Dear Commons Community,

The captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt relieved of his command after seeking stronger measures in response to a coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship was given a hero’s ovation by his crew when he left the vessel.  As reported by Reuters. 

A clip (courtesy of CNN) showed Captain Brett Crozier walking down the gangplank of the Theodore Roosevelt as crew members repeatedly chanted “Captain Crozier, Captain Crozier!”

Crozier turned to wave at the crew after he stepped ashore in Guam. 

The removal of Crozier, first reported by Reuters, was announced by acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who said the captain of the nuclear-powered vessel of 5,000 crew members had exercised poor judgment in the way he “broadly” distributed a letter to superiors.

In his four-page letter, Crozier, who took command in November, described a bleak situation aboard the carrier as more of his crew began falling ill.

He called for “decisive action”: removing more than 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them, and wrote that unless the Navy acted immediately it would be failing to properly safeguard “our most trusted asset – our sailors.”

The letter put the Pentagon on the defensive and alarmed the families of those on the vessel, whose home port is in San Diego.

President Donald Trump, when asked about the captain during a White House news conference on Thursday, disputed the notion that Crozier appeared to have been disciplined for trying to save the lives of sailors.

“I don’t agree with that at all. Not at all. Not even a little bit,” Trump said.

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden said that the Trump administration showed “poor judgment” in relieving a warship commander who was trying to stem a coronavirus outbreak among his crew.

Separately, acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told Reuters yesterday that Crozier would not be thrown out of the Navy, but rather reassigned as the Navy probed the incident.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Some 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, the Department of Labor reported yesterday, double the number of applications reported last week and 10 times the previous weekly record set in 1982. As many as 20 million people could be out of work this summer, according to separate estimates from the Economic Policy Institute and Bank of America. As reported by CBS News:

“We haven’t, in my lifetime, my parents’ lifetime, seen this. This is truly unprecedented,” said Bill Rodgers, a fellow at The Century Foundation. 

In March, 3 million more workers applied for unemployment than the total number of people who found jobs in the first three years of the Trump presidency. “If all of the near 10 million people who filed claims in the past two weeks are classified as unemployed in April’s employment report, then the unemployment rate would hit 10.1%, which would slightly exceed the peak a decade ago in the aftermath of the [Great Financial Crisis],” Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics wrote in a report.

Other economists warn unemployment could surge as high as 16%. “No words for this,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told investors. 

While 10 million is a staggering figure, it almost certainly underestimates the number of people who have lost work in recent weeks. That’s because the volume of applicants has been so high that they are simply overwhelming states’ unemployment systems.

Florida resident Iris Bonet, 33, spent three days trying to apply for unemployment benefits on behalf of her husband, a cook in a school who was laid off immediately after spring break. “Every time we would make it through one part of the application, the website would kick you out and start over,” Bonet said via email. Even after submitting the application, she’s not sure she will be accepted because she hasn’t received a confirmation email. She didn’t try calling given the news reports about the phone lines being overwhelmed.

“We definitely understand that processing will probably be longer than normal because of everyone applying right now, but the least they could do is send an email,” Bonet said. “It doesn’t leave much confidence.”

In New York, the volume of calls from people seeking help increased by a factor of 150, and the state is “deluged,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.

Part of the financial relief bill increased funding and staffing for states, in order to more quickly help the throngs of newly unemployed.

Small businesses shed jobs

Private businesses lost 27,000 jobs in March, according to a private survey from payroll processor ADP. That figure mostly reflects the economy before the full impact of the viral outbreak, as layoffs and hiring freezes accelerated near the end of the month.

ADP said small businesses took the biggest hit, losing 90,000 jobs, while medium-sized and large companies still added workers. It’s the first time since September 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit the southeast, that ADP has reported a job loss.

Indeed, economists are turning to natural disasters to describe the speed and scale of economic disruption.

“You immediately go looking at natural disasters, like hurricanes, or the Great Recession” to find an analog, Rodgers said. With the current speed of layoffs, however, the unemployment rate is set to exceed the 10% peak set in the Great Recession within several weeks.

Roushaunda Williams is on unemployment for the first time after 20 years as a bartender at Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton Hotel, the Associated Press reported. During good years, Williams, 52, pulled in $70,000 to $100,000 annually. But she had to get a credit-card advance to pay her $1,850 rent on April 1, and she’s already considering downsizing, or moving in with friends, the AP reported.

“April 1 isn’t even here yet, and I’m already working on what I’m going to do for May 1,” Williams told the AP.

President Donald Trump, who initially set a goal of restarting the economy by Easter, on Tuesday warned Americans to brace for “one of the roughest two or three weeks we’ve ever had in our country.”

The scale of layoffs and business closures is so deep, some economists are calling this a depression.

“The No. 1 economy in the world, the United States, is not functioning,” said Tenpao Lee, an economist at Niagara University. “All the service sectors are being affected.”

Below are state by state figures.

Tony

Bill Bramhall Cartoon

Dear Commons Community,

Dozens of professors of journalism and communications signed a scathing open letter yesterday criticizing Fox News’ coverage of the coronavirus pandemic for presenting “a danger to public health.”

The letter (see below), which was addressed to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, criticizes Fox News for “false statements downplaying the prevalence of COVID-19 and its harms; misleading recommendations of activities that people should undertake to protect themselves and others, including casual recommendations of untested drugs; false assessments of the value of measures urged upon the public by their elected political leadership and public health authorities.”

The letter adds that “it is not an overstatement to say that your misreporting endangers your own viewers” as it accused the network of being “derelict in its duty to provide clear and accurate information about COVID-19.” 

It also points out that “the network’s delinquency was effective,” citing recent polls from YouGov/Economist and Pew Research which found that Fox News viewers “are much less likely than others to say they are worried about the coronavirus” and are more likely to believe that the mainstream media has exaggerated the danger posed by COVID-19.

“Fox News reporters have done some solid reporting,” the letter states. “And the network has recently given some screen time to medical and public health professionals. But Fox News does not clearly distinguish between the authority that should accrue to trained experts, on the one hand, and the authority viewers grant to pundits and politicians for reasons of ideological loyalty.”

Prominently featured signatories of the letter include Todd Gitlin of the Columbia Journalism School, Mark Feldstein of the University of Maryland, Adam Hochschild and Edward Wasserman of University of California — Berkeley and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frances FitzGerald. Gitlin told the Times of San Diego by email that he “got the initial signatories and sent the letter with the sign-up link to folks I know at J-schools around the country” and planned to post it to Medium.

The Murdochs and Fox News have provided a great disservice to its viewers especially the vulnerable aged population.

Tony

Governor Ron DeSantis

Dear Commons Community,

Finally after days of denial, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday issued a stay-at-home order for the entire state as it grapples with a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak.  People both inside and outside the state of Florida have been pushing him to make this decision for a couple of weeks. 

Florida has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Nearly 7,000 people in the state have tested positive for the virus, with 84 people dying. And state officials worry the situation could get increasingly worse, given the number of tourists who come in and out of Florida and the state’s relatively older population core.

The order goes into effect tonight at midnight and will last for at least 30 days, DeSantis said at a briefing yesterday. DeSantis has been criticized for refusing to implement statewide social distancing guidelines, particularly as beach-goers and students on spring break continued to gather in large groups.

The governor said “it makes sense to do this now” after President Donald Trump announced earlier this week that the administration is extending its social distancing guidelines another 30 days. DeSantis, a Republican, said he took that as a “signal” from the president that this need to be done in the state.

We hope he has not endangered Floridians by his delay.

Tony

NOTE:  After this posting was made, it was announced that religious gatherings were exempted.  Here is reporting from Florida Politics (FLAPOL).

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statewide stay-at-home order  that will go into effect tomorrow might has one glaring hole that would allow churches or other religious gathering places to continue to hold in-person religious services regardless of the number of people in attendance and without regard to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention social distancing guidelines.

The order exempts “attending religious services conducted in churches, synagogues and houses of worship.”

Governor DeSantis doesn’t get it!

Tony

Robin L. Garrell,  Frank H. Wu,  Daisy Cocco De Filippis

Dear Commons Community,

The City University of New York announced yesterday that it had appointed three new presidents at the CUNY Graduate Center, Queens College and Hostos Community College. In making these appointments, the Board of Trustees selected candidates from across the country.   As reported in the CUNY’s official announcement.

To lead The Graduate Center — CUNY’s prestigious hub of research and graduate education for the public good — the Trustees appointed Robin L. Garrell, vice provost for graduate education and graduate division dean at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Garrell, whose academic background is in biochemistry and engineering, will lead a center with over 3,500 students in 31 doctoral and 16 master’s programs. The Graduate Center, located in midtown Manhattan, has 134 core faculty, joined by 1,750 additional faculty members drawn from CUNY’s colleges and New York City’s cultural and scientific institutions. Dr. Garrell will succeed Interim President James L. Muyskens​.

The Board named as president of Queens College Frank H. Wu, the former chancellor of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he is currently a distinguished professor. Mr Wu will be the first Asian-American to serve as the president of Queens, a four-year college with almost 20,000 students from over 150 countries and a national reputation for its liberal arts and sciences and preprofessional programs. He will be CUNY’s second Asian-American college president following the University’s appointment last month of Dr. S. David Wu, the incoming president of Baruch College. The college was previously led by CUNY’s Chancellor, Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, who was named to the University’s top post in 2019 after five years as president at Queens. Mr. Wu succeeds Interim President William Tramontano.

To serve as the interim president of Eugenio María de Hostos Community College, the trustees named Dr. Daisy Cocco De Filippis, president of Naugatuck Valley Community College in Connecticut. Dr. De Filippis will be the first Dominican woman to serve as president of a CUNY college. She is a CUNY alumna and former provost at Hostos, one of CUNY’s seven community colleges and an important educational anchor in the Bronx for more than 50 years. Dr. De Fillipis will succeed Hostos President David Gómez, who recently announced his plans to retire.

“These are three outstanding leaders who bring not only exceptional credentials and deep experience, but the kind of diverse backgrounds and experiences that make them perfect choices for the nation’s largest public urban University,” said Chairperson William C. Thompson Jr. “Each of these accomplished educators has demonstrated a commitment to advancing opportunity for students and the vision to lead their campuses into the future as we emerge from the COVID-19 emergency and continue our pursuit of the University’s vital mission for the people of New York.”

“I am thrilled that our national searches brought us such dynamic educators and leaders as we look to rebound from the challenges of these uncertain times,” said Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “Robin Garrell is a brilliant scientist with a track record of increasing diversity and inclusiveness among the ranks of graduate students. Frank Wu is a trailblazer in legal education who has broken barriers for Asian-Americans. And I am delighted to welcome back Daisy Cocco De Filippis, a pioneer in Dominican studies who had great success advancing opportunities for low-income students in Connecticut.”

Further biographical information about each of these presidents can be found here.

We wish all of them the best of luck!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

George Conway, wife of President Trump’s adviser, Kellyanne Conway,  blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in his latest Washington Post op-ed, admonishing him for his claim that impeachment created a distraction from coronavirus preparations. Conway wrote.

“There should have been shame enough in orchestrating the acquittal of an impeached president who, in order to extort help for his reelection campaign, unlawfully withheld security aid to an ally.”  

“But it turns out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was just getting started.”

In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday, McConnell said that coronavirus first “came up while we were tied down on the impeachment trial,” which he claimed “diverted the attention of the government.”

In the column published later that day, Conway labeled this sentiment “gaslighting of the highest order.”

Walking through the coronavirus and impeachment trial timelines, the attorney pointed out that Trump blew off the outbreak as nothing to worry about numerous times during the trial, and had time to hold five campaign rallies and play golf in Mar-a-Lago during the early and even intermediate stages of the outbreak. 

Weeks after the impeachment trial concluded on Feb. 5, Trump, still downplaying the seriousness of the burgeoning outbreak, riffed at a South Carolina campaign event that his political opponents were weaponizing the virus as a “hoax” against his presidency. In early March, despite social distancing measures and cancellations of major events and gatherings, Trump said he would continue to hold 2020 campaign rallies.

He repeatedly dismissed early concerns about the outbreak and ignored warnings from intelligence and medical community professionals, leading to a delayed response in the critical window needed to prepare.

“The problem wasn’t impeachment — it was the president,” Conway wrote.

“If anything, it was McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans’ refusal to remove him, not the impeachment itself, that helped bring us to where we are today.”

Don’t hold back Mr. Conway!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Kara Swisher has an op-ed in today’s New York Times slamming Fox News for spraying its viewers with false information about the coronavirus pandemic.   She views the elderly as victims of the network and sandwiches her commentary by relating her personal experiences with her own mother.  Here is an excerpt.

“As The Times media columnist Ben Smith wrote recently: “Fox failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal. In particular, Lachlan Murdoch failed to pry its most important voices away from their embrace of the president’s early line: that the virus was not a big threat in the United States.”

That would be the chief executive of the company that owns Fox News, who took over the job from his infamous father, Rupert Murdoch. It was the patriarch who set the table at Fox, and Lachlan is just an apparently lackadaisical butler of the family business, according to Mr. Smith.

Well, not completely. Lachlan Murdoch did dump a B-team player, the Fox Business host Trish Regan, after she called the media attention given to coronavirus “another attempt to impeach the president.”

In Mr. Smith’s column, Fox’s longtime public relations honcho Irena Briganti said that the virus situation “has evolved considerably over the last few weeks.” Presumably that’s an attempt to use a get-out-of-lawsuit-free card by trying to establish that the story has shifted and so has the news organization.

Mistakes were made, pandemic version.

Given the growing number of cases and deaths in the United States, Fox stopped playing down the crisis, a move that closely tracks the rocky evolution in thinking by Mr. Trump. Fox may also seek cover from some early pronunciations from another powerful Fox host, Tucker Carlson. While Mr. Hannity spun the hoax line, Mr. Carlson was quite firmly in the taking-it-seriously camp, urging Mr. Trump to act.

But back then, Mr. Carlson was a lone prominent voice on Fox, and his more grounded views did not break through to my mother in the early days. In this, Fox failed my mother and countless others of its fans. While we can joke all we want about the “Fair and Balanced” motto, it’s a very low bar to simply give your audience decent health information.

Fox News finally got much more serious in its reporting on the coronavirus, as has Mr. Trump. Convinced by experts’ new estimates that millions of Americans would be at risk for infection and hundreds of thousands at risk for dying if he prematurely reopened the country, Mr. Trump and Fox have gone into reverse.”

Better late than never but in this case it may be too little too late. 

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Goldie Blumenstyk has an article in this morning’s Chronicle of Higher Education based on interviews she conducted with representatives of six of the largest foundations that make grants to colleges and universities. Her focus is on grantmakers who see higher education suddenly facing a new reality. In less than a month, just about all of face-to-face higher education moved to remote operations. The American economy shifted from near full employment to a spiral that could end up exceeding the joblessness levels of the Great Depression. And of course our country — and most of the world — is still struggling to meet the growing medical needs of far too many.  Here is an excerpt.

“As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses.

Even as the ground continues to move, several of the biggest philanthropic influencers are already shifting gears. This past week I spoke to leaders of six of the biggest higher-education grantmaking organizations, who collectively account for some $370 million annually in grants to hundreds of colleges, associations, and other organizations.

Each had a slightly different take but these are three of their biggest priorities for giving across the board:

• Efforts to get more emergency aid directly into the hands of students in financial need right now.
• Organizations that can help facilitate quality online learning as well as access to it.
• Academic services for populations of students who were already at a disadvantage in getting to and through college, and will now be even more affected by the economic turmoil.

The grantmakers also raised concerns about the needs of students and families not met by the three federal stimulus packages, the value in building more capacity for holistic crisis planning, and the ramifications of the economic upheaval that has already begun to roil most colleges — and close some of them.

The six leaders I spoke with oversee postsecondary philanthropy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ascendium Education Group, the Lumina Foundation, the ECMC Foundation, the Strada Education Network, and the Kresge Foundation.”

The entire article is worth a read for administrators throughout the higher education community.  We are going to need these foundations.

Tony