Sensible enough, and echoes some ideas seen in the Purdue plan and in thoughts I posted about this awhile ago. An excerpt:
All campuses must be able to conduct rapid testing for the coronavirus for all students, when they first arrive on campus and at regular intervals throughout the year. Testing only those with symptoms will not be sufficient. We now know that many people who have the disease are asymptomatic. Regular testing is the only way to prevent the disease from spreading silently through dormitories and classrooms.
Traditional contact tracing is not sufficient on a college campus, where students may not know who they sat next to in a lecture or attended a party with. Digital technology can help. Several states are working to adapt mobile apps created by private companies to trace the spread of disease, and colleges and universities can play a role by collaborating with their state health departments and rolling out tracing technology on their campuses.
Testing and tracing will be useful only if students who are ill or who have been exposed to the virus can be separated from others. Traditional dormitories with shared bedrooms and bathrooms are not adequate. Setting aside appropriate spaces for isolation and quarantine (e.g. hotel rooms) may be costly, but necessary. It will also be necessary to ensure that students abide by the rigorous requirements of isolation and quarantine.
It's an open question, of course, whether enough testing will be available come late summer–I would imagine every university hoping to open is in the process of trying to secure tests, as well as masks, hand sanitizer, and the like. Schools in college towns won't have adequate hotel space to draw on, so they may need to create dorms for those who are sick (to that end, schools ought to be granting some number of deferrals to create space on campus). Unmentioned, but essential it seems to me, are mandatory flu shots, so that colleges aren't dealing with two infectious outbreaks at once. All of this will also be costly, and some schools won't be able to bear the cost, so will revert to on-line instruction.
Feel free to link to other plans colleges are making (and see some of those noted here and in the comments).
(Thanks to Jonathan Kramnick for the pointer.)
ADDENDUM: One thing the Brown President also does not mention, but which seems to me crucial, is to start earlier in August so as to conclude the fall term before Thanksgiving. I can't imagine anything more counter-productive then shipping thousands of students to homes around the country for af ew days, then bringing them back to campus for a couple of more weeks! It will be hard enough to do all the testing etc. for the start of the Winter/Spring term, colleges really should plan on ending by Thanksgiving, even if that means losing a week of instruction.
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