ELIZABETH CITY – For Elizabeth City State University Chancellor Karrie G. Dixon, reopening campus amid the COVID-19 pandemic boils down to holding yourself and those around you accountable for doing the right thing.

In the accompanying excerpts from a Zoom interview, Dixon discusses how ECSU will start the fall semester a week earlier than originally planned, with students moving in starting Aug. 3, classes starting Aug. 11, and students heading home before the peak of the flu season.

“We are … pushing a culture of expectation where they hold each other accountable to say, ‘Hey, maybe to keep your family safe, our community safe, let’s all stay on campus, stay well-engaged in activities, and then wait until the end of the fall semester … right before Thanksgiving, Nov. 24 – then go home,’” Dixon says.

The university is working with students, faculty and staff “to make sure that we make our wellbeing and our safety and good health a priority throughout the entire fall semester across our campus.”

The university is asking students, faculty and staff to check their temperature every morning. If they have a reading of 100.4 degrees or higher, they can be tested for COVID-19 at the local health department, Dixon says. 

ECSU even plans to provide each student with a kit that includes four masks (one bearing ECSU’s logo) and a thermometer. Students, faculty, staff and visitors will be expected to wear masks in class, residence halls and administrative buildings, she says.

Across the country, officials have debated whether college students can behave responsibly. Dixon believes they can.

“Our expectation is that we are building a culture that holds each other and each one of us accountable,” she says. “Hey, hold yourself accountable, hold your friend accountable, hold your entire campus community accountable for doing the right thing.”

Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are more aware of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 in minority communities, she says. And Elizabeth City State serves 21 of the most-distressed counties in North Carolina.

“We have an obligation to keep our campus community safe, but also to keep our entire community safe,” Dixon says.

When it comes to reassuring parents, Karrie Dixon notes that she is the mother of an incoming college freshman herself. 

And a mother’s attention to detail comes through as she describes spacing in classrooms for social distancing and a takeout dining option. She says she’s also hired additional housekeepers to make sure restrooms, hallways and yes, doorknobs are consistently disinfected.

But she continues to note that safety depends on individual decisions.

“We’re really doing all we can to think about every single little thing that needs to be addressed to ensure that our campus is as safe as possible,” Dixon says. “We know that no matter what we do, it’s still up to the individual to make sure they’re doing their part in taking responsibility.”

Across the UNC System, faculty have expressed reservations about returning for face-to-face instruction amid a pandemic. Dixon even knows what percentage of her faculty and staff – 34% – are 59 or older and part of a high-risk group.

“We are very concerned about the population of faculty and staff that we have that are 59 years old or older,” Dixon says. She’s held a virtual town hall meeting with faculty and staff and set up a hotline to discuss health concerns.

She says she told her middle managers: “You have to listen to your employees, your team. And if there is someone who is concerned, if there is someone who is in the at-risk age group and needs some type of accommodation to help them fulfill their job requirements but also to feel safe, then we need to look at that on a case-by-case basis.

“We want our faculty and staff to feel free to come to us, to come to their managers, to talk about their particular situation,” she says.

“And we work … to make sure that they have whatever necessary for them to be successful, but also putting the wellness and wellbeing of our campus community as our top priority.”