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Students at Liberty University in March.
Photo: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
Covidiots?
US uni draws ire for inviting
students back to campus.
An American university is in hot water
over its decision to invite students
back to campus amid the country’s
COVID-19 crisis.
Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia,
broke step with other US and international
institutions – who have been sending
students home – by giving students the
option to return to campus after their
spring break.
“Our thinking was, ‘Let’s get them back
as soon as we can – the ones who want to
come back’,” the university’s president Jerry
Falwell said in a statement.
“I was on a conference call with other
college presidents and representatives
from private colleges, and we listened to
what other schools were doing. Many were
throwing their hands up and saying they
would just close, and others were going to
extend their breaks. At that time, we were on
spring break, so we had time to work on it.”
The decision drew the ire of Lynchburg’s
mayor Treney Tweedy, who called it
“reckless”. In a statement, she rebuked
Falwell’s claims that she and the city
manager thanked him for the decision.
“When we asked President Falwell to close
his campus, he explained that he had to
remain open for on-campus international
students who had not gone home, some
lab classes and the School of Aviation,”
Tweedy said.
“I was very surprised and disappointed to
later learn of President Falwell’s most recent
decision to allow students back on campus.”
Tweedy said she was concerned for the
students, faculty and employees at Liberty
University and “very concerned for the
residents of the Lynchburg community”.
“It is unfortunate that President Falwell
chose to not keep his word to us and to this
community.”
Falwell reassured that the university is
not operating as one, except online, and
described the campus environment as “sort
of a housing complex, with restaurants
doing takeout”.
He said operations on the first day back
were seamless, and added that he met with
many students on campus who were glad
to be back.
“I was joking about how they pretty
much had the whole place to themselves,
and told all of them to enjoy it,” he said.
Among the measures the university
put in place to deal with the risk of
COVID-19 transmission were ensuring the
dining services provider adhered to the
state’s 10 patron limit, regular consultations
with doctors, a ramping up of cleaning
– with oft-touched surfaces cleaned
every hour – and setting up a former
hotel property owned by the university to
quarantine students and staff before they
receive medical attention.
Falwell also reassured that there have
been no staff layoffs to date. ■
Virtual afterlife
UNE technician’s remains become world’s
first online human skeleton.
The University of New England has created the world’s only
fully online human skeleton thanks to a former staff member’s
decision to have his remains used as a teaching aid.
Archaeology technician Rowan Webb died from cancer in 2010
and asked for his remains to be used for scientific research.
Using digitisation and rendering technology only widely available
since Webb’s death, the UNE researcher’s goal was to make his
skeleton available to many more students than would otherwise
have physical access to it.
Project lead and zooarchaeologist Dr Melanie Fillios said:
“Rowan had no idea about the technology that we would have at
our disposal, and that it could make his gift available to the whole
world so that anybody could learn from him.
“His family and those who knew him say he would be absolutely
ecstatic. In a way, he lives on,” she said.
The university said the team had to jump through administrative,
legal and funding hoops to create the 3D models.
Palaeontology PhD candidate Michael Curry photographed each
bone for the project, taking around 30,000 photos of Webb’s skeleton.
“It’s taken almost a year to take those images, reconstruct them
and tweak them so they’re showing exactly what we want to see,”
Curry said.
“We also needed to find a stable, publicly accessible digital
platform, consider storage of the models and photos, and prepare
the metadata.”
Fillios said Webb’s skeleton will be used to teach human bone
identification across a range of applications, from introductory
human anatomy to forensic work.
“We’re looking into cross-disciplinary collaborations with UNE’s
rural criminology units, and potentially offering short courses to
benefit the Australian Federal Police (AFP), using Rowan’s skeleton
to teach the basics of bone identification. But the sky is the limit
for its possible uses,” she said.
The new digital resource will be used for the first time in UNE’s
zooarchaeology unit this year, but will also be available as a resource
for anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world. ■
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