School presidents are putting out one message to students to get them to campus, but behind the scenes there will be big cuts.
I hope it works out for you and your coworkers.
A good friend is a Colby professor who’s also well connected with the administration. He says all options are being seriously considered, with input from every sector (financial, housing, health services, academic, even town & gown angle etc.) thoroughly modeled and weighed. He says it’s simply really hard to decide what to do since there are SO many variables.
@GMgiant I’m glad you asked. My dad thinks that stay-at-home orders were good two months ago when the locations it had reached in the US appeared rather limited, but at this point it’s everywhere, so he thinks it that people should try their best to socially distance in public right now and wear masks, but he thinks we need to reopen. He thinks keeping colleges closed in the fall would be overkill and ridiculous. He says while the best option from a public health perspective would simply be to keep everyone inside, that is not feasible, and would have drastic impacts on both mental health (due to social isolation; NOT due to the period of stress directly) and the economy. He thinks it is somewhat of a risk, but it can be minimized with preventative measures, and he thinks with those in place, it is a risk we easily must take (especially if faculty are given the option of teaching from home and students are given the option of continuing remote learning) The point of the lockdown was never to shut down society until a cure or vaccine was found; it was just to slow the spread so hospitals had time to get materials and keep the spread slow enough that the health care system isn’t overwhelmed and the ones whose lives could be saved by medical treatment could get it.
Also, I’m not sure if you saw my earlier post about vaccines/cures, but he said the 12-18 months thing is a best-case scenario, and it will probably be much longer. The world record time for a vaccine to a widespread illness is four years. With regard to cures, it took them more than a decade to find one for AIDS (though, to be fair, government funding there was rather lacking because they stopped investing as much money in it once they found out it hit African-American/LGBT communities the hardest) and they still don’t have a cure for cancer; so that ones probably unlikely.
He also says the 100K-200K death estimate on behalf of our federal government is a best-case scenario. He says it will almost definitely be in the millions, and they are underreporting it to minimize panic and improve Trump’s chances of re-election. He also thinks the reason the White House is disbanding the coronavirus task force at the end of the month is so Trump can put blame on the states for further deaths caused by coronavirus and improve his chances of re-election.
Also, he says the notion that staying at home will allow us to get back to normal quicker is pure fiction.
University of Kentucky has 4 possible re-open plans for Fall 2020. “Normal” (with Covid overlays such as social distancing), delayed start, hybrid (online, then in-person, then finish up online) and full online. Had an initial public comment period which is over. Now continuing with evaluation process. Looks like decision will be made end of May/early June.
Again, below is what a College President wrote. It most definitely sounds political and partisan. Find another college president that would write something like this. I find it is extraordinary look into how partisan this lockdown, pandemic, ‘suffering’…will become. He is not a doctor but has these strong opinions and criticisms…this is going to go on for far longer…hmmmm…how exactly does he know that? Because crisis was mismanaged from the start. Okay…kids will not be back in school because of this mismanagement…How do we fix that? We are also being lied to according to him…
Any path forward—for higher education and for everyone in society—requires telling people this truth: Life is going to be hard for the foreseeable future. We are in the early stages of a pandemic that we do not yet fully understand. What we do know is that this crisis was mismanaged from the start. As a result, every aspect of our lives is going to be changed for far longer than we are comfortable.
@homerdog – thanks. I think Davidson has some room like you describe but many more are traditional hallway style dorms with one room that has two beds. Housing is tight on campus under normal circumstances so I think if they want to do ‘singles’ (even the way you describe them) I am guessing they’d need to secure additional housing, We shall see!
@ChemAM Your Dad echoes what I’ve heard from a Doc in the family. This business of ‘slow playing’ a return to campuses, ‘normal’ and work is concerning. Watch Barstool’s Dave Portinoy’s rant.
@GMgiant I’ve seen it and strongly agree with it; but I think his criticism of Fauci was largely based not on what Fauci himself said, but on what many media sources twisted his words to make it look like he was saying.
@katliamom thanks for the info! I have every confidence in the Colby administration. I’m just impatient! ?
Aren’t we all 
No, these things are not “most definitely” anything. For example, I see nothing partisan or political in the statement you quoted. I see it as purely factual.
Not sure about the other Claremonts, but HMC has already made arrangements with off-campus apartments for this fall.
@homerdog I wonder if some sort of room dividers for traditional doubles could help to mitigate contagion. Yes, I know that microbes can circulate through heating and cooling systems. But anything that limits the radius and concentration of expelled droplets might help?
Wishing I had invested in plexiglass! Although for this purpose, a fanfold divider might be sufficient. I was also reminded of those privacy bed tents that are marketed to college students, LOL!
As for the question upthread about what colleges are envisioning more generally - most seem to be endeavoring to get kids back on campus but with hybrid instruction in order to limit size of student networks and maximize the chances of effective social distancing. Masks, testing, tracing are typically included to further improve outcomes. There are myriad approaches for how these imperatives might be accomplished as discussed upthread - earlier start, no fall break, ending semester at Thanksgiving, block scheduling, etc. I expect that more concrete plans will be put in place by mid June.
I have to say that I’m very concerned about whether people will adequately follow social distancing protocols. On Monday most businesses in my state were allowed to open, and it seems like with each passing day fewer people are wearing masks, keeping 6 feet apart, or gathering in large groups. I drove around today to see what things looked like, and the line of about 50 people standing smooshed together without masks outside of the Apple store was pretty discouraging. Or my 25 year old niece & all her friends going to the beach for the weekend, piling into a hotel room to party, IMO doesn’t bode well.
If the country re-opening doesn’t go well, I think this is going to force a lot of colleges to rethink their plans. Guess we’ll find out more in the next month or so.
Perhaps they may look into prefabricated shipping container rooms to throw together into dorms at lower cost than building dorms on site.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 response opinions are increasingly aligning along partisan lines, so it may matter less in the future what is better for public health and the economy than what political party tribe one aligns with.
People seemed to be doing fairly well today when I was out, but we’re not technically “open” yet. It was kind of amazing to see the variety of masks that people were sporting. It’s likely that the infections will dip now that it’s hotter and people will get the idea that things are hunky dory to be going about without masks and hand sanitizer.
^It’s going to be a complete shot show this summer. All over the country.
@ChemAM wrote:
There is no cure for HIV infection. A very good treatment regimen that seems to have added decades to the lifespan of the average host, but no one I know thinks of it as a cure.
If colleges wait until there is a vaccine to begin operating under a scenario that resembles “normal,” then the college landscape will change forever. People aren’t going to pay $70K per year for an online program/degree. They may in the very near term, but if remote learning becomes the de facto method of higher education, there will be a drastic shirt in how kids are educated past high school. And maybe that’s a good thing.