 HBCU Digest Radio, welcome back. I'm your host, Jared Carter, continuing our coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic response with the best and brightest from the historically black college university community. Today is a friend of the show and a distinguished guest, the chancellor of North Carolina A&T State University, Dr. Harold Martin, who today announced preliminary framework for the reopening of A&T this fall. First, Dr. Martin, as usual, it's an honor to have you on. You're among the first HBCU presidents or chancelors to start to address a framework for how opening and operating will look in the fall. Can you talk about some of the information that you've received and some of the ways in which you've worked with the state and the UNC system to arrive at a place where you're today making that announcement? First, let me thank you for all you do on behalf of our universities, Jared, and capturing, doing the fact-finding and sharing accurate information with all of our constituents. So, really, thank you on behalf of all historically black colleges and universities. And I'm glad to be with you this evening and share perspectives about our university and how we see ourselves moving forward and planning for the future of the pandemic, quite frankly, especially fall of 2020. All of the universities in the UNC system are working very closely through their chancelors with the president of the U.S. system and the Board of Governors and through a framework under the umbrella of the governor setting how the state will function as he's currently doing. And everything we in the university system are not Carolina in each of our respective campuses operating within that framework. What we have resolved very recently as chancelors with the president of the U.S. system and the Board of Governors is that we have to begin to share with our constituents a very candid discussion about the future of the university system in North Carolina in each of our respective campuses about the business of our universities come fall of 2020 so that families and their sons and daughters can begin to make frank decisions and challenging decisions about what they're going to do in this fall based on our guidance. So we'll have an exceptional group of new freshmen later to come to our university this fall. We have a record number of students on our campus this year who are wanting to know how they will engage with our university next fall. So we have a record number of graduates who are leaving our university this year as graduates and we want to send off an exceptional celebratory way. And as you know, HBCU's graduation is a big deal. And so we're trying to frame how we are going to celebrate the way face-to-face commitment and the appropriate time in the future commitment for our graduates. But in the meantime, a virtual celebratory activity which we will announce to our graduates very shortly as we celebrate them and all their hard work, honestly. So we are working very closely with our president as I indicated earlier to frame a very well-defined plan discussion with contingency built-in as to how we will see ourselves operating in fall 2020. And my announcement today essentially has said that campus community constituents, our students and their families. You serve as one of three executives within the system that is advising the USC system president on the data and some of the peripheral considerations that it would take for all 17 of the Carolina public campuses to reopen and to do so safely. And in your letter today, you talked about that the virus may still be here without a vaccine when it's time to do this, but also the creativity and innovation that A&T will lead to try to do so and protect its faculty, students, and visitors and guests. So what's the process like in working on campus to figure out logistically, culturally, how do you glean information and then craft a set of recommendations to say if we're going to do it, this is how you should do it because this is what A&T is seeing. Excellent question. We have created a planning committee of key administrators who oversee functions of a university that are most significant to opening an operating line university in an appropriate fashion come this fall. And within that planning committee, which includes key administrators such as my provost, my vice chancellor of research, senior affairs administrator, senior research administrator, and also give you some example of some key people on that committee. They oversee working groups. For example, a working group on academic affairs is working very closely with the provost and vice chancellor for research to evaluate the most effective way for delivering academic degree programs and engaging opportunities for our faculty to continue their research in their research facilities on our campus and the technology that's going to be required for them to be able to do that. There is a committee looking at students and student enrollment and housing and dining. For example, to evaluate how we will accommodate students in our residence halls and allow them to have access to dining facilities. For example, and providing for support services to provide tutorial assistance, counseling services, health center access, and things like that. Also looking at athletics and how under the oversight of the NCAA, our conference board and athletics directors how we may potentially engage in sporting events, such as football, if the circumstances are appropriate for doing so, for example. There's also a budgetary committee looking at the resources we're going to need to fund whatever the contingency plans are that we ultimately settle in for operating in our university in fall 2020, the cost of doing that and the resources deployed to make sure that we're able to do that, the technology, additional personnel, staffing, for example, and services. Those committees are shaped and are working now. They're beginning their work and they will follow their strategic thinking up through the planning committee that reports to me. It's an excellent group of faculty, staff, students, and administrators on our campus who are helping us to think this through in a very complex issue. For example, in a best case scenario, if the coronavirus is under control and there are vaccines in place and the tail end of this virus is turning to zero, or to a controllable level, we may be able to have full open classrooms, students in our residence halls, access to our dining facilities, and engagement of meetings and social events on our campus in a normal mode. It's highly unlikely that that's going to be the case. It is likely that we will still have requirements as mandated potentially, for example, by our governor who says that we will be open for business, but we will still be required to operate under the conditions of social distancing and may not be able to engage in an environment where there are more than 50 people in an environment where people are meeting. As an example, if that's the case, we may have to house students in our residence halls in a very different way. Fewer students in the residence halls, fewer students in the room, fewer students gathering in meetings or functions, how students gather in our classrooms. For example, in our dining spaces, how faculty arrive on the campus, for example. And so if we are required to engage in some level of social distancing, that also means that we will have to have in place high levels of testing of everyone who returns back to our campus so that we can assess who can and cannot come back to the campus, and there will have to be ongoing testing. So we'll have to make sure that the state is making provisions for easy access to tests so that all of our students and our faculty and staff are tested before they step foot back on the campus, but they're routinely tested in the same way that every university in the system will have to have access to the same level of testing. And in the event that we are social distancing, we want to have to have a hybrid delivery of instruction. For example, we may make provisions for new freshmen to have a high level of face-to-face instruction on campus, because many of these students will be coming out of high schools where they are not as accustomed to online instruction. And they may need a high level of interactions, engagement, face-to-face. So we'll have to make provisions for that and provide a high level of online instruction, complementing face-to-face instruction as well. So that we give our students options. Those who want to come back to the campus can do so. Those who want to remain at home would be able to do that and still gain access to a high quality instructional mode online, for example. So we'll be exploring, based on the circumstances we may engage in come fall 2020, with plans in place that will allow us, based on our contingency planning, to call into the plans, the aspects of the plan that allows us to accommodate in the most efficient way the engagement of our students through instruction and support, as well as the opportunities for our faculty who have significant levels of research and with the third agency system in their search. So we've got to get this work done as well. And I, in fact, want to continue that research that involves a high volume of our graduate students, for example. And so our planning processes are put into place. They are beginning their work. They will explore all aspects of possibility. One aspect may be to shift us the start of our school year to a month later as a possibility, for example, and end it later than December, maybe early in the new calendar year. So those are the innovative, creative things we're looking at. And these committees are charged to take a look at, but honestly, as we shape plans for the future. You mentioned in your letter that a college campus or a university campus is designed for human interaction and engagement. It's designed to have a bunch of people in one space at one time for any given activity. And even though you guys in so many other schools were able to creatively stand up online learning very quickly, and I think history will be very kind for the way you all did that. But the return of that, the spirit of that, the culture of that being different is something that will seem to me clash with the logistical challenges of this. Do you look at what A&T's culture and what the logistics of reopening and is there one from each pile that worries you the most culturally and logistically like, man, if I'm gonna stay awake at night thinking about how we're gonna do this and move forward, these two things are the kind of, they worry me the most. Absolutely. Well, at the core of what keeps me up and what will be at the forefront of our thinking as we move into the new year, that's everything. First, the health and safety of our students and our faculty and our staff. That is paramount. And so we clearly have to keep that in our minds as we think through our plans for the future. But also, our students love being on our campus. They love engaging with their peers, their friends, the engagement and connections with our faculty and our staff. The support services provided for them, for example, those are attributes of Hisoka Black College and universities in general. It is particularly acute on our campus as we share with our board and our senior staff engaging our students and helping to provide development opportunities for enhancing their skill sets and realizing their high aspirations for their futures, a big deal for our university. And so that's troublesome to me that we would not be able to provide for our students potentially this fall that high level of engagement and interaction and rich culture of support for our students that we're accustomed to providing for them. That's troublesome to me. And as well as our board and administrative team and our faculty and our fellows and I met with the executive committee of our faculty senate last week, for example, and we'll continue to meet with them in this fashion even throughout the semester and the summer. And our staff senate executive committee because they as part of our core values have fully immersed themselves in supporting our students as well. And it's troublesome to them as well. And so we'll have to figure this out. Jared, we really will. And that's why we're starting the planning early and that's why we're staying in a very candid way. We want to return to an operational mode that provides the very best environment under the circumstances for engaging our students. And then the final question. And again, we're so appreciative of your time. Recently, a letter went out from the council of 1890 presidents, you know, a formal request to congressional committees on education and labor to make a sizable investment in HBCUs and the land grant black colleges to the tune of almost $1.5 billion in the support of technological upgrades and new programs and new health care and health sciences professional development. A&T obviously is our biggest four-year institution, one of our largest and most expansive in teaching and training in those areas. What did you think about that letter? And if even one of those requests was to come to pass, what kind of benefit would it yield in one, helping to get the campus back up to as close to normal as it could be and two, even propelling it to something greater as we move ahead? Well, I would say to you that first, it would be appropriate for me on behalf of all of my circuit by college universities to thank Alma Adams for all of the incredible work she has been doing in working with Mark Walker and others quite honestly as part of the HBCU bipartisan committee in creating just incredible visibility by HBCUs. And thank you, and what you have done with HBCU-DAGES and continue to keep before the public the incredible role that circuit by colleges and universities play. And out of the work of the bipartisan HBCU committee has come legislation that has provided continuing funding support for our historical by colleges and universities. We have seen the conversation during the Democratic primaries, the focus of every candidate on the important role of historical by colleges and universities. Never before have we seen that high level of importance of historical by college and universities to the landscape and future of our nation as a whole. And it's also created a platform then for legitimate requests and for funding support to Congress for additional focus on historical by colleges and universities through the CARES Act. And quite honestly, the letter you made reference to from the chair of our 1890 council of land-grant institutions President Abdullah at Virginia State making a request of a little over a billion dollars on behalf of the 18 land-grant institutions. An appropriate request. These dollars not only would provide for the continuing work that the 18 land-grant institutions have done historically but expand what we've done and what we were expected to do in the future in supporting our students, enabling universities to continue to engage through agriculture extension and engagement through all of our aspects of our university in supporting our communities, our regions and our states as a whole and enabling HBCUs to have direct and substantial impact and growth in the impact that we have in our nation as a whole and certainly in our states and our regions. Economic impact. Most of our universities are located in rural communities in the minority communities of our cities and our states but we play a very vital role in addition to graduating high numbers of African-American students in critical degree areas of import summation as a whole as well. And so legitimate requests on behalf of our institutions, both through the CARES Act as well as the special requests on behalf of the 18 land-grant institutions, quite honestly, a big deal for us and because of the work of the bipartisan committee and Alma Haddon comes around matters. She's just done some remarkable work on our behalf, quite honestly. And so that's creating tremendous support for our institutions. And you know, quite honestly, the investments individuals are beginning to realize, Jarrett, that there is great return from those investments that have been made in our institutions, quite honestly. So I'm very pleased about it, unabashedly supportive of these requests because there is great return for my institutions for every dollar invested in our institutions.