Student Visas Will Not Be Denied for Online-Only Classes; Rice University Purchases Tents for Use as Outdoor Classrooms
DAVID LEEBRON, PRESIDENT, RICE UNIVERSITY: And I'm grateful for the reversal of the government position on this.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: And in that amicus brief, that Rice University filed, you even talk about some of the students that would impacted here, some of the foreign students, what they're researching, what they're contributing, what they're already doing here in the United States? You do have to wonder, Shimon, my colleague posed this question, I'd like to get your take on what the administration was thinking to begin with in putting this directive in place?</s>LEEBRON: Well, I'm, of course, not sure. There was a suggestion that they really wanted to put pressure on the universities like K through 12 to be open in the fall. Our current plans are to be open in a very careful way. So that's one possibility. But I think it's also an illustration that when you have a kind of xenophobic attitude, it spreads and ultimately it results in things that make absolutely no sense at all in terms of good government policy. And I think that's what we've seen here. And it's good to see it withdrawn. I would like to see really much more proactive approach to welcoming people to this country and particularly to welcoming our international students.</s>BOLDUAN: So, it will be a welcome, welcome, welcome announcement to many students at Rice University and far beyond. You talked about how you are planning to reopen in a careful fashion come the fall. Rice is literally trying to -- trying a very unique way, a solution to kind of the biggest problem is, how do you bring people back on campus to teach in person and keep them socially distanced. You're going to be putting up, I was seeing, an open-sided tent on campus to try to teach students in the safest way possible which is classrooms outdoors. How is this going to work?</s>LEEBRON: So we're constructing nine kind of tents on our campus for our what we call them semi-permanent, they'll actually probably be up for a period of years, that creates larger spaces, spaces that we do -- can accommodate larger groups. We won't be allowing classes of more than 25 at this point or gatherings of more than 50 and we'll constantly review that guidance at Rice. I think for the open-sided tents, as it were, that creates, of course, a lot of air flowing through, all the scientific research that we've seen suggests that one factor in creating a safer environment. And all of this is about, you know, as you said, the physical distancing of our students, having students and other people, all people on the campus wear a mask, having them not engage in unnecessary contact and where possible being outdoors. And if you put all of measures together, we believe that we can maintain a safe environment for our students and faculty. That said, we're also giving people a choice and so we're planning what we call "dual delivery" or some call it "hybrid delivery" and so students can choose. Do they want to be on campus going to classes or do they prefer to take them remotely?</s>BOLDUAN: How does what's happening in the broader community in Houston impact your decisions on schools? Because we know that the Mayor of Houston is saying that the city needs to be shutting down for two weeks. The state really does. And you just look at our screen, you can see the numbers of cases that are just being hit just Monday in the Houston area and in Texas. Which were breaking records. How does what's happening in Houston impact what is happening in a university in Houston in Rice?</s>LEEBRON: Well we have to pay close attention to that in two different respects. One, we have to pay close attention to what the risks on our campus. We think we've adopted policies which include testing, making sure we have available adequate quarantining and isolation facilities. And so, we have to make sure our students follow the rules and that we can maintain the safety on our campus and so we'll constantly evaluate that. But the second aspect is making sure that medical care is available. And so we're following very closely the occupancy of the hospital beds in the Texas Medical Center and right now that seems to be under a fair amount of control but we have concerns as the numbers have been increasing lately and we'll continue to watch that closely as we approach the fall.</s>BOLDUAN: Yes, having to be flexible and nimble is unfortunately an absolute necessity at this moment. As you were jumping on in the breaking news to get on with us early, I really appreciate it. David, thank you very much for your time. Good luck in the fall.</s>LEEBRON: Great. Thank you so much. Take care.</s>BOLDUAN: Thank you. So, it is the summer of COVID. The summer of protests. And now a summertime surge in crime. What happens in America when the police and the people both come under fire? Don Lemon is hosting a special edition of CNN TONIGHT with an in depth look at crime, policing and your safety. That is 10:00 p.m. Eastern this evening. Coming up still for us, if you've had COVID, are you immune? A new study finds immunity after COVID may be fleeting. What does this mean for you? Your family? For all of us? We'll be right back.