You can read the full interview here.

Based on my past experience, I had the opportunity to share a few pointers for colleges on handling H1N1 with The Greenville News:

Upstate colleges see few swine flu cases
Prevention takes center state as some Southern schools report spike in disease
Liv Osby
Greenville News
September 14, 2009

Swine flu has been sweeping through the nation’s college campuses in recent weeks with a spike in the Southeast, but most Upstate colleges are reporting just a handful of cases — at least so far.

There were nearly 5,000 new cases of flu at schools reporting to the American College Health Association the week ending Sept. 4.

Most cases were in the eight-state Southern region with the bulk in Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and North Carolina, according to ACHA, which surveys 236 colleges nationwide.

South Carolina schools reported flu, too, but it’s been slower to come to the Upstate.

Clemson University, with 17,000 students, had only about 120 cases last week, said George Clay, director of student health services.

Wofford College just started classes Sept. 7, but reported a couple of cases among its 1,400 students, said Elizabeth Wallace, director of health services.

“They haven’t been cultured for H1N1, but we’re treating them as such,” she said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says virtually all flu circulating in the country now is Novel H1N1, also called swine flu.

“I don’t know what number of the college students that have been reported to have influenza in the past couple of weeks clearly have the 2009 H1N1 virus,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “But right now, if a person has influenza-like illnesses, the chances are good it’s the 2009 strain of the virus.”

Furman University, with 2,600 students, has had 17 suspected cases since classes began Aug. 26, spokesman Vince Moore said.

“Overall, it’s been very light and sporadic, and all the cases have been very mild,” he said.

The 15,000-student Greenville Technical College has had just five cases since classes started Aug. 17, spokeswoman Becky Mann said.

“We’re not sure if that’s the entire number. It could be that someone would be out and not mention why,” she said. “But we think only a handful of students have been affected.”

Eight of 2,254 students at North Greenville University have had the flu since school opened Aug. 19, though none in the last week, said LaVerne Howell, director of public relations.

Seven cases have been reported at Presbyterian College, said spokesman Hal Milam. Classes began Aug. 25 at the Clinton college, which has 1,800 students, he said.

Anderson University, with 2,280 students, had two cases at the beginning of the school year but nothing since, said spokesman Barry Ray.

And Bob Jones University hasn’t had any cases of flu at all since school started Sept. 2, spokesman Brian Scoles said.

“We have about 3,900 students, and the majority live in dorms,” he said. “So far, we’ve been fortunate.”

All the cases at Upstate schools have been mild so far, spokesmen said. And the colleges have plans in place to reduce the spread of the virus, including the ability to quarantine students if necessary.

Clemson is asking sick students to isolate themselves until they’re better and advising healthy students to wash their hands often, cover their coughs and avoid behaviors that might transmit infection, such as sharing beverages, Clay said.

“We have a strategy designed to keep the growth in the number of cases to the lowest level possible,” he said. “And we’re encouraging the faculty to not penalize students who miss class because of the flu — the idea being it helps students to isolate themselves because going to class may infect others.”

All the North Greenville students were able to go home to recuperate, Howell said, though the school has the ability to quarantine up to 12 students at a time if necessary.

“Once they’re tested, their parents are called, and they go home,” he said. “And they’re not permitted back in the student population until they’re better.”

Wallace said Wofford has peppered the campus with hand sanitizer and asks infected students to wear masks until they can get home.

“Our focus has been prevention,” she said. “Hopefully, we can contain it and symptoms will continue to be mild.”

Presbyterian also asks sick students to go home, Milam said.

“And in case they live far out of state and can’t go home — we have some international students too — we would isolate them, ask them to stay in their rooms,” he said.

He added that common surfaces, such as apparatus in the fitness center, are regularly cleaned.

Ray said that as soon as the Anderson University students became sick, they were sent home and the school began to manage the situation, educating students about preventing flu and setting up hand sanitizer stations all over campus.

“We have not seen any additional cases since then,” he said. “But we’re being vigilant. I don’t think anybody’s assuming that we’re done with it.”

Schuchat said the college outbreaks were expected based on what happened in the Southern Hemisphere and because the flu seems to be targeting those 24 and younger. She added that some of the schools were well-prepared for the outbreaks.

Dr. Benjamin Ladner, the retired president of American University in Washington, and now a Greenville resident, who headed AU through the SARS scare and other emergencies, says most schools probably aren’t as prepared as they could be.

“I’m betting there are schools and colleges that feel pretty protected, because it hasn’t shown up yet,” he said. “My advice would be to go the extra mile and talk to people going through it, observe mistakes they made, and put together some sort of briefing document so people are not simply reacting. You really do have to practice.”

Schuchat said though many communities have not seen much flu yet this year, it’s still early.

“Our principle prediction now is that it is going to be a busy and long season,” she said, “and we need to be prepared for the next several months and also the spring.”

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Ladner: The Episcopal gamble
Benjamin Ladner
Guest Columnist

The struggle for gay and lesbian rights in America has followed a zigzag, one-step-forward-two-steps-back path for several years. Breakthroughs of varying significance have been achieved in locales and institutions across the country and have gained some momentum of late. Still, there is a great deal to be done to achieve full equality for gays and lesbians in such areas as marriage, inheritance rights, military service, sports and politics.

Nowhere has the pressure for equal recognition and full participation been more agonizing and complex than in America’s churches. The debates and actions of the Episcopal Church during the past several years have had especially divisive ramifications both internally and throughout the world-wide Anglican Communion of which it is a part.

The election of a gay priest, Gene Robinson, as the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire six years ago sparked recrimination and schism. Nationally, four dioceses and other individual parishes and groups split from the Episcopal Church to form the Anglican Church in North America, claiming 100,000 members. The Anglican Communion in some other countries, especially in African nations, adamantly opposed the Episcopal Church’s actions and successfully recruited some U.S. parishes to leave the American church and affiliate with their wing of the communion abroad.

Recently the Episcopal Church’s Houses of Bishops and Deputies overwhelmingly approved a measure affirming the rights of gays and lesbians to serve in any ordained ministerial office, including bishop. This action lifted a moratorium on such appointments adopted three years ago. Prior to the vote, the head of the Church of England (regarded as “first among equals” by Anglican archbishops) urged the Episcopal assembly not to take actions that would “push us further apart.” The resolution is sure to do just that.

Already, the bishop of the conservative Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, reportedly disenchanted with the direction of the national church, has called a convention of church delegates to discuss the future of the diocese.

Other church groups have struggled with the issue too, but more often than not they have resisted allowing the full participation of gays and lesbians in all phases of church life and leadership. They have been content to let the Episcopal Church take the lead, and the flak, and observe how serious the fallout might be.

Churches, of course, reflect the diversity of the American people who make up their membership, so it is not surprising that tensions between conservatives and liberals in churches echo views expressed in so-called secular culture. However, an added ingredient helps fuel the intensity of disagreement in church settings. People in Christian churches of all stripes affirm the reality of a divinely revealed truth, namely that the essence of the sacred is love, which is the touchstone of all human interactions. This is no mere abstract doctrine. The way we treat other people — accepting them with dignity as equals and loving them as we love ourselves — is at the heart of what Christianity is all about.

This disarmingly simply message can be, as the Scriptures say, a “stumbling block” for many. It asserts that the dignity of individuals supersedes any institutional claim — even by the church — that would diminish this dignity in any way. Loving my neighbor takes precedent over loving my church and reducing individuals to stereotypes.

What the Episcopal Church has done, and has done boldly and decisively, is to make a choice, a gamble of faith, without being able to predict or control the ultimate impact on the institution. It is likely that those who supported the action are humbled by the immensity of the risk, encouraged by a memorable moment of collective courage and comforted that the choice they made is consistent with the deepest meanings of the Christian faith.

Some within the church have begun to recognize the extent to which the church has helped create an underclass of people — women and African-Americans, in particular — inside and outside the church. Painful as it surely is to admit, gays and lesbians have been consigned to that same underclass. First women, then African-Americans and now at last gays and lesbians have been winning the freedom to be who they are within the church. In truth, of course, there is no honest Christian faith that would allow for the existence of any underclass based on gender, skin color, sexual preference, age or nationality.

What the Episcopal Church has done is simply to say: “Enough. We can no longer live in the gap between a pretense of faith sanctioned by an institution and the challenge of faith to embrace all human beings as equal before God.”

This gamble of faith is likely to trigger an outburst of condemnation and disaffiliation as some congregations, socially and theologically upright in every other respect, opt not to risk the burden and freedom of faith but to fortify the barriers of the religious institutions they inhabit. That, alas, would be the biggest gamble of all — to gain ecclesiastical exclusivity at the cost of losing the church’s very soul.

Dr. Ladner, formerly president of American University, is a member of Christ Episcopal Church in Greenville.

We are so used to trafficking in words that we rarely pause to pay attention to silence itself. The overwhelming technical advances in speed, amplification, and access that are enhanced by our control and manipulation of words and images only increase our infatuation and addiction. No doubt this is both unavoidable and fulfilling since we find ourselves in expression.

What we are in danger of losing amid the deluge of technologically expanded instruments for communication is a centuries old tradition of immersing ourselves in silence as another major means of discovering ourselves, the world and reality. It is certainly true that our modern Western culture has virtually eliminated any consistent times and spaces in which we could even experience silence, by which I mean not just being quiet and not talking but engaging deeply with silence on its own terms.

More importantly, we have lost the language of silence, if I may put it that way. Say we manage to find ourselves in a forest on a weekend, by ourselves, on purpose. Do we even know how to enter silence, to slow down, even remove, the running commentary of the ceaseless flow of our minds? Almost certainly not. Silence is there, of course, but what to do with it; how to access it and understand it?

It is important to remind ourselves that what is most obvious is often the most difficult to get in perspective. Silence is already there, and here, already a part of us. As with dreams, we can go a long way simply by practicing. And the more we practice, the richer our experience.

For more on the value of silence, read Orlando Sentinel Columnist Darryl Owen‘s piece, “I tweet, therefore I am? Just say no, Twitter fiends.”