GMGiant, I hear you had some sort of problem with political posts?
I don’t think @GMgiant understands the relevance. This is interdisciplinary work. Public health people work with sociologists (and many others) routinely.
I’d bet the house on it. I mean that’s how things spread. Travel hubs, airplanes, dorms, enclosed communal areas of all kinds. The more mix-and-go, the faster and broader the spread.
@MBNC1755 LACs don’t have grad students and likely have fewer students total than some universities have grad students. I guess they could have seniors (or freshman) come back first but, yikes, those kids are back and then the other grades are paying the same price to stay home. Not likely.
There could be a number of possible causes for a second wave:
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The first wave never fully diminishes. Smaller ripples are still present between the bigger waves.
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The virus becomes dormant for a while and reappears when the condition becomes more favorable to its spread.
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The virus becomes more widespread in the Southern Hemisphere during the summer months and reintroduces to countries in the Northern Hemisphere. We don’t live on an island (except maybe in Hawaii) and can’t completely seal off our borders.
I agree, although a lot of that “change” will require adapting to a different college experience, at least temporarily. So, less residential fun and games, greater reliance on online for at least some students.
My daughter’s science campus is slowly re-opening. In her department going back into the lab has been more or less done on a seniority basis. So the two PhD candidates closest to finishing up – one thought he’d be done before the fall semester – are back already after a 2-month break from the lab. She’s next in line. She thinks she’ll be able to resume her labwork later this summer. She’s fine with that, she was hoping to finish her data gathering/dissertation by summer of 2021. That may be pushed back by a few months, but is doable.
A bigger issue for the grad students is the cancellation of all science conventions at which they would have presented papers. That’s a whole in their CVs they’re hoping to fill with paper reviews, etc. but it may hurt those pursuing academic jobs.
We shall see.
Chiming in as Yale was mentioned above. Yale has been very open about its process (open letters, town hall, etc), as has been my son’s school in Boston. Yes, both colleges are based on the residential experience and both of my children would argue that they get as much learning from their classes as they do from their classmates outside the class. Whatever decision is made by their schools, I trust that the experts on the task force working the issue will balance all things to reach a reasonable decision.
In fairness, we’re asking people to do an incredibly difficult thing in taking this in. We’re talking about an invisible pathogen that most people still haven’t “lived with” themselves; why wouldn’t they mistake that ocean for a big bathtub?
And you’re also talking about something that people have focused their energy and money on for many years: getting their kid to A Great College Experience that will Get Them Well-Launched in Life. It reflects on them as parents, making that happen for the kids, and it’s generally exciting for the kids. I get that. So to tell them all of a sudden: stop, it’s off, there’s an invisible thing you’re not feeling and that isn’t bothering you or your family personally, so your kid can’t have that thing, pack up and go home and figure out something else for the next year or two – this is a leap that people are going to fight making. And if you point out that pushing for it means people die, they don’t want to look at that.
Because in the end, that’s the equation. Opening before this is well-controlled = deaths and crippled lives. Whose? Someone else’s. Someone you don’t know. And people get upset that they should have to worry about that when they’re trying to take care of their own families. And you get this airy conversation about how the deaths are unavoidable. Actually they’re not. But it would mean that the kids don’t get a thing that’s been worked for, hoped for, wished for, celebrated for so long. So it becomes acceptable that strangers pay for the kid’s campus fun with their lives. If you don’t think about it, though, you don’t have to worry about it. Or maybe you do think about it and you decide that in fact this is acceptable to you.
In the end, you get to, “But it’s not fair!” Which is true.
It’s easy for me to say since my kids are long done with college, but maybe it’s helpful to start brainstorming productive and interesting ways college students who can’t go back this fall can use their time.
I’ve been thinking about community service projects, starting an online business, writing a book (coming of age in the time of pandemic)
Living through a pandemic is horrible. Middle/ upper middle class college kids taking advantage of the opportunity to step outside traditional paths might not be horrible, maybe educational, maybe resume building.
If there is a worse strain of the virus, how do we know that the U.S. isn’t the country where it might occur first? We just assume that it’s coming from elsewhere (another country), but it could be mutating in our own backyard, domestically. I think it’s clear that we really don’t have a lot of information about this latest CV…or where any possible strains might pop up next.
That brings to mind something I’ve been wondering. Although some say students will follow all the masking and social distancing rules because they know how important these practices are to be able to have the the college experience they want, many of us are skeptical about just how long this earnest adherence to rules will last.
And what about the sexual encounters? What will be the proper protocol for them? What will safe sex mean now?
Hookups could turn out to be the cause for outbreaks. Hmmm…
And I would agree with those arguments. Anyone who’s spent any time in college knows that the experience and the various types of students each college attracts has a direct impact on learning. Because learning is more than going through a book and checking off a bunch of multiple choice questions on a test. We know that.
@1NJParent ok. But none of those were the reasons why the 1918 pandemic had a resurgence in the fall so we shouldn’t use that as a guide. Small ripples? Of course. Going to happen. Maybe that’s where we are all talking past each other? There will be cases - in K-12, in colleges, in our towns and cities. It’s a matter of managing it so it doesn’t get out of control.
@Homerdog Start with upperclassmen at LACs.
And let us be real- if a student is staying at home they are paying less because they are not paying for room and board. As for tuition, it stays the same with the idea that at some point they will be part of campus life and it is a sacrifice made to do so.
LAC faculty via distance learning will still have smaller classes and work on providing those connections students seek. The school could also attempt to connect freshmen socially- Zoom games, Netflix watch parties, club meetings over zoom, my DD has a group playing online survivor, whatever they can offer to make students feel more connected to the school while distance learning.
@homerdog, with respect, History.com is not the place for epidemiology. (Or history.) It’s the equivalent of “my doc said he knew a guy who took hydrochloroquine and beat Covid into the ground with it.”
Hang on, I’ll answer your question about alternatives.
@homerdog , the way schools are being opened in Germany has very little relevance to residential college life as it has been so far.
Class sizes have been halved, groups of no more than 15, in many cases no more than 10.
Schedules have been staggered (beginning and end times, elementary kids go every other day, older kids every other week).
Juniors and seniors have classes only in the three subjects they take written exams in, once those are done, the two classes they take oral exams in (comparable to IB, with HL and SL classes).
Grades 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 haven’t come back at all yet.
All specials and extracurriculars cancelled.
Every group stays together in the classroom for as long as they are in school, the teachers move. Designated bathrooms for the groups. Recess and PE in the same groups, outside when possible.
Desks spaced out in the classroom, windows opened every 45 minutes, masks in the hallways.
In effect, they have created little bubbles of ten, so if a student tested positive, relevant exposure would be limited to the bubble and the few teachers they have had, all of whom have distanced themselves.
And don’t forget, everyone’s come out of isolation. No one has traveled for months.
Everything after class, the school can not control. That I think is the biggest danger. H teaches High school and says students are super disciplined in the classroom, but start congregating without masks after class. The teachers disperse them, but out of the building, they have no jurisdiction.
If a college we’re to recreate that, they’d have to welcome all students on campus who they eventually want to house in doubles and put them In singles first, Test, isolate for at least 10 days, test again.
Move them together in doubles, deep clean singles, welcome the rest, test-isolate-test them first.
Everyone chooses one online class and on F2F class, with dorm composition determined by F2F class. Create bubbles, with staggered class and mealtimes. Everyone must distance with everyone outside the bubble. Apply for permission to leave campus. If there is an outbreak, test and isolate the relevant bubbles.
If you have no outbreaks after 7 weeks, you ca have another two F2F classes. If there are, online classes for the rest of the semester.
I do not know how many colleges have the resources/dorm space/independence from the community around them to set this up.
With @homerdog on this. We have a vulnerable person in our family and have been ultra-cautious. S19’s online spring classes were ultimately a success, with just a few dramatic moments. Yet I will support him returning to Uof SC this fall (we hope), where he will live in an on-campus apartment with 3 buddies. He can resume his study groups (and yup, social distancing will be a challenge). He can restart his case competitions, where he learned as much as he did in finance class. He can sleep until noon and study at 3 am.
His return will help the college, both economically and in less tangible ways. Colleges are more than a knowledgeable adult imparting information. Hopefully, there is a synergy among the students and faculty that makes ideas come to life and grow, a synergy that does not happen on Zoom.
When he comes home before Thanksgiving, he goes into quarantine. That’s fine, he’ll be busy with a last couple days of class, reading days, and finals. By the time finals are done, he will be out and can enjoy time with our family.
Over half NEU’s students lived off campus pre-Covid. I expect many of those have some type of commute due to the desire to keep their costs down, so not sure the extra 2,000 commuting will be that big of a deal for many students.
Lots of opportunity for transfers for sure, and it will go on all summer as schools announce their Fall plans. I know of a full pay unhooked transfer with a 3.0 GPA that was recently accepted to Lehigh, I’m not sure that acceptance would have happened in previous years.
Getting the students back to their college towns is absolutely crucial for some of the local communities and their economies. Recent stories about this at Clemson and Ithaca.
But the reality is that he may end up back in his childhood bedroom if campuses re-open in the fall, are hit with spikes/a second wave, and have to close again.
If both students and parents accept that possibility, it will make schools’ decision to reopen that much easier.
But as long as there are litigious parents out there threatening lawsuits over tuition/closures – or their kids getting sick, which will likely happen at these reopened schools – going back to anything resembling “normal” will be that much harder.
We have a choice here: accept the realities of Covid and dealing with them with unpleasant-sounding restrictions that include possible closings during 20-21.
Or not re-opening campuses to students and extending online learning.
It’s kinda that simple.
Many college students have the option of to stay in off-campus housing near their schools, rather than move back home, even if classes are fully remote.