Ball State University President Geoffrey Mearns stopped by the IPR studios during Morning Edition for another Friday update on the university and its functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mearns told IPR News the university will aid IU Health-Ball Memorial Hospital should the facility become overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases. Mearns said Ball State and Ball Memorial have agreed to work together in four areas.

Also, the president reviews why the school’s residence halls are to close March 29^th. He also looks ahead to Spring commencement, and comments on the outlook for summer classes.

These points and more are in this full-length interview, aired twice this (Friday) morning on IPR. Mearns also tells a story from Ball State’s first year of existence in 1918 when a local doctor and a Ball State nutritionist, during the Spanish Flu Pandemic, collaborated and developed a program of sanitation and nutrition to preserve the health of Student Army Training Corps (SATC) enrollees. All of the Ball State SATC students survived the pandemic thanks to that town-gown collaboration. Tragically that positive outcome was seen in few if any other SATC programs on American college campuses, that year.