Oy… so many odd assumptions in this post.
Some large companies around here have announced that, even after they reopen their offices (gradually, and contingent on the situation and government orders), employees who can do their work from home can still do so at their choice for the rest of the year. That seems like a simpler and more employee friendly way than dealing with special requests to work from home.
Will the faculty be getting tested too, or nah?
Not really, @katliamom , just acknowledging that absent a vaccine, (which may never arrive)some current professors are not either willing or able to do the job as envisioned when hired, or what students,are willing to pay for.
Grad students are also teaching in the classrooms now, where they’re available, although they sometimes net cost more than non-student adjuncts. All of them fall loosely under contingent faculty.
And obviously colleges have reduced their tenure lines by hiring more adjuncts. Tuition continues to rise, strangely enough.
Mine too, if one can work from home, keep staying home, no need to ask. In fact we have more employees requesting to be going to the office but we can’t grant them bc the space is limited.
My post was about general request to accommodate whatever it is that is not the norm. For example, we have lab people who need to be physically in the lab, but they can’t due to special circumstances. They don’t just stop show up for work. We work with them and train them in, say, reviewing documents, doing master data update, switch role with someone else temporarily, etc. so they can perform their work from home.
Replace an adjunct professor with several people? How much were you planning to pay these several people? Adjuncts make peanuts.
The student is more likely to be infected and thus infectious, because dorms and cafeterias are petri dishes so if one student gets infected, lots of other students will soon be infected.
Then those students can go to an inexpensive community college where most of the instructors are inexpensive adjuncts. Problem solved.
At the better universities – and certainly the expensive elites – professors are more than instructors. That is why those schools are as prestigious as they are - and as expensive as they are. Because students can learn from real intellectual biggies. And guess what? They’re also, due to their age, in the at-risk group for COVID.
You’re dreaming if you think Princeton is going to fire Joyce Carol Oates if she refuses to teach f2f. Or that Berkeley is going to fire Paul Romer. Or that Stanford is going to terminate Condalizza Rice if she wants to teach online.
And guess what? The students will be happy to take classes from these professors – even online !! – because these professors are who they are – because these professors are what gives their diplomas their value – and because that’s why they picked Princeton, Berkeley or Stanford and not the community college.
Finally, professors and even instructors didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. They’re not as expendable as you seem to think they are. They have job protections they fought long and hard for. Contrary to what you think, they’re hardly easily replaced.
https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/CSU-schools-to-keep-campuses-closed-through-fall-15265534.php CSU campuses on line this fall
To have graduate students available to teach, you have to have a graduate program at the university, which requires tenured and tenure track faculty.
For years there have been articles about lack of tenure track positions, and over production of PhDs with no realistic job prospects. People kept going to graduate school anyway. They wanted to study and teach and were willing to work for little money. Sometimes they hoped if they kept trying, they’d get lucky.
Will they be willing to work for little money, and be exposed to covid19?
People I know are surely discussing it. It will be an interesting pandemic result if graduate students and adjuncts just throw up their hands and opt out.
Dorm (or fraternity/sorority house, co-op house, or other similar group living arrangement) is basically like a cruise ship or senior assisted living home in terms of spreading the virus. Dining hall is a restaurant. Obviously, the relatively young college students are at lower risk of dying than the usually older cruise ship passengers or senior assisted living residents, but they could be asymptomatically contagious as they go to class.
Frosh are probably the riskiest, due to being most likely to be living in dorms. Seniors at many colleges are more likely to be living in less dense off-campus apartments. In future years, seniors may have been infected in their previous years, so if recovery results in immunity (not known for certain yet), they may be less likely to bring new contagious infections into the classroom.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2020-05-05/uc-san-diego-to-mass-test-its-students-for-the-novel-coronavirus
UC San Diego on the opposite end of the spectrum of the cal state system.
The more I read this thread, the more of a train wreck I think the next academic year will be.
On a slightly different note, wow, that article that someone posted last night/this morning by Dr Erin ——- regarding how you get exposed to a viral load sufficient to get sick was enlightening.
Folks who are saying online instructors can be easily replaced - the online class very much needs a top quality instructor/professor. I don’t get the reasoning behind the easily-replaceable statements. That’s like saying it doesn’t matter who your professor is in an in-person course because the textbook is the same for everyone. A great teacher/professor in an online course is essential.
garland you make it clear you will not teach college students in person and believe college should remain online.
I’m curious…do you feel the same for the K-12 situation? There are many K-12 teachers with your same age and risk factors. Do you believe K-12 should remain online as well? Elementary teachers are literally with their students all day long in the same room rather than adults attending scheduled classes throughout the week. Adult students are much more likely to distance and be able to keep their masks on as well as wash independently. School children will have difficulty being consistent with those tasks.
I’m just wondering if you believe K-12 should be shut down as well.
This.
While one of my kids, if given the choice, would want to go back to in-person classes, my other kid is perfectly happy to have the instructor lectures online. Both, however, want to live back with their friends in the fall as they miss working together in person on problem sets and socializing with their friends on campus.
It was rare for my kid who attended MIT to attend a lecture in person. Most of his profs posted the lecture and class notes online. The bulk of the learning took place working on problem sets together with his peers outside of the classroom.
I don’t believe that online automatically translates to inferior learning. I think what makes online education inferior is when the peer to peer learning environment is also online.
Even if dorms are open and students are welcomed back to their campus, many, if not most, classes are likely to be online. Online classes are certainly not optimal for most students, but they aren’t necessarily poor substitutes. Structured and taught well, they could be almost as good. I constantly asked my son about his current online classes. Every time he said they were fine. The only issue he has is that he spends a bit more time on homework. The college encourages collaboration on homework and collaboration over Zoom isn’t the most effective. It doesn’t help that he’s taking some of the most challenging courses in his college this term and his college is one of the most challenging in the country. He’s doing well but I can see some students may struggle a bit.
I also don’t think professors are easily replaceable. If s/he comes down with the virus, I don’t know how a replacement can be found quickly (or even not so quickly). I’d rather my son be taught by a great professor online than a mediocre one in-person, anyway.
I would say some online classes can be even better than in-person, for certain people in certain aspects of their development.
And eight thousand times yes to your last sentence.
D19’s experience with online classes at a top LAC is mixed for sure.
Two of her four profs have held no live classes at all…they upload videos and assign homework. One prof has seemingly not graded any assignments or tests, including the midterm taken right before spring break…that same prof has not answered one email of D19’s. Not the one saying she has mono, nor the ones asking for her grades on tests, etc.
I know that this was all sudden, and am optimistic that things may be better with more time for planning.
Two of her profs have young kids at home which they have both said are hampering their ability to do their jobs. If K-12 schools are online, profs will young kids may still not be able to teach live.