I think there is not much representation in this thread; the only professor I am aware of is @sylvan8798 . According to the poll I saw, one in five K-12 teachers would be unlikely to return in fall (which is still a big number, but means the solid majority would be coming back). With regard to professors, from the professor communications I and my friends have had with our professors, it seems that most professors will be returning to an in-person format if given the option, especially considering the extensive measures being put in place by Amherst to protect professors from potential infection. However, I will acknowledge that this may not be as true at other colleges, considering that this is a prestigious LAC, which professors opt to work at specifically to have close interactions with the student body that are greatly inhibited, if not virtually impossible, in online education.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-regimen-for-reentry is a writing by Atul Gawande about various measures taken at hospitals. Among the measures is a discussion of masks, with links to various studies.
@fretfulmother I have heard more than one conversation among young people, who are in the workforce and who see a big benefit from being likely immune, where the topic was strategies to catch the virus. This is probably why the new bar I walked into last night, filled with young people, had zero distancing and zero masks (despite the opposite being true in all of the restaurants in the same strip). We turned right around and left immediately.
There are many who feel it is worth the risk to get it over with.
My oldest got an antibody test for no cost at an urgent care center in NYC (he was negative). My S20 gets his test this week. It is a struggle where we are to get the antibody test because of a severe shortage of phlebotomists.
@garland is also a professor. See post #5127 for a very illuminating account of the workload of a non-tenure track professor of English.
And I’m sure that there are other profs in this thread, too.
Tuckethannock, garland, NJSue, (all faculty) have taken the time to post here, but their input has not been well received, imho.
There have been several others, and I apologize for not recalling your names.
eta. Crossposted
eta. ChemA, very disheartening to me you didn’t remember those posts.
How many weeks until the first college football game? 8? 10? And each player who tests positive is ‘out’ for 2 weeks, right? If left to their own devices, the virus would spread through such a team like wildfire. Perhaps, then, within 6 weeks they’d all be done with it. This has probably crossed the mind of one or two of the football coaches out there. Having to re-work the team figuration based on who is in quarantine each week for the whole season will be interesting for these guys. No doubt they are much more concerned about the virus spread than their win/loss record. For sure.
Interesting article. The Swiss just last week got rid of their distancing rule. Not sure about masks.
How old is Nick Saban again?
A few other schools in addition to Alabama are reporting cases among athletes (Auburn, Ok State) All were asymptomatic. One kid said he got it while at a protest march.
@alh “Disheartening”? What do you mean? This is a 300-page long thread; I can’t possibly remember every detail. Although I remember Garland and NJSue posting here, I don’t remember them mentioning that they were college faculty. Wasn’t tuckethannock actually banned from this thread (I remember a moderater saying one poster was, and I haven’t seen any posts from him since)?
Also, when I said the thing about professors at prestigious LACs, not to say that there aren’t professors dedicated to student interactions at other colleges; I’m sure there are many, it’s just that professors at many other colleges (in general) are likely to have a greater focus on their research.
Regarding the on campus isolation / stay in your room debate, it would make sense to move the positive kid to a different room esp if their regular dorm room did not have a private bathroom, most freshman halls use a single bathroom on the floor , one for each gender, so no way you can have someone stay in their room if they do not have a bathroom in their room.
I’m behind in this thread, but @homerdog --the cognitive dissonance in this post is jaw-dropping. Maybe watch for what you [expletive deleted-ing] wish for. Gosh I hope your kid gets the perfect experience you want for him so much–with any luck, not too many people will pay for it.
@garland Whatever. YOu and the other professors here will continue to think college students are going to get all of the faculty sick and there will be thousands of deaths. I just came from a dinner with a friend of mine who is a very well respected pulmonologist. He thinks kids should go back to school. Said all need to shift our view on the virus. We will be living with it for a while. This is from a person whose wife lost her uncle and her aunt is still in the ICU.
He’s been working in the Covid units here for months. If he has this perspective, maybe some faculty out there should be considering it. Many of us have posted that our doctor friends believe kids will be able to go back to school. More and more, he said, hospitals are learning how to take care of these patients. He believes with social distancing and masking rules inside buildings on campuses, hospitals will not be overwelmed with cases.
Right there with you, @inthegarden. At-risk prof here, married to an at-greater-risk HS teacher. With some exceptions, most of the posters here will tell you he should just quit or take his chances at death. So Junior can have a great college experience.
And yes, I am bitter with CC after well more than a decade of being here. After having started one of the legendary epic threads, after helping hundreds of students, after a few years of moderating, and after making some really good friends.
But this thread has made me question why I am here, of all the thousands of threads I have read here.
@garland Let me ask you this -if you saved up for your kids to go to college and your son or daughter was having a good experience and then Covid happened, do you think you’d just be like “oh ok, let’s do remote class for another year”. Really? Is that what you’d think? I’m not out to hurt faculty but I do not see why you don’t get the other perspective. These aren’t all entitled babies just wanting their way. When colleges like Amherst or Stanford say they appreciate learning on campus and are finding creative ways for that to happen, are you taken aback at that? Should they just throw in the towel like you want students to do as well? It’s not just students and parents who want to find a way through this crisis, it’s highly reputable colleges as well.
I don’t think a college is like anywhere else. There may be more intensive and widespread social contact among college students than just about any other population (except maybe those in assisted living/nursing homes, and we know how that goes…) Plus, I’d say, groups of kids in their late teens/early twenties are not, on the whole, terribly concerned about being vectors to more vulnerable people. It’s not that they’re not nice people; I think that kind of thing is just not on the radar screens for most. Other developmental needs are pushing to the forefront too intensely for them to care enough about risks to themselves or others to inhibit their behaviors that much. I’m not referring to individuals…there are plenty of exceptions…but to college-age people in general.
@homerdog Funny you should mention Stanford, which is assuming most if not all classes will be online.
And overall, I know that if my kids were still in school, I would privilege safety for all over what I’d “like” for their year to be like. One effin’ year out of four.
If I couldn’t think that lives were more important, I couldn’t look them in the eye.
YMMV.
Overall, please own what you are arguing, and stop pretending.
@homerdog, you know I have a daughter that I’d like to send to school next year, and then to college the next. But really, if the choice was for her to have to put off her life for a year or two, or to continue as planned and lose either her mom or her dad (or both) so that her dad can keep teaching the classes that kids and parents feel entitled to (because they paid for it) which do you think we’d choose if we could? which do you think my daughter would ultimately choose? and, yes, we, too have been saving all her life to send her to college. But a teacher (or a teacher’s spouse losing ten or twenty or thirty years of their life so that parents and kids get their money’s worth…really? I mean, people in the teaching professions are not really paid commensurate to their education…especially professors requiring PhD.s . Teachers and professors are usually pretty altruistic and dedicated folks. But we didn’t originally sign on to this level of risk, and it’s daunting.