Community

When George Floyd lost his life under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, his death became a rallying cry for racial justice across the nation—and at Case Western Reserve.

Ten days after protests began in Cleveland, then-President Barbara R. Snyder and Provost Ben Vinson III sponsored a Day of Dialogue that featured nearly a dozen virtual sessions covering such topics as university police and safety, health disparities, and campus climate. While the day’s topics varied, one theme consistently emerged: Talk is important, but action must follow.

In the ensuing months, the university hosted a second Day of Dialogue and launched a student-led task force that seeks to address a broad range of subjects, including issues of race on campus.

When Case Western Reserve announced a shift to remote instruction last spring, officials hoped students would return to classes within a few weeks.

Three days later, they advised it would continue throughout the semester.

The moment marked the first of many massive changes that our campus, country and world experienced in 2020. It also signaled the start of extraordinary responses among students, staff, faculty and alumni—all aimed at improving the lives of others.

In some of history’s most anxious and uncertain moments, our community’s creativity and compassion inspired us all.

Anatomy Assistant Professor Susanne Wish-Baratz didn’t have to worry about medical students’ access to cadavers when classes went remote in the spring; after all, Case Western Reserve’s curriculum for the subject is almost entirely digital.

With assistance from Microsoft, the university’s Interactive Commons team secured enough of the company’s HoloLens mixed-reality devices to provide them to all 185 students, with HoloAnatomy—a proprietary software that gives students 3D perspectives of the body—already loaded.

Students were pleased with what Wish-Baratz called a “seamless transition.” In a study conducted in spring (and published in September in JAMA Network Open), the overwhelming majority of students felt the virtual learning was as effective—if not more so— than in-person courses.

“With HoloAnatomy, you can literally see through structure if you lean in ... and then [you] come back out and the organ is still intact,” said student Sanjana Madishetty. “You can’t do that with a dissection, and you can’t do it at home like this!”

A medical student created an elective when her last hospital rotation was canceled: Epidemiology of Pandemics and Global Response.

A famed alumnus of our acting program appeared on Zoom to support students after the cancellation of their culminating New York City showcase.

A professor brought global entrepreneurs into his virtual classroom—then opened the sessions to the public.

These examples were just a few of the many creative approaches our community brought to education last spring. Despite the multiple time zones and technological challenges involved, an end-of-semester survey found that nearly nine out of 10 students agreed or strongly agreed that their instructors did their best to adjust to the learning environment. More, three out of four said they were confident they had completed their courses successfully.

The pandemic that upended our lives has also created an extraordinary conundrum: With a threat as contagious and lethal as COVID-19, can protection of collective well-being outweigh individual autonomy?

For two Case Western Reserve faculty, the controversial question requires consideration not only of law, but also ethics, education and, most of all, public health.

Writing in both a peer-reviewed academic journal and a mainstream media publication, law professor Max Mehlman and medical professor Michael Lederman make clear that legal precedents give the government the right to compel vaccinations, such as those for COVID-19. But they also acknowledge that officials also have abused this authority—as in the Tuskegee syphilis study—while others have spread misinformation regarding risks.

The result? A growing anti-vaccination movement leading to lower immunization rates—which, in turn, have sparked new outbreaks of once-defeated diseases such as measles.

While society and government can mandate immunization, Mehlman and Lederman argue, the best prescription also includes twin cures: massive education efforts and appealing civil incentives.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine students saw the strain put on frontline health workers. So they organized to help out—volunteering to run errands, tutor children, walk dogs and more.

Other student efforts followed, many focused on the Cleveland community: sewing masks, securing personal protective equipment donations, and providing meals to people in need.

And then faculty and staff members added their own contributions, with more than 1,000 donating $300,000 in parking credits to the university’s Student Emergency Fund, originally established by a medical school alumnus. Then, when spring semester activities were canceled, student government leaders reallocated those funds to support peers facing unanticipated expenses.

“I think the big thing that all of this proves is that none of us are alone, and that we can all help out in some small way,” said Hunter Stecko, then vice president of finance for Undergraduate Student Government who helped establish the fund for student peers. “I hope that even in the midst what seems to be one of the most confusing times in our living memory, this can still bring a little bit of brightness.”

Within days of the novel coronavirus reaching Ohio, more than 260 Case Western Reserve researchers came together to create a COVID-19 Task Force.

Within two months, members submitted nearly 50 research proposals to the task force, while also pursuing outside funding from sources such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health and private organizations. Plus, they connected with leading researchers from across Northeast Ohio to enhance and unify the region’s efforts.

By summer, the task force had awarded $500,000 in university funding to 18 research projects to pursue their studies. And over six months, 50 teams of researchers secured other funding to learn more about the development, control and biology of the novel coronavirus, as well as the emotional impacts, economic concerns and ethical issues surrounding the pandemic.

A few of the researchers’ efforts include:

Studying the Spread

Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve researchers are analyzing COVID-19 patient data to better understand how the virus spreads and where various strains originate. They are sequencing the genome and using computational algorithms to mine patterns from the genetic sequences of the RNA of the novel coronavirus.

'Unprecedented' Trauma

In a 600-participant study of the emotional impact of the pandemic in the spring, 94% of respondents reported some levels of grief, and 86% experienced at least one trauma symptom — a level never seen before, according to researchers in the university’s social work and nursing schools.

Mapping Apps

A team led by computer and data sciences faculty member Yanfang (Fanny) Ye developed alpha-Satellite, an online risk-assessment tool and mobile app that gives users information about the relative risk of going to any location in the United States. In addition, a team from our Weatherhead School of Management, Case School of Engineering and School of Medicine won a global #HackFromHome competition for the ShareTrace app, which provides privacy- protecting contact tracing and personalized infection risk-management tools to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Advancing with Artificial Intelligence

In her second NSF COVID-19 award, Ye’s team earned funding to develop AI approaches to detect coronavirus-themed malware. And in April, a team in our Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics, led by biomedical engineering professor Anant Madabhushi, began developing an AI computational tool to help medical staff decide which patients will need the most treatment for COVID-19—especially ventilators.