Schools are not going to shutdown in the middle of the semester again. This last semester it was an emotional roller coaster for everyone. Regardless of whether each institution does in-person, online, or hybrid instruction, I am sure they will not be sending students home mid-semester again. Those that reopen will have to have contingency plans for what will happen if/when the second wave hits. They will have to manage it. But I am absolutely sure there will not be a repeat of this semester.
The “at-risk” adult population is over half of the adult population. Sure, very few students are at risk, but plenty of faculty, maintenance people, and cooks are at risk or live with people at risk. Several people are saying that a college is like any other workplace.
Well, no, because opening up a residential college is opening up dorm Petri dishes and then forcing faculty and staff to work with all the disease vectors. The college has deliberately put a lot of students together, knowing that the students don’t care if they are infected or infect others because they themselves are not at risk. Your average workplace (that is not a hospital) does not involve making employees work with a bunch of people who don’t care if they spread disease.
Unless you are randomly or regularly forcing everyone to get tested (rather than just the symptomatic) it seems like it could also be an incentive to hide your condition for as long as possible if you got sick. Not wanting to get sent home, you fight your way through another day and pretend you are fine. If you have a mild case, it might turn out okay FOR YOU (not necessarily for those you infect). If you have a severe case, you might miss critical time when you could be effectively treated.
Note what the Harvard representative says: “facilities for quarantine and isolation.” That means that the student who tests positive is put in some facility for people who test positive and cannot leave until they test negative for a long enough time
And it means the infected students’ healthy contacts (roommates, lab partners, significant others, study group mates) are also put in isolation and cannot leave for two weeks. They are removed from their dorms or off-campus apartments, and sequestered. They cannot go to class or anywhere else.
Which you certainly should be, if you are operating college dormitories.
Suppose you’re the governor of a state, and there’s a huge outbreak in a state college in your state. Will you say, '“Oh, gracious, I would shut down that college, but it might upset the students,” or would you say, “The college is shut down by order of the state starting right now”? I go with option B. And so would the governor.
I don’t think the risk is any greater for older adults in a university setting than in most other workplaces, though professors (who are getting paid regardless) may think it is. Office buildings have thousands of employees with small elevators, often reached by subway. Retail locations deal with massive numbers of the public. I do not think there is any evidence that young adults are more likely to be vectors for the disease than anyone else, and I think they can be as socially responsible as many older adults. Many workplaces have a younger demographic, like Silicon Valley. I really think they will open.
On the enormous FB teacher page I am on daily, the Brown editorial was mostly greeted with skepticism if not ridicule if not anger. Few universities have the four billion dollar endowment to put into place the processes she outlines. Certainly not the cash-strapped University I teach at.
I am not in any way in agreement that teaching in a large U is similar to working in an office building. Our hallways are crowded, our classes will be increased in size to cut down costs (this has already been decided), and I do not think that college freshman are at the same development stage as far as safety concerns as Silicon Valley professionals.
The Brown prez gave short to no concern to the impact on professors. As an over sixty person, with a spouse with several risks, I am not all sure we have the means to do this safely. If I could afford to retire, I could. But this is making it more and more impossible for me for many reasons.
But just to repeat–the teaching world was not impressed with this editorial. No one wants to continue online teaching (I hate it) but neither do we want to risk our lives. There may be a path out, but this editorial doesn’t illuminate it.
People who work with those in congregate living (prison guards, nursing home workers, janitors in housing complexes where apartments are filled with people, college professors at residential colleges) are at higher risk than other people. This is because we know that infection spreads easily in congregate living.
ETA: I don’t think this necessarily means that residential colleges can’t open. But testing, testing, testing, plus prompt quarantining of infected individuals and isolation of their close contacts is mandatory for success.
@garland then maybe some colleges will be able to pull it off and not others? Seems to me that small liberal arts schools have a better chance. With just 2000 kids, it might be easier to set up a plan and follow through on testing, distancing to keep professors safe, and taking care of kids who get sick.
Possibly, @homerdog. If they have the funds to pull it off. I just can’t see it working where I am, and of course few students attend very small colleges.
The simple truth is that we will see almost as many opening strategies as there are schools. There will not be “grand opening of all schools”. Likewise, just because a school may be open, individual students will still need to decide if they want to attend or take a leave of absence. Lots of decisions coming up. Life was much simpler a few months ago.
I think there was a rush in spring to send everyone home because of the unknown. If late fall there is another outbreak, for colleges, the “shelter in place” might make more sense at school.
@sdl0625 I could see very upset parents if they were not allowed to bring their student home (dorms and cruise ships are very similar when considering potential spread). Just like not every student will be able to easily leave campus- requiring students to “shelter in place” means the school is taking full liability for student’s safety and care which while smart as far as limiting spread puts the school in a risky spot.
I think what most schools want to avoid is any litigation that has the phrase “knowingly endangered students’ health” in it. In March, it could be argued that school could not have foreseen Covid19. That argument will not hold water in the fall and beyond.
Perhaps fewer than normal, because some people do not want to go to the store other than to buy necessities like food and toilet paper. Or because they have less money to buy anything other than necessities. Wuhan has reopened, but malls there are supposedly quite empty compared to previously.
Many Silicon Valley offices had work-at-home capability for jobs that can be done remotely before COVID-19. Some advised employees to “work at home if you can” even before there were government health orders.
It is likely that when they do reopen, the work-at-home rate will be significantly higher than normal for a while.
Also, not everyone in those workplaces is young without any COVID-19 risk-increasing factors and living without anyone else who has COVID-19 risk-increasing factors.
Workplaces like that would be more analogous to commuter colleges, if the commuter colleges made lectures and discussions remote-capable. Labs and the like would still have to be done in-person, but that would be analogous to the occasional workplace task that requires physical presence, even though the rest of the job could be done remotely. But commuter colleges are not what people like to think or write about here.
@MBNC1755 There is no way there is not going to be a litigation shield by fall for colleges, especially with our current president. Even if, hypothetically, there weren’t a litigation shield and they actually lost a lawsuit, the money they would lose would pail in comparison to how much they would lose from not reopening this semester. Many people on CC don’t realize this, but it is very difficult to prosecute a lawsuit and win because the BURDEN OF PROOF of negligence is on the PROSECUTION, not the defendant. Also, college kids are adults, and most of them would agree to anything to come back to college campuses.
@“Cardinal Fang” Governors did not force them to empty this semester, they’re not going too next semester. Colleges could stop doing classes/move them to an online format for a temporary time, but governors wouldn’t force them to kick all their students off-campus.
I’m behind a paywall for the Brown editorial. Anyone want to bullet point the main ideas?
Harvard just announced that fall semester will be happening. The format is still unclear though.
So K12 schools will never open again using that reasoning- most of the teachers are older, they have far more physical contact with the kids than colleges would ever dream of, and the kids and their parents have and will continue to travel all over and be exposed.
Those who think college dorms are unique have not seen group housing in Silicon Valley or SF or NYC. And young adults in all those places will be going to work and interacting with older adults in the fall.
I understand 60 year old professors don’t want to risk exposure. Neither do 60 year old prison guards or nursing home workers or nurses. So either we give everyone over 60 a pass on working, or they ask for a furlough, or they take their own precautions and go back to work for the years it will take a vaccine to develop.