I agree that’s ridiculous, and also unhelpful. How would they even enforce that?
I expect enforcement will fall to the RA or proctors, whatever they are called at W&M. I would not like to be an RA this coming year!
IMO the restrictions some schools are suggesting are overreach, but it’s not my school and not my job to make the regulations. If you want to attend school in person and want to live in the dorms, you agree to the rules.
@ChemAM, It’s attitudes like “that’s ridiculous” and “how would they even enforce it” that make college administrators land on the side of extreme caution when deciding on college rules. If students are just going to do whatever they want regardless of the rules they agree to, colleges are going to end up being more restrictive, not less.
@Mwfan1921 Most of the RCs (Amherst equivalent of RAs) at Amherst don’t really enforce college policies: if the RAs at William and Mary take a similar approach to Amherst RCs and that is William and Mary’s plan for enforcement, it will not be enforced.
I often see this suggested and wonder if it’s actually a thing? One math department I worked for had common department-wide exams for certain courses, but otherwise our final exams are our own. No one has ever asked for mine.
Many of us do not return the finals to students (no real opportunity for the most part) as we don’t want them circulating. I suppose the department could demand a copy if they wanted to allow some student to give it a try. Not sure what the policy would be on that, though, if I were to say that I don’t put them out in circulation. IOW I’m not sure it’s as straightforward to do this as people seem to think.
I think most colleges will have similar rules in place. What’s the point of de-densifying living spaces if students and visitors can congregate indoors? Contact tracing would also be made much more difficult in the event of an outbreak if there’s no restriction. Enforcement will likely be based on honor codes and violators punished. Princeton’s Dean of College recently gave an interview and said she hoped for voluntary compliance so that the school doesn’t have to resort to using more forceful means. Presumably students can gather outdoors subject to some limitation.
Of course, those were not the rules when D signed up for campus housing. Off campus housing is very difficult to find and I doubt it is still available. We will find out more before she signs the housing contract (she would not break the rules after signing). In my opinion, this policy of no visitation, even within the same hall, risks the mental health of the students.
I see enforcement in general as a growing problem. In the grocery store Thursday (clear signage out front that face-coverings are required per governor’s orders) a man was shopping with a young boy, neither having any sign of face-coverings. If people see that it isn’t being enforced, they are not going to keep doing it themselves.
Agreed. Which is crazy since many people, including one doctor who spoke on NPR, argued for the reopening of schools in fall on the basis of mental health.
At my daughters college every visitor to the dorm, student or otherwise, was required to be signed in. The desk was manned by someone working for security. It would very easy to implement a no visitor policy. I realize all schools don’t have these controls, but it wouldn’t be hard to do.
I didn’t say I would disobey or “do whatever” I want, I said the policy is ridiculous.
Some colleges make many old exams publicly available:
https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/
https://www.math.tamu.edu/courses/math151/common-exams/
Presumably, the expectation is that instructors make new exams each semester, so that there will be no special advantage to those who have access to “leaked” exams, and so that old exams can be make publicly available for students to do practice problems with.
@sylvan8798 Yeah; the policies they put in place need to be enforced or at least enforcable, or it encourages people to disobey them. Most colleges have strict anti-underage drinking policies, but they are almost never enforced, so most college students have little-to-no qualms about drinking.
The point is to minimize density, not to live like hermits. I’m not talking about large parties. I’m talking about a friend coming over to watch a movie.
Three months is too long to go without a haven for a few friends to relax and be together. This puts enormous pressure on roommates to be each other’s only close confidant, companion or study partner. And what about those in singles?
^Different colleges will have slightly different policies but they’re all going to place limits on physical interactions in dorms. Colleges that aim to put all students in singles (such as Stanford) will likely have even stricter rules regarding dorm visits. Isn’t physical distancing in dorms the reason they put students in singles?
I also wonder how will kids take their remote classes with a roommate. Are they expected to take the class from their room? What if they have class the same time as their roommate and they are expected to contribute to the class discussion? When S19 took his spring online classes, he signed in from his room and we stayed clear of there. We could hear the class and he was in constant discussion (three out of his four classes were live and discussion base). No way you could have two kids doing that at once in one room even with headphones because they’d be talking.
Even if the roommates’ classes aren’t at the same time, each roommate would likely have to steer clear of the room while their roommate has class.
@3SailAway and I hear you about the mental health. That’s a joke if kids are supposed to only gather outside of their dorm. That is not going to work and, if it proves to be so miserable, will cause more stress than just taking class from home. And kids won’t come back for spring semester.
It is interesting that schools are saying things could change over time. How will they decide that? Seems like their rules are going to be way stricter than their county’s rules already. We don’t restrict how people in apartment buildings go about their business when they are in their apartments. Why would students have to keep friends out of their dorm room? We have people over in our house. The kids are starting to have friends over in the house, maybe just one or two. When they go into public, they are follow Illinois’ Covid rules. Shouldn’t it be the same on a campus? Kids could have friends (just friends from the college) in their rooms but then they are going to be masked and distanced everywhere else on campus to protect faculty and staff.
Yes but I thought it was just for living arrangements so they aren’t crowded together. Some schools like Richmond are allowing doubles because they deem their rooms big enough. Are we to believe that students are supposed to stay six feet away from each other every single minute of every day? Is anyone out there doing that now?
Exactly. You know where mine is right now? Playing basketball with his friends. I guarantee you they are not six feet apart.
I probably should add that we were doing pretty good on the bubble concept until school ended for S and his friends. Then they gradually started to congregate more and more, then he started working, and we’ve gotten to the point where the entire concept of being in a bubble is gone. It’s going to be really hard for him to start restricting his contacts when he goes back to school, if that’s what they expect.