Out d’Coup Special | Kutztown University: A Caring Community?

On today's show, we dig into Kutztown University's back to school plans. If you've been following this show at all you'll know that the KU administration has been a bit belligerent when it comes to ensuring the health and safety of faculty, staff, and students. During the last academic year, KU had one of highest rates of COVID cases in the PA State System of Higher Education. 

As the delta variant rages, KU is determined to head back to campus using PR to help fend off the risks. Well, OK, there is a mask mandate. But there will be no requirement for notifying the university of vaccination status; no systematic testing to get ahead of an outbreak; and, no contract tracing.  

To make matters worse, the administration has denied some faculty requests to keep an all online schedule, despite being at high risk for dire consequences from contracting COVID. On today's show we'll get into the story of one faculty member, Steve Oross, who is being forced to make an awful choice between his job and his personal well-being. Today, we will set the stage for what's happening and next week we'll be talking directly to those faculty members on this podcast. 

Some faculty are not taking this lying down. They are circulating a petition among faculty, staff, students, and parents, calling on the university to require vaccination or, at the very least, to mandate regular testing for unvaccinated individuals. You can check out the petition here: http://bit.ly/KUFall2021Petition

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