And that’s exactly the point of alot of the comments here. Colleges will be going back in the fall, and everyone will have to adapt - safely - and come up with solutions, since the solution of doing online courses until there is a vaccine in a year or two is not an option. Colleges and students need to adapt.
If someone at my old-fashioned financial services company had said 98% of the employees would be working from home for 3+months, most employees would have said - NO WAY, not possible. But that is exactly what is happening, and business is going well. We can be innovative if we want to (need to) be.
I wouldn’t count on reduction in board costs due to a reduction in food choice. Food costs have risen during the last few months and I don’t see anything happening that would indicate a reduction in food costs anytime soon.
If anything I believe food costs will continue to rise and food selection may well continue to be reduced. There are still plenty of grocery stores nation wide that have not been able to restock their shelves, and other stores whose shelves continue to deplete.
I agree with @bluebayou and will add another anecdote. It’s been a long time, but the two tenure track faculty I knew as a grad student across the bay easily worked twelve hours a day except on Sundays and holidays. One of them got tenure while I was there and immediately dropped back to ten hour days, as well as starting to also take Saturdays off.
Seeing this one of the reasons I dropped out of grad school. I realized I just didn’t have that kind of dedication and perseverance.
Very much doubt that there will be a cut in R&B. They’ll have to pay more staff to serve students restaurant style. It’s also the same quantity of food, just less variety. They are also eliminating the triple rooms so everyone will be in a single, large double, or suite style. I don’t really see a scenario that there is any cost savings to the university. If anything it’s going to cost them more.
The news updates on vaccines are becoming less optimistic about a vaccine, IMO.
Vaccine development is difficult and most of the covid-19 vaccines will fail. While I hope one or more become available sooner rather than later, I encourage people to continue to understand the myriad of difficulties companies face in vaccine development.
I am going to highlight one difficulty that has received no attention on these boards, and this is recruiting and exposing patients to the virus. Phase III trials include tens of thousands of patients.
These patients volunteer to get the vaccine, and then go forth into the world to see if they get the virus, or not. If the virus is not circulating at adequate levels, there won’t be enough exposures, and companies will not know if their product works, and the trial will fail.
From Dr. Hill who is working on the Oxford vaccine:
Once a vaccine has been proven safe and effective, then doses have to manufactured. Companies also have to have all the other various supplies necessary to package the vaccine, e.g., glass vials, syringes, caps, etc. The world does not have billions of glass vials ‘in stock’, and while people are working on it, it takes time to manufacture these things at such a scale. It’s difficult to comprehend how many a billion glass vials really is, let alone 5 or 7 billion.
Once manufactured and packaged, vaccine dosing can begin, likely in the home country of the vaccine manufacturer first. Countries that have underwritten drug development with financial funding will also be at the top of the list to receive early doses…this is what the US has done with the Sanofi vaccine and Oxford/AZ vaccine (invest money in the vaccine development of an international company, so that the US is at, or near, the top of the line for doses).
It will likely take years to manufacture, package, and dose 7 billion people (or however many one estimates will ultimately receive the vaccine). And some think that a SARS-Cov-2 vaccine will be necessary every year.
Bottom line, we can’t count on a vaccine or vaccines being available in the next several years, we all hope that to be the case. But we do have to plan for school (K-12, college) accordingly.
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Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’d wager that the reason your tech department is working on spring 2021 schedule is because they are not using the latest technology to make scheduling (running, and analyzing various scheduling scenarios) easy and fast.
Parents in this discussion don’t want to look at the problem with different eyes. They’re paying for one idealized college experience and are unwilling to consider any modification that might affect their precious child’s precious “college experience.” Illnesses and deaths be damned.
The biggest irony? School after school is announcing fall campus reopenings. Schools have risen to the challenge - a stunning percentage of critical, underinformed parents have not.
My D and I are prepared for lots and lots of modifications. The end of this semester proved that there was still lots of learning being done remotely. A hybrid model is very welcomed in our house and we are fully braced for last minute changes that could see her back home for the entire semester if things re-escalate with the virus this summer. No one has a crystal ball.
Just like professors don’t want to be lumped into sweeping generalizations (and rightly so), neither do parents
I was a young adult when HIV AIDS necessitated dramatic lifestyle changes, and have been thinking a lot about parallels, especially while reading essays/opinion pieces comparing masks and condoms.
One option with exceptions for dietary restrictions? Someone will need to explain to me how this will work. Sally is allergic to peanuts, Kevin has a gluten intolerance, Eric is vegan, Jessica can’t have dairy… it goes on and on. My own child has GI issues that she can manage well but has to carefully select her food choices. How does “one option” in reality even work?
Well, that’s all true. And I bet it’s true for a lot of parents sending their kids to LACs. The things we are paying a premium for are things that will change now. We are paying for all small classes and intimate relationships with faculty on campus. And that’s what is at stake - the communal feeling of a small campus, the intimacy of that experience. But I know discounts on tuition will not happen and I understand why that financial model won’t work for colleges.
I’m not looking to stick it to the colleges and it’s not like we won’t send S19 back if they go back. But, like all parents I would assume, I want everyone to play their part as best they can to make the experience as close as possible to what we all chose when S19 picked his college. Don’t you all hope the same? I don’t see parents on here saying they are cool with all remote classes from their dorm rooms. That means professors teaching in person if possible.
@socaldad2002 's post is more eloquent in explaining how I hope everyone comes together to work towards that.
ps. I like that Purdue’s president flat out told students that, if they can’t see themselves playing by the campus rules, then they should take class remotely. I think all presidents are going to bring students together on this and try to foster that “we are in this together” sort of vibe. And I think it will work for the most part but it’s going to take everyone on campus, not just students, to make it work. I wonder if he’s reaching out to faculty and staff with the same message.
@homerdog while I am sure that some profs don’t want to go back, the same can be said for employees in many different professions. My H has employees who are saying they don’t want to return, etc.
The other day I passed a party while out walking. It consisted of recent college grads, none wearing masks and none socially distancing. Profs don’t want to return to school under those conditions…I don’t blame them.
As I mentioned earlier, I will only return to school if all rules are followed. Our teacher’s union will make sure that state recommendations are carried into the schools.
As for me, I will wear my mask and plastic face shield, I will maintain at least a 6 foot distance, and I will practice good sanitation.
I can’t read the article because it’s only available to paid subscribers, but I follow a higher ed blog published by a think tank here in Canada and they did an interview with the author Robert Kelchen who is an associate professor of higher education in the Department of Education Leadership, Management, and Policy at Seton Hall University. Basically he says that despite what the schools that early on have stated that they will be opening up in person in fall have said, the fact will be come fall that they won’t be. From another article:
Someone up thread already posted a “clarification” by Purdue so it will be interesting to see if what he claims is actually true.
@katliamom I’m not going to comment on this faculty subject anymore but please don’t insult me or our kids. We went through this about a hundred pages back. No one in my house is entitled and they certainly are not “precious”.
And yet here we are. Discussing how professors have cushy jobs, that the big problem is their unwillingness to teach - or teach more, for the same pay - and that you’re paying for something your child may not get. You’re OK with someone having to work “more,” but are unwilling to have your child accept something that’s in your perception “less.” Your child may not be entitled. But you fight for his experience in a way that suggests he should be. I sort of feel bad for you, your child and Bowdoin. Because all of you will be disappointed come next fall. And there is nothing to be done about it.
Just read the article, it’s pretty light on analysis. Kelchen says:
He suggests three possible reasons for all of the intent-to-open press releases:
1)To keep students enrolled
2)Political posturing
3)Sheer optimism
I agree with all of those,reasons, but don’t see higher ed as necessarily different from other industries that employ older and younger people (k12, many corporations, etc).
He also never really makes a case for why he thinks it’s a near certainty that colleges won’t have students on campus:
He did make the point that governors could override schools’ decisions to open, which I believe is true, although some posters have stated that is not in fact true. Does anyone know?
Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’d wager that the reason your tech department is working on spring 2021 schedule is because they are not using the latest technology to make scheduling (running, and analyzing various scheduling scenarios) easy and fast.
IMO, residential college living and a cruise ship are not the same at all. First off, people on a cruise are doing it strictly for fun (it’s a luxury). It’s an optional activity and you have many other choices to have fun during a pandemic. Secondly, according to Cruise Line International Assoc (CLIA) the average age of a person who takes a cruise is 47 years old with many over this age group which translates into a higher risk group of getting moderate to severe CV-19 symptoms. The average age of someone living in a dorm is 19 years old. A very low risk population. Thirdly, most large cruise ships only have 2 doctors and 3 nurse on board. In the event of a virus outbreak, they would be overwhelmed with cases as they do not have the facilities, equipment, and capabilities to treat such a large group of people. Lastly, cruise ships are isolated out at sea 100s of miles from land and would be difficult to get a distressed patient easily to a hospital within minutes, unlike a student living on campus within a few miles of a hospital.
I could go on but living on a cruise ship is not the same as living in a dorm. Very different experiences during an epidemic.
