so it seems many schools that have announced plans have gone with the open earlier and be off campus by Thanksgiving, but most have rather limited plans for how they will deal with dorms, I have read no triples or quads but that has been pretty rare . ,most schools have kinda of glossed over that. I still see that as the biggest issue for schools , they need the dorm money but they have to find a way to have less kids in the dorms. Have I missed anything on that front?
Since most colleges will be heavily and frequently testing students, and limiting their movement on and off campus, it’s my opinion that colleges will be ok with having doubles in a dorm room. Your roommate will be like you sister or brother, if one happens to get sick, both of you will be quarantined. I really doubt most colleges will only have singles for all students. Just not enough buildings to house all the students that way and they would lose out on too much room and board revenue. Maybe the well endowed colleges (like Stanford) can afford this lost revenue but not your typical college.
In Stanford’s statement, they said,
USC said
For schools that aim to reduce dorm density, some significant portion of their students wouldn’t be able to return to campus (e.g. Stanford), unless sufficient amount of off-campus or other types of accommodations nearby can be secured. Most schools are unlikely to be able or willing to do this, so they will take their chances and deal with the risk of faster and wider spread should infections reach their campuses in the fall.
I think that Amherst is definitely NOT planning on doing something like Stanford, because they chose to stick with the traditional two-semester model, rather than the the three-semester model (in which ~2/3 of the student body would be on-campus at a given time) or the Beloit model (which would be easier to rotate students for, to ensure everybody got an equal amount of time on-campus in the upcoming academic year). If they only let part of the student body back, they would have to have everyone do an entire semester online, rather than quarters; if they were thinking about doing that, they would not have stuck with a traditional semester model. They wouldn’t plan for students to shift to online in the middle of the semester. Same goes for Williams; they were “heavily considering” both a three-semester model and a three-trimester model, but rejected them both in favor of the traditional two-semester model.
Something else for Amherst; I think it is very possible that they will be expanding into off-campus housing, because back in April they pushed the housing selection process back to “May/June”, and we still haven’t heard anything about it. Also, the email which I summarized on this thread yesterday really sounded like a plan to bring students back that just needed to be finalized; I think they are waiting until they finalize their plans for student housing in the fall to finalize it, so they can send out info about student housing at the same time they announce their plans for bringing students back.
Also, I am pleased with the news that there will be an intensive January term (never been done before at Amherst) where we take one course for credit over the course of a month, but I do wonder, how is that related to their COVID-19 planning? I am (pleasantly) shocked they are doing this honestly, because with the potential for a second wave in winter, I would’ve thought that they would delay the start of the spring semester as long as possible, and cancelled Interterm (which is their usual January programming).
@TheVulcan wrote:
That’s completely consistent with another theory making the rounds of Connecticut higher ed: Deep pockets make for big jury awards:
https://ctmirror.org/2020/06/03/looking-toward-fall-connecticut-colleges-seek-shield-from-covid-19-lawsuits/
Harvard hasn’t yet decided whether to bring its students back on campus in the fall, but its classes are "going to have to be to a large extent — if not entirely — remote” and will revert back to normal grading:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/6/3/harvard-coronavirus-fall-semester-town-hall/
Having the J-term scheduled probably gives them the flexibility to cancel it without as much effort/interruption as their alternatives. I believe MIT has done this for some time…probably several others too?
Well then a lot of top LACs are in this group of waiting on announcing their plans. It’s not just MIT and Ivies. Bowdoin hasn’t announced anything for sure yet. They haven’t done housing or class registration yet either. As for as I know, none of the NESCACs have sent out definitive plans. Most of the “plans” we’ve seen from all of them are drips of info and full plans. Of course, schools with bigger endowments have more flexibility when it comes to options and they can take the time to try to get it as close to right as possible.
Stanford knows they won’t have a lot of melt even if half the students have to stay remote. It’s that simple.
I think that’s the key. The schools that know people will come anyway are delaying announcing their plans or announcing they will be remote. The schools that may lose people depending on what they decide are tending to announce earlier.
@1NJParent wrote:
Another difference between a rich research university and rich LACs:
IIRC, about 50% of Harvard’s faculty are already tenured. That means, a much higher percentage are likely to be in the 60-65 years of age cohort group than the average LAC which regularly hires faculty right out of grad school. Yale and Princeton are probably in the same ballpark.
Some schools like U Denver are planning to contract with nearby hotels to provide housing to their students in order to reduce density on campus
@AlwaysMoving wrote:
OTOH, I can’t help but get the feeling that being remote in Palo Alto is a little more palatable than being remote and unable to move about in Cambridge, Princeton and New Haven.
Geography, and maybe even political leaning of the school’s administration, seem to have played a role too.
Yeah, I do think Cambridge is one of the hardest places for a college to social distance.
@circuitrider That doesn’t really make much sense though because colleges would lose a LOT more money by staying closed in fall than by reopening and losing a lawsuit.
@kartaqueen The J-Term would actually take place before the spring semester usually starts anyway (spring semester classes weren’t scheduled to start before January 25 anyway, and they will probably just delay that for a week since Spring Break will probably be cancelled), and would not really be a substitute for part of the spring semester, and it would actually be a lot easier for them to just cancel Interterm, which is an period of optional seminars and no actual classes.
I’m very glad they’re doing a January term, but wondering what the reasoning behind adding one (in ADDITION to the typical semesters and not substituting for any classes during the semesters) is, as well as how it is related to COVID-19? Is it something the college has been thinking about for some time and has just decided to implement now?