UT faculty petition for mask mandates in class to ensure greater safety measures
Almost 800 University faculty signed a petition to allow for a mask and vaccine mandate on Aug. 11, after UT announced faculty could switch their classes partially or completely online just weeks before the first day of school.
Patricia Maclachlan, who was one of the main creators of the petition, said she and other faculty members felt frustrated with the administration’s abrupt introduction of hybrid and virtual classes for the first three weeks of school. She said if they were allowed to enforce mask mandates, the teaching modes wouldn’t need to be changed.
“I started receiving messages from the provost office about reduced-capacity teaching, and it just got me thinking that all of these efforts to give students an in-class experience (and) the acrobatics that we had to go through, were unnecessary if we were allowed to require our students to be masked,” Maclachlan, a government and Japanese studies professor, said.
Maclachlan said she wrote to the president and provost before starting the petition but did not receive any acknowledgement in response to her concerns. She said that having to create plans for virtual and in-person learning that will resume three weeks into the school year is difficult for faculty.
Read more: https://thedailytexan.com/2021/08/25/ut-faculty-petition-for-mask-mandates-in-class-to-ensure-greater-safety-measures/
