Rutgers University sent most of its students home last week over mounting concerns about exposure to coronavirus.

But some faculty and university employees — unable, or not permitted to work remotely — question whether the state university is doing enough to protect them from potential exposure, after a medical student tested positive this week for coronavirus.

“Many departments are having people come to work,” said Christine O’Connell, president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers. “This is a huge place and a lot of it is very top down and small departments have a lot of authority.”

At the same time Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, the division at Rutgers that includes the medical, dental, pharmacy and other health-related schools, cannot cancel clinical instruction.

Two people in the Rutgers community have so far been hit with the coronavirus.

On Monday, university officials disclosed that a Rutgers University medical student had tested positive for coronavirus. Earlier, the university said a biomedical engineering professor also had been exposed to the virus at a private party in Princeton, and tested positive for the virus days later.

With the viral outbreak spreading like wildfire around the world, Rutgers cancelled classes just before spring break and said it would move all instruction online for the rest of the spring semester when classes resume on March 23, with the exception of clinical instruction, for the remainder of the spring semester. It also canceled commencement on Tuesday.

But the university itself is not actually closed.

“The university remains open and operating with many employees telecommuting where possible,” said Rutgers spokeswoman Dory Devlin.

O’Connell, though, said not everyone has been given the choice to work from home. She said decisions whether about telecommuting are being made inconsistently, and many of requests are being denied.

“My greater concern is that Rutgers has directed staff to continue to come to work, putting staff members and their families at risk,” said O’Connell. “We have thousands of people who are being directed to report to work.”

Emails obtained by NJ Advance Media show several Rutgers employees requesting to work from home but being denied. One employee in University Procurement Services emailed their supervisor on Monday requesting to work from home, saying it was feasible to do their work remotely. The request was denied.

“...this is not sitting well with me,” the employee wrote in a follow up email after their request was denied. “I have all I need to keep the University operational, from a ‘safe space,’ but that request has been denied.”

In a university-wide email on Tuesday, Rutgers President Robert Barchi said “we are working aggressively to support academic continuity, research continuity, telecommuting, and leave flexibility for issues related to COVID-19. Further guidance in all these areas will be provided over the course of this week as we prepare a sustained effort to protect our community while remaining committed to our mission as a public university.”

The latest coronavirus case disclosed on Monday involved a Rutgers medical student who had been at the Kessler Teaching Laboratories in New Brunswick and Woody’s Café on the university’s Busch Campus on March 11, a day before becoming symptomatic, according to an email that went out to medical school students, staff and faculty. The notice said the individual was exposed to “hot spot” areas of Teaneck and New York.

“The individuals with whom the student had close contact are being identified and notified,” the university told students and staff. “The student is quarantined at home with mild symptoms.”

Diomedes Tsitouras, executive director of the American Association of University Professors Biomedical and Health Sciences of New Jersey, which represents 1,500 faculty at the medical schools, dental, and the nursing and public health schools at Rutgers and Rowan Universities, said a lot of faculty members are now questioning whether it is necessary to continue in-person instruction.

“Some other schools have remained open for clinical education, but people are having second thoughts about it,” he said.

It is a complicated situation.

Many faculty members work at University Hospital in Newark and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick are expected to continue working. At the same time, ongoing research requires lab workers to continue staffing facilities because there are live experiments that cannot just be abandoned.

“You would have to shut down research,” said Tsitouras.

The university said classroom schedules at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences have been moved online.

“However, clinical instruction and rotations for medical and other clinical schools require in-person experiential learning and cannot be conducted online,” explained Devlin. “Accrediting organizations normally do not permit substitute clinical teaching methods and without them our medical and other clinical students cannot be granted degrees or licenses.”

She said Rutgers was confident that “the highest standards of health hygiene and protection are being imposed in these clinical settings for our students and all of the health care professionals who are providing essential medical services. However, to the degree we are permitted by our accrediting bodies, we have been and will continue to limit clinical rotations, as well.”

O’Connell said the university should immediately shut down operations.

“At this point this is pandemic they have no control over it,” the union leader said. “We’re all working in the dark at this point.”

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Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

J. Dale Shoemaker is a reporter on the data & investigations team. He can be reached at jshoemaker@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JDale_Shoemaker.

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