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any books are sold. >> we return now to the topic of school and university reopenings. our guest is sidney mcphee, president of middle tennessee state university. viewers might've seen you when you participated in a panel discussion at the white house last week to talk about reopenings and how it might happen. what did you tell the president and the vice president at that panel discussion? >> good morning and thank you for having me on your show. i told the vice president and the president that our university was being very measured and had taken great preparation to safely open our university for our students and our employees this fall. there were a number of challenges that we had to address in order to make sure

the campus is safe and that we were ready for the onset of 22,000 students and 3000 faculty and staff at one of the top universities in tennessee. >> you announced that middle tennessee state university -- you were the first to announce that you would open in the fall. how do you plan to do that, and what changes does that mean for how your students will experience school? >> yes, we were the first university in the state to announce in april that we were going to offer in-person, on-campus courses, and bring our students back. at that time, the curve was flattening, and it looked as though that it was going to go down, and we certainly knew that in any day based on this virus, that could change, but we made a decision decisively. we actually did a survey of our

students and our parents, and the vast majority -- 90% -- indicated that they would like to see the campus open up for in-person. now, we have taken a number of steps. i have always said that the safety and the security, and the health of our students and employees is our number one priority. we will not do anything at this university that would compromise the safety and the health of our students and our employees. we have done things that other schools have not done. for example, we have gone to single rooms. we have cut our residents all populations down in half. we have focused on three things. first, we wanted to make sure that we have enough testing. we wanted to make sure that

indeed in the mitigation process we had enough rooms if there were issues for quarantine and isolation. then we put in a very comprehensive contact-tracing protocol in place. >> for folks who are not familiar with middle tennessee state, how big is it, how many students live on campus versus off-campus, and how did you navigate this back in the spring when shutdown started? >> middle tennessee state university is about 37 miles east of nashville in a suburb. it is one of the top universities in the region. we are a princeton-reviewed top-300 plus for 2020. we have 22,000 students, 3000 employees, five campuses, one of the best aviation programs in the country. we own about 37 planes.

our recording industry program is number one in the world, and it is a great public university. we prepare our students and our employees to make sure that they know and have some degree of confidence that mtsu will offer a quality education, no matter where it is -- online or on campus -- and indeed we are one of the few universities that, in march, we made a very decisive decision in february to bring all of our students who are studying abroad back to the campus, and we began to make plans to address this virus. really, the end of january, first part of february. so, we are in a position now, because we kept about 500 students on campus during the spring, we have the experience

of dealing with this virus and we had a few students that were infected and had to go through the process. we developed a very sound protocol process in dealing with the crisis. obviously there will be a point whether we will shut the university down and go back online. i must say that only 44% actually -- 44% of our courses are offered online for the fall. we have 40% that will be on-campus, and then the remaining percentage are internships, dissertations, etc. we have worked very hard to deal with the density issue and i think we will be prepared for all the eventualities. >> what was life like for the 500 students that stayed on campus in the spring? do they eat in dining halls? what were they allowed to do and where were they not allowed to go? >> we actually had,

again, a comprehensive program at our residence hall. we closed down our cafeteria. we provided food. we fed them in the residence hall. we gave them a bit of some flexibility in terms of how they could get around campus, we put in some restrictions on who could get in the door through card access. i walked the campus a couple of times each week and obviously, it was a campus that when you don't have 22,000 students, you only have 500, it does look and feel of it air y, but we encountered no problems at all. it was a tough decision for us because we have the majority of

our students, very high sat, very high gpa, but we are a first-generation college campus, and many of our students, john, did not have anywhere to go. unlike some institutions that found students to find other places to live during that period, we decided we would keep our residence hall open and take care of those students and that worked out quite good, actually. >> if you want to ask the university president about schools opening in the fall. it is split up by college students in parents. educators, administrators all others. we want to focus on the faculty and staff here at middle tennessee state. there is an article on today's new york times with the headline, colleges turned to layoffs as finances shrivel up. have you had to do any layoffs

and what is your budget look like in the coming school year? >> obviously, it is going to be a challenge, but we are very fortunate at this time at our university that we do not have to resort to layoffs or furloughs of our factory and our staff. i have been president here now for 20 years and i have gone through a lot of challenges -- the 2008-2009 recession -- we did not lay off folks than. we are looking at enrollment for the fall. i am pleased to say unlike the institutions i am hearing, enrollment is up by 2% right now for the false investor. so, we are in a position to manage whatever deficit we are going to encounter as a result of this pandemic without, at this point, laying off any faculty or staff at the

university. >> the university get any cares act in money and how did you use it? >> yes, we got about $19 million, primarily because we have a large percentage of our students pel eligible and low-income. half of that money went directly to the students. we tried to get those funds out as quickly as possible. the other remaining part of the cares act we used to help us strengthen our instructional and educational programs dealing with the technology. for example, we actually purchased, using cares money and the university funds, a $7 million new technology that allows faculty to be taped electronically, to have that tape archive, and that any

student at any time can have access. for example, if a student gets ill during the fall and they cannot come to class, they will have the opportunity to access those educational support, instructional programs and keep up with what is going on in the classroom. if they have to take care of a sick family member, etc. we also provided some support in the technology airy for our faculty and our staff. so, i think we made good use of the tax payers dollars, and we focus on making sure we maintain the quality of the programs and our offerings at the university. >> let's chat with a few colors

out of greensboro, maryland. good morning. >> good morning. thank you for taking my call. i listen to the radio. i never get to see you guys on tv. two points real quick, and it is not directly with the college, but it is about schools. i think two things should happen -- i kind of want his opinion -- as far as kindergarten through 12th grade, and even colleges, but two things is -- if we want the kids to go back to school, we need to double the pay -- whatever a teacher is making for kindergarten through 12, we need to double their salary. the second point is kids do not need to go to school for as long as they do. the day needs to be cut in half. that is all i have to say. thank you, god bless. >>,,? >>.

gabriel, are you with us? >> yes. -- to answer your question, yes, but we spend so much money on worse, on killing people over the years -- i feel like there is so much tax money being spent -- we need to pay teachers double, and schools will open because teachers are so important. they teach our kids. they are so, so important. that is all i have to say. >> may i make a comment? he is absolutely right. my father was a high school principal. my wife, of 40 years we just celebrated our 40th anniversary on the 12th of this month, she spent 39, 40 years as a teacher, and regardless of whether or not we are dealing with the pandemic or other kinds of crisis, gabriel is absolutely right. it is for our society -- what

we pay our teachers is really shameful, frankly, and we talk about how important education is, we hear i am the education governor, president, mayor, and then you look at where the resources are going, and it certainly is not matching up. i would say not just the pandemic issue, i think teachers need to be paid much more than they are, and i would give credit to our governor, bill lee -- and the budget this year, even though he had to cut the budget, there is a significant allocation to increase teachers pay. the governors, the last eight or 10 years in tennessee, have really focused on that, but we still need to do more. >> have you been able to give pay increases to the professors there at middle tennessee state, or have there been any calls for pay cuts amidst the

financial situation we are in now? >> first, we are not planning at this point to do any reduction in salaries or pay cuts. we were scheduled before the pandemic to give a raise to our employees, and obviously, as a result of the economic situation of the states, we are state public supported institutions through appropriations from the state. economically, the state is not in a position so at this point we set aside the 2.5%, 3% we were scheduled to give. >> william from greensboro, north carolina. you are next. >> how are you? >> i'm doing well. >> i just had more questions for the gentlemen. where did he go to school? and since it's such a interracial school did they receive any money from historical black colleges fund and how is he treated in washington, d.c. when he went up for the meeting that he had

attended? thank you, sir. >> thank you. great question. first my undergraduate degree is from hbcu, one of the top engineering schools in the country. i got my masters from the university of miami and my doctorate at oklahoma state university. our university is a historically white institution. there is a very good hbcu in this area, tennessee state university. about 20% of our students are either african americans or individuals of color so it's a historically comprehensive research university that's over 110 years old. in washington i have a very productive set of discussions with experts on the roundtable that was sponsored by the vice

president and the president when we came away with the few points that i have been talking to my leadership team about with regards to how we can better be prepared for the fall semester as we open up. >> those points? >> well, the first point was that we developed what i call some criteria and indicators that will tell us when we need to visit or transition from on-campus depending on the nature and the activity of the virus. i have always felt that as far as decisions regarding the university and this virus, the virus makes the decision for us. we are in contact with public health officials. we have done tabletop exercise. we have provided a number of

rooms off-line in case we need those. we have made contact with a local hospital. these are the informations as discussions that we were able to fine tune. >> parents. good morning. >> good morning. >> go ahead you are on with president mcphee. >> i just wanted to talk about slavery for a moment. he was one of the worst things that we ever had in the united states and the back -- black folks in america would not be here living in the greatest country in the world if it had not been for slavery so slavery, as bad as it was, -- >> john we are talking about college reopenings but mcphee if you want to talk about this issue of social justice and african americans dying at the hands of police in this country

and what the george floyd's death meant to your campus, can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like back in june? >> yes, in fact it is an area that obviously has been a concern for our university for a number of years. are we doing enough? absolutely not. can we and should we do more? absolutely yes. in fact, i am really pleased that you brought this up, john, because i actually have a virtual zoom meeting scheduled for monday where i have invited faculty, staff, community members, to begin a conversation with regards to this issue of social justice and equality, and how our

university can be more actively engaged in young with the issue not just on campus, but in the community. it is my goal in my vision that the monday -- the mondays in session will be a listening session. there are no speeches on my part. i will listen to hear people's feelings, experiences and suggestions, and from that we will then put together a reasonable, doable set of initiatives that hopefully begin to address, obviously there are years and centuries of this problem being part of our society, and i am under no illusion that we can deal with this in any short period of time or within a year or two. we are going to try to develop some measured approach to address the issue on our campus or in our community. >> katrina is next out of heights ville, maryland. good morning. >> good morning. i have been listening to the

show this morning and i am an early-childhood educator, and we have not closed. all the staff members wear a mask, but the students don't mostly due to their age. i am kind of wondering why is it that students are having such a difficult time trying to figure out how to reopen when our center has been open this entire time, and if everybody is just following the rules of wearing a mask and everything, why is it so difficult for kids to go back to school? >> yes, katrina, depending on the region and the activity level, the surge of the virus, there are certain challenges that schools in those areas might have. it makes it very difficult. for us, like you, we never really shut down the university. as i said, we had about 500

students on our campus during the peak in march and april, and we were able to take care of those students. i do think that making sure that you communicate to the community and the faculty and staff, the expectations for example, we are requiring students to wear a mask, but if they don't, they will have to resort to the online version of our programs, or they will have to find another institution. we will be very strict. we also have programs in place working with the historically black african-american sorority, aka's, in putting together an educational program that will give students information on how to put together.

we are going to try to get that word out that you have to take care of yourself, wash your hands, and if you don't do that, then of course what is going to happen is the university will have to resort and pivot to the online. most of our students want to be on campus, and the message we are giving them, if you want to be on campus, what the university to continue to stay open, you need to do these things, wash her hands, do all these things that the cdc and local and public health officials are asking you to do. we have great evidence from our states in the world when you do those things, you get the virus under control. >> i wonder if the numbers of the july survey fits with what

you are seeing on campus there at middle tennessee state. 76% of respondents say they would attend in-person classes if available. 79% said they would not attend parties. 95% say they currently wear masks when they cannot socially distance. >> those excellent results and consistent with what we are getting from our students and our parents. i am really pleased to hear that 90% said they would not be attending any mass gatherings. >> 79%. 79% said they would not be attending parties if it were to happen. >> i hoping it is 96%. we will be pushing for 100% at our university, but that 76% is very high. that is one of the concerns we have on our campus. make sure we understand the

risk in large gatherings at large parties, fraternity parties, organizational parties, we will get the message out clearly to them that it will not be in the best interest and will not help the university. >> good morning. >> i am in savannah now. >> go ahead. >> good morning, mister president. my fear is, as a graduate student, i am looking at this and i am wondering -- there was a 20-year break between my undergraduate and my pursuit of this particular academic journey. we are not learning the right we are not learning the right lessons from this and this has pulled back the curtain at those ugly scabs that have been there for a long time.

online is not the same. now it is good enough. i do not hear anybody addressing that. i could build a hydraulic slab in my garage if i wanted to, but then again i have been charged for lab fees forever. how do you reconcile this? i understand there is a safety thing here, but there is a bigger issue. if you could speak to that, i would really appreciate it. >> thank you for that question. i will tell you as part of the demographics of our university, we have a very large percentage of our students that are adult students that have responsibilities with their families that are not the

typical 17 to 21. on the issue of the fees, we have been conscious of that. the cost of education for college universities have skyrocketed over the years. one of the decisions we made, this year, we decided and i recommend it to our board of trustees to not increase tuition and fees, and we're in the process right now of looking at those fees that we are typically charging where students don't have access, or because they are not on the campus, they are not using those facilities, and we are in discussion about making some adjustments in that area as well. you make a very good point, and i will tell you that it is something that has been on our agenda and on our radar at mtsu. >> troy in pennsylvania. what you teach, troy?

>> computer science. >> my question is if the numbers are down before we went into corona with only 32% of people online learning being successfully completing degrees, how are we going to keep going online, especially at my school where i have nontraditional students that need that hands-on, on-ground educational background for their success? and, also, at the community college level nationally, the graduation rate is only 21.5%. we are going to lose a lot of people being successful in their careers and going on in education because of this situation. >> you are on point with all of the comments that you have made, and we have heard from some of our students -- i told you we did a survey of our students

during the transition fully online this past spring, and students have different learning styles. we recognize that. we also recognize that online teaching and learning is not for everybody. so, one of the reasons why we have developed this hybrid approach at our university is to give students options to go online and/or come to class in person. it is one of the reasons why, when it is safe and as soon as it is safe, we should have students return to campus so that they can have that interaction with faculty and staff in with their peers. we are very much sensitive to that issue, but the alternative is if it is not safe to be on the campus, and we bring students on the campus, and we put them in their families at risk, the other option or

alternative is that we shut everything down and that the students have no experience -- they cannot finish their degree programs. so, we try to do the best we can to help those students forward recognizing that not only students, but some of our faculty are not in the online area. we are working with them of course. it beats the alternative of shutting the university down and totally stopping the learning process. >> you want social distancing among your students. you hope that the numbers of those not attending parties would be well up into the high 90's, but how do you enforce social distancing with your students if they are not? >> guest: very challenging. as we discussed a mitigation program at the university, i

use as an example our smoking policy on the campus. we have no smoking policy on our campus. we have four campuses at this university. our main campus is over 500 acres. can we cover 500 acres and have monitoring every minute of the day? absolutely not, but what we can do, john, is we can get the message out. we can pound that message, and very diplomatically, when we see situations where there is not that social distancing, with great respect we ought to address it with our students. but, if a campus can tell you they can manage and make every student comply in the social distance criterion for reducing this virus, that would be very difficult to do.

we are not going to stop. we are going to make that a priority for our university, and, again, we will tell students if you want to continue -- and you want the university to continue to be open, you must do these things -- you must social distance. you must, indeed, wear a mask, and you must wash your hands and take your basic health -- take care of basic health matters. >> if they do not would you kick them off of campus? >> yes. >> chris is next. port jefferson in louisiana.

go ahead. >> this is long island. the port jefferson long island. i want to make a comment about teachers getting extra money getting paid -- i agree with that 100% of their so many of the people connected with the school. it is not just teachers. you have people that claim, when it snows, the ice, the cook, the girls in the kitchen -- i used to deliver to the kitchens -- these girls work so hard to get kids good food, one, healthy, clean. everyone counts. everyone that is connected to the school. it all matters paid they should all get something, not just one branch of the school. and i am one of the people because i see what they do -- they work so hard. without them, there is no safety if the hall monitor lets anyone in, anyone out, or the cook does not care about keeping things clean -- it starts at the very bottom and everyone in the school works very very hard. i've seen that with my own eyes. they are passionate about their work. they want to make sure kids get

good food, that the plates are cleaned, sterilized. i cannot believe the way they work. my other comment is about opening up schools. they should open up schools but a couple of things should be done -- we have seven days in a week. let's say you have a student of 30 people in a classroom -- three days 15. seven days a week, keep it going -- you can social distance and the kids that are not here today, they will be home -- the other half comes on tuesday. then monday comes back on wednesday, wednesday comes back on thursday -- you could break it down a couple of times. at times like this, these are the things we can do to keep children safe.

>> president mcphee? >> i cannot agree more with the speaker, the caller -- you are absolutely right. it is an area where even before the pandemic for our university we have paid some attention to with regards to those noninstructional staff that make this university what it is today. we have a beautiful campus. obviously, for faculty to be in a position to deliver a quality education, we need the rooms to be clean. we need, you know, the lights to be on. we need everything that runs this university -- it includes a team. i fully agree with you, it is not just the instructional staff. i also agree with you with regards to looking at being very creative in how you structure the time that students on campus and the types of instruction.

we actually have that as part of our scenario -- we are ending our semester early, pay the last day before thanksgiving, once the student leaves for thanksgiving, they will not return. their finals will be given online. we have some courses that are put in a position where students don't have to come to classes every day. so, -- i agree with you on all the comments you've made. >> time for one more call. springfield vermont. you are on with president mcphee. >> you all doing this money? >> doing well.

>> i want to leave this out there -- there are plenty of ways for -- to keep schools safe for children who have honorable conditions were teachers. we have the sanitizing lights that saks fifth avenue put into their store that the airlines used to sanitize airplanes after each flight. they could be put into the schools and replacing florescent lights that sanitize the air. you have the medicinal aerosol that can be put into the ventilation system that kills the virus and goes into the lungs and creates hydrogen peroxide in the immune system that kills. you have hydroxychloroquine, zinc can be used as a prophylactic by the kids and teachers. no matter how many do want to dispel the 65-year-old drug that has gone through clinical trials and is saving lives right now are either ignorant or they are uninformed about the safety of the drug that can be used as a prophylactic and for mild to moderate symptoms. they need to get those mild to

moderate symptoms so they can get over them that much faster so they are no longer contagious to those that are most vulnerable to infection of covid-19. >> that is david in vermont. >> yes, one area that i would like to let our audience know is the amount of the impact of the virus on african americans and people of color. we are very much aware of that. we are very much aware of the issue of lack of technology in some of the areas that students are unable to afford. this year we have given out 459 laptops to our students, 673 hotspots -- we have a partnership with t-mobile. we have given 101 laptops to our faculty and 235 internet

hotspots, and as i mentioned to you, this project, while we are targeting all students, we are particularly focusing on african americans and people of color since this virus has such a deadly impact, significantly more than others in our population. so, we are managing this -- we are looking at the activity levels, and if we see that this virus is getting out of control, the university will take quick action to protect the health and the safety of our students.

thank you for coming today, thank you john appreciate the opportunity.

>> thank you all for joining us this afternoon. i'm jean elwood, vice president of foundation and institutional getting at the atlantic council. i'm so pleased to welcome