a broader concern about enrollment. We already have planned that our enrollment will be down 25% as a result of students making the kind of choice you just described, as well as our students coming from families that are likely to be disproportionately impacted from an employment standpoint, you know, more than a few of our students we know of have had at least one parent or another relative who was supporting their Morehouse journey lose their job. And all the statistics are telling us that not only are we being, or is the black community being disproportionately affected from a health standpoint, but disproportionately and negatively affected from an economic standpoint. So I worry, the long and short of it is, yeah, I worry that we won't have the enrollment that we expect and we've already modeled that we'll be down. And you know, one group that I worry a lot about it is the freshmen who've accepted admission into Morehouse. And I know some parents are already having a discussion. Why don't we just have a gap year? And that away, the student will have, you know, four years of the traditional Morehouse experience, residential experience. So I worry. And then the final question, I know in the spring, you know, there were plans to say, we're going to move some events, noticeably commencement to the spring 2020 event. Is that rescheduled? What will logistics look like for some of those key events that you initially plan to move to the fall? What will come of them? Well, the major one was the move of commencement from May 19th of this year. Now it's scheduled to be December 13th. And what we've decided there is that if conditions allow, we will do that as an in-person event. We're lucky in that we have a 6,000 seat arena where we could do that graduation with social distancing. And our seniors have made it clear, quote unquote, we want to have our day. And we're working for that. But if come December, that proves not to be the wise and prudent decision for health reasons, we will have a virtual commencement and in true Morehouse fashion, we're putting equal energy into planning both options so that, you know, as we monitor the situation and get closer to the event, we'll be able to pivot in either direction and provide a successful experience. Other things, events like homecoming, you know, there won't be a homecoming this year, although, you know, I've had some of our creative alumni you know, suggest we could do a virtual homecoming and essentially do it across the entire United States. And we've had some virtual alumni events that have actually been very successful and multi-city. So don't be surprised if the ingenuity of our alumni doesn't come forth and lead us to have a virtual homecoming.