This statement appears to me to be an optimistic view of the underspecified comments that Amherst actually made, which were:
At Amherst, students most likely wouldn’t be able to attend large parties, sporting events or performances, but also, there might be other limitations on who they can have close contact with,
@ChemAM someone suggested above that roommates would be like a family and could be close to one another and, by extension, I assumed that meant no one else would allowed in their dorm room. So are we assuming no six foot rule at all outside of class? Sit near each other in libraries, dorms, cafeterias? Where’s the line of the six foot social distancing rule? I don’t think that is clear. If it’s in all college owned buildings except dorms then why bother? If kids are close in dorms, they may as well be close in class. I see no difference.
S19 agrees. All of his spring 2020 classes were small (<25 students). Some profs held “live” synchronous classes and he said they were great. And 4 out of 5 adapted the curriculum well to suit an online format.
It worked so well, in fact, that he signed up for two classes this summer (since his internships were canceled). He did look at reviews to see which profs were especially adept at online instruction.
@ChemAM Amherst’s letter said that kids would have to limit the number of people they choose to be close to. How does that work? You choose other students at the beginning of the school year and then that can’t change? You don’t make any new friends? What about the first years? That part needs to be more clear.
But not extremely rare. In my county, 8% of the deaths are people under 50. Hospitalizations in my area? At the beginning of the pandemic (which is what I’ve got data for) about 30% of the people hospitalized were 50 or under.
Most of the people who die are old, but a lot of younger people get hospitalized.
I have a hard time with the idea that classes could be in person for the healthy ones, and anyone with underlying conditions would stay remote/online. Talk about uneven playing fields, what a disadvantage for the online students! Academic life is so much richer when discussions are held face to face, groups can meet, you get to know your professors, etc, etc. How could any institution allow that dichotomy?
@Knowsstuff i know Bowdoin could spread the kids out for class. I don’t think that’s an issue at all. I don’t think they’d have to go online unless a professor is immune compromised. It’s the social stuff. S19 studies in all sorts of buildings around campus with his friends. Is that not allowed? What does it mean to limit the people you are in close contact with?
If the goal is to get back to how it was, then it makes planning for the fall semester much easier for all the schools…the fall 2021 semester that is.
I’ve been following the thread, and here are a couple of thoughts…
The universities are waiting for the state and local health department to outline the best practices for safe interactions. This will be different for offices, classrooms, apartments/dorms, and restaurants. They Universities have a rough idea of what the requirements will be and they’re making plans, but they can’t tell students anything specific.
As long as they meet the best practices their liability will mostly be contained.
The state and local governments want the universities open but don’t want to overwhelm the hospitals. School will be closed when the hospital is strained. Some rural schools have very few ICU beds nearby.
In the dorms the University can monitor students health and their social distancing. It’s the apartment dwellers that will be the problem.
I think masks will be required indoors, only room mates in dorm room, and food will either be boxed or they will eat with their room mates. This won’t be a social time because masks have to be removed to eat.
There will be almost zero organized activities. Universities will promise to add them back when possible, but that will most likely be fall 2021.
Student’s room mates will be their quarantine family and that will be the only people they don’t have to social distance from. There won’t be groups of 10+ hanging out without masks.
Isolated schools like Bowdoin might be able to quarantine all of the students as one big group.
Universities will try to group students together by major or something similar to limit cross exposure. The students on the dorm floor will have a lot of classes together.
The bigger classrooms will be in use from 7 am to 10 pm and there will be 30min + gaps between classes to keep halls less crowded and to wipe down desks.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the social distancing and contact apps. Will students leave their phone at home? Will some of the liberal colleges protest the invasion of privacy?
Also, I still haven’t heard who will pay the infirmary or quarantine costs.
It’s interesting to me when people say, college students are not at risk, oh yeah except for students who have risk factors like obesity.
So, does your child’s school have a football team? And does that college football team have offensive and defensive linemen on it? Football players are not the only obese students in college, but linemen are often obese. (No, that gut is not muscle.)
Look around. There are a lot of fat college students.
If so, and if there is an outbreak, over half the students would become infected, and also over half of the faculty and staff that has not been working remotely. I would not be OK with that if I was teaching at Bowdoin.
If colleges open before there is a vaccine (IF there is a vaccine), there will be outbreaks.
It’s safe to say…colleges are likely going to open before there’s a vaccine.
Yeah, but they might be able to have less restrictions and more activities.
My understanding is the extreme social distancing is what we have needed to do b/c we didn’t have testing and contact tracing. When everyone is tested b4 starting classes and they do temp checks, etc., I think the testing/contact tracing supplants the extreme social distancing measures we currently have. Yes, de-densify classes and stop large gatherings, but otherwise, I think small groups can hang together in dorms, etc. I can’t imagine it’d be limited to specific people – no college wants or could really do that.
And mask wearing around campus, in the union, etc, will also help reduce community spread significantly.
If there’s a significant outbreak, then maybe they would do move to a higher degree of socially distancing for a while.
I think July is the put up or shut up date for most schools. Kids have to make plans to fly in etc etc. We will all know more then. I still think it can be done. Some regions of the country will do better then others,I suppose.
@milgymfam the only group I knew in my area not taking this seriously were the college students who returned from school. Some parents were very good about enforcing the stay at home order and laying down the law. Not hiding behind…but Johnny is an adult etc etc. They blocked Johnny’s car in the drive way and hid the keys. Otherwise, Johnny found a new place to live.
Other parents…not so much. Just hoping for the best. In our household we made it perfectly clear that one person does not make the decision for 5 others when it comes to getting Covid so…household contacts only.
All these above plans rely on college students being compliant…
@mom517 I’m glad your area is doing better. Our base is a ridiculous mess- most of the time I feel like we are the only people following the orders at all. I don’t live in philly, so for there I am basing my opinion on the behavior of our families and friends- we are from there and know many people in the area. If everyone would’ve just taken it seriously in the first place we would be in a better place now. My kid is too anxious to even go to doctors appts that are needed, so no college kid trying to flout the rules over here.
Many airlines have waived their usual change and cancellation fees for tickets purchased before May 31. Tickets also seem much less expensive than usual for travel during that period.
Students have already signed up for classes- undoing schedules to make smaller segments seems unlikely for fall. The tangle that would create now would be a mess at larger schools.
Same with de-densifying dorms. If students need off-campus housing families need to know ASAP or the school needs to have the money to secure extra location (say a hotel) and for some locations plan on how to transport students from that extra location to the campus.
Also, a plan for how to get students home if for some reason that campus needs to close (Governor orders) and how to test, trace, and isolate ill students or those with close contact to ill students. Rapid tests have a higher false-negative rate so that is also something to look at. Something else to consider are the potential food chain\supply issues. Also, will there be enough PPE?
I think schools simply do not have enough time to get their ducks in a row so to speak by July 1st. Maybe I am wrong (hope I am) but it’s not looking great at the moment.
@MBNC1755 not all schools have done registration or housing. Bowdoin has pushed off both until they make a decision. I’m sure that they aren’t the only school.