Reducing complicated and necessary pandemic accommodations on campus to “faculty being unwilling to teach” is just flat out wrong.
fwiw… Professors I know over age 60 haven’t left the house except for curbside grocery pickup. And they are spending those extra work hours you refuse to believe exist trying to figure out how to best teach in the fall when no one really has any idea what is going to happen. So class prep for multiple scenarios, none of which is what they signed up for.
And some faculty will not return in fall. Their choice.
@1NJParent. Yep. Lots of my patients are teachers/professors. We talk a lot about what they or any of my patients are doing over the summer normally. The teachers /professors are always working on the fall plans, having some committee meetings or the like
Seems like it just doesn’t end for them. The really good ones just make it look easy. There must be a lot of really good ones ??.
@1NJParent I am not saying that faculty will be reckless themselves but, unless they plan to stay in place until a vaccine, there will be risks off campus as well as on campus. Presumably, these professors will go to grocery stores, maybe go out to eat or meet up with friends. Maybe they even live with a health care worker or children who are going to school each day who could bring home the virus. It’s not like their risk is big on campus and zero in the rest of their lives. Once the stay at home bubble is broken, we can all be infected any number of ways. So digging in and saying they don’t want to see students in person might keep them from that one avenue of catching the virus but they already are not safe.
I wonder how many professors with college aged kids want to stick with online learning for tens of thousands of dollars. Perhaps they are the only ones who get really understand.
I want to be clear, too, that I’m really looking though the lens of a parent of a student at a rural LAC. I understand that going back to school in a hot spot raises all sorts of issues and I think we’d be a lot less likely to send S19 back to school if he was going back to NYC. Faculty in very dense cities have more reasons to be concerned.
@alh of course I feel for the over 65 crowd who is working hard to produce remote classes that will work for their students. I also know they likely never thought they’d have to do that and it’s not in their wheelhouse so it’s a ton of work. I appreciate them for sure. Just don’t want to pay for the full experience if class is online but also think it’s not financially feasible for colleges to lower the price. We are all stuck between a rock and a hard place. I just hope those who can will teach in person.
It might not be the online math. Math is math and college math is much harder then high school. Most kids like mine skated through math. My son went to Calc 3. But at college it was a different story his first semester /year. The reality hit that time management and “really” studying needed to change. Maybe your friend’s kid was just going through an adjustment
Hopefully he took advantage of learning center, peer to peer tutoring or professor help etc. Math in college can be very challenging and different then high school.
@circuitrider Had to chuckle at your comment…so true. My Yalie and her group of friends have been to the Yale Bowl just once and took the shuttle because they would never find it otherwise. My son goes to some Harvard events to support his friends. Sports isn’t a big factor in returning to campus for sure.
I wonder if increasing class sizes is an indicator of a class going on-line. After all, the school can’t build more large classrooms overnight. I assume that most of the caps on class sizes at my son’s school (a large public) are based on the size that the room can accommodate. If I noticed that the class sizes were doubled I would be concerned about what exactly that meant.
It’s not like these colleges have unlimited space. A small LAC that has students living on campus all four years. The actual square footage of so many class rooms are small. This fall, no one will be traveling abroad.
It is going to take some very creative thinking and action to make a return to campus in a few months doable.
I have to believe that those professors that dont want to return to teaching in person are the same ones that are having their groceries delivered, and will not leave their homes at all except for outdoor social distancing. I do get that people with other health conditions and those older than 65 are at a higher risk of dying . This all goes back to are they going to just stay at home for a year +. When is this risk no longer a risk? From what I am reading from hong kong and other asian countries with low death rates, when someone gets the virus, they are immediately treated (with some of the trial drugs as well as others), and not told to stay at home until you are on deaths door. We were told to stay at home to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed, and by the time some went to the hospital they were in really bad shape. Also read that this might be around forever, but eventually it will not be as deadly as it is now, and may be more flu-like. We cannot predict the future. But if I was one of those in the high risk group, when would I leave the house? Would I feel comfortable wearing a Mask, washing my hands, and keeping 6+ feet distanced. I think June and July will be really telling for the future.
I’m wondering why that would happen. I would be very interested in knowing more specific details. As @Knowsstuff pointed out, it might be the math, rather than the online issues. Or maybe the online was just so ineptly done that he was left foundering.
“The NCAA was a leader this spring when it cancelled March Madness.”
They didn’t lead anything, they cancelled after Duke and Kansas pulled out and the conferences cancelled their tournaments and the NBA suspended play.
“As for whether Harvard and Yale need prep school sports in order to attract qualified white applicants? Ask some of the Asian parents on CC. ;)”
I think it’s more to keep the minorities out as most of them can’t afford those sports. It’s the personality ratings that keep Asians out, but again we’re getting off topic.
^Right? @homerdog , I actually don’t get why you even want to expose your kid to us as teachers at all, never mind who’s giving it to whom. As I said last night, your contempt is palpable.
I honestly don’t get it. I am not lazy, work dang hard to teach my students, live a very careful life so as not to kill myself or my immuno-compromised spouse, and every day when I return to this thread, it’s like, what are the hits going to be today?
A couple weeks ago you seemed to be listening, at least, but now, it is disheartening to read these comments over and over again.
@homerdog Yes, there’re risks for everyone and life won’t be normal for a while. Sub-optimal online classes and restrictions on student activities on campus won’t make anyone happy, especially those who pay the full freight. But what’s the alternative? Gap year or transfer? They all have significant downsides. I’d argue that many colleges won’t feel the same again, even after this crisis passes. Activities and services that aren’t central to a college will likely be cut or cutback. Some colleges may be out of business. Others may have to raise tuition again. The good old days won’t return anytime soon. We just have to do the best we can under the circumstances.
For the most part my D’s online classes were very good. The most successful had a combination of live lectures, virtual office hours, virtual study sessions, etc… the o chem prof won the award for going way above and beyond as he hosted multiple sessions of each to accommodate students in different time zones. He also emailed students personally and was super engaged. Lots came up with wonderful projects to continue the hands on learning that happens on campus.
The least successful were the lab courses. It also didn’t help that for the first virtual lab, the TA paired the wrong data from a different lab so nothing made sense. Took 48 hours before the TA responded to messages and corrected the error, which gave students less than 24 hours to interpret results and do the write up.
I expect that they’ve worked out a lot of kinks now and that there will be a more universal approach to online classes at Purdue. I felt like every professor did things differently last semester, but now they can pool the best practices before Fall semester starts.
Overall I was impressed at the amount of learning that still happened.
I think that there are many colleges delivering great online classes right now and they will only get better. Other colleges are struggling with online delivery, and hopefully they will be better in the fall either as a primary method of delivering classes or a secondary or backup capability.
That said, many classes just can’t be delivered in an online environment, but I think that the majority can, so that should a key focus for schools right now.
@sylvan8798 I already said I’m not painting with a broad brush but I do think that professors should go back to their jobs if they can. What’s the point of bringing kids back to school if they are going to take all of their classes remotely? And how long do people think that’s feasible? Push back from faculty will come for how long? Do they expect their jobs to just wait for them until there’s a vaccine? If you are a prof who doesn’t want to go into class to teach, what do you see the plan being for the next how many months (years?) until a vaccine?
In the meantime, parents are paying tuition and keeping colleges afloat. I feel like we all need to do our part (again, within reason, and not if a professor is older or immune compromised).
I see some faculty posting nasty things about students - how they are entitled or will be reckless but I think, at S19’s school anyway, the kids will try their best to follow the rules.
@Homerdog - Not quiite understanding what is at stake here for you and DS? My understanding is that barring a failure to obtain sufficient test kits or some other unforeseen turn of events unique to Maine, Bowdoin will likely open this Fall. What else do you want from them?
@garland This all started because I asked why professors couldn’t spend a few more hours in front of students if classes were divided up into smaller sections. Some pushed back on that. Then, I asked how a “day in the life” of a professor looks? That was an honest question when I know some (most?) professors at the schools I know teach two classes a semester for a total of six hours of class time per week. I don’t personally know any college faculty. I asked my friend in CA about it because she knows a TON of professors and she replied to me to say that adjuncts have it the worst. Work a ton and make little money. But that tenured professors typically are not overworked and would indeed have time to add a few more hours of face time in class.
When I wrote about the people who aren’t social distancing, I did not mean college faculty. I meant that professors might end up being around those people if they live in those states - at the grocery store, on the hiking trail, out walking their dog, who knows? Or the professor’s younger kids might be at school in the fall and with other kids whose families haven’t been as careful. My point is that, once states open up, we will all be more vulnerable to catching the virus. The choice (I would think?) for most professors will not be staying at home and getting food delivery for 12-18 more months. They will be out in society so why not go to work (unless they are older or immune compromised and are being super careful every hour of the day)?
I have not heard of profs not wanting to return. I think if they do return…they want rules that will be consistently followed: hand washing, masks, good and consistent cleaning, staying home when feeling ill, and social distancing.
If students do not adhere to these rules, I don’t blame them for not wanting to come back. Quite frankly…if my school doesn’t follow the rules, I will not go back either. And I work with several teachers with underlying conditions…many who are under the age of 50. Following the rules is not up for debate.
As I stated earlier…students will be at least partially responsible for their school staying open…or not.