Awesome!! Great decision. I went my first year to a CC. One of the best decisions I ever made. Good luck to him.
@Homerdog, I really, really wish you would give us all more credit. This is just an introduction to the Wesleyan instructional choices; it is by no means, I am totally certain, the depth and breadth of available training and guidance for profs.
At each school, there are going to be different modalities, and parameters expected for each. Instructors are monitored. Syllabi are monitored. LMS’s are inspected. We can’t just wing it and call it a day.
At my school, there are five different modalities. I have gotten permission to teach a sync online class. But that doesn’t mean “in person except Zoom”. It means a weekly schedule of specific tasks and participation, plus in my case, one Z meeting to bring us together, have closer contact, ask questions, and in general interact.
Office hours are, of course, mandated. They work well remotely–Zoom, email, or chat. student choice. Appointments available outside of standard hours. This is all boilerplate. No one is just blithely posting a couple things and bailing. It doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t.
I am in a working group with others teaching sync online versions of my class. I am participating in trainings most weeks. I am researching technology.
I belong to several instructor FB groups. One has over 30,000 members. We are ALL working on making this fall work.
Really! Please stop thinking if you don’t see it happening then it isn’t. Please stop assuming we can eat bon bons and laze through our days. We have standards, and even if we didn’t personally, we have university expectations that we can’t ignore.
I appreciate, in turn, all the work YOU have put into this thread. 
@garland I’m happy if more work is being done than we can see right now! We do have professors here who don’t seem to have a lot of direction from their universities though. I want you all to have the chance to succeed!
Maybe, but even without, there are so many sources of help online (See what I did there?) Seriously, I have learned so much from FB groups–30,000 strong is a lot of sources of guidance!
“He made his final decision this morning and will defer”
This is great, I thought though that you were really excited for Bowdoin’s plan for the fall, what was the key in making the decision to defer?
He felt like he has nothing to lose by deferring. He’s found multiple opportunities for this fall ( possible research and internships etc) and he can still go live with his Bowdoin friends in Maine. He can still “graduate” in May 2023 and either get a solid in-person experience on campus or abroad in fall 2023 to finish up. I am impressed with Bowdoin’s remote planning but we don’t think any remote classes are worth $400/day especially if he can’t even be on campus and he agrees.
When he finished spring semester, he told us “I’m not doing that again”. For the first week after Bowdoin proposed their plan for fall, he felt like he didn’t have an option but to take class but we asked him to spend some time reaching out to alums and his professors looking for alternative options and he thinks he’s found enough to excite him for the semester. Now, he thinks these options might really help him narrow down his interests since he’s been so undecided on major and possible career paths. He sees his decision as a win win.
S19 saw his latest schedule from UofSC. 4 classes online, 2 hybrid (half of class time f2f). He’s okay with it. He had a pretty good experience w online classes in spring and now summer - missed his study group sessions more than classtime, I think. And he will be in an apartment w 3 friends, excited for that. Mostly worried about whether his finance clubs will be able to meet. So, not ideal, not end of the world. I feel like UofSC is doing the best they can.
Meanwhile, a good friend of his from HS who attends WashU is taking a gap year. Dad says no way is he paying that tuition for online classes. No real plans for gap year, not a lot of options in our small town.
Stay safe everyone. The mom of a good friend just died of this “hoax.”
The Washington Post: Reopened schools in Europe and Asia have largely avoided coronavirus outbreaks. They have lessons for the U.S…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/schools-reopening-coronavirus/2020/07/10/865fb3e6-c122-11ea-8908-68a2b9eae9e0_story.html
@garland. Thx for what you do. I know it’s challenging and heh, have a bon bon from time to time. ?
Results of UConn student survey about returning to campus:
Wow that was a depressing read…especially the quarantine reaction and all the praise and treats required. If this is indicative of most students/campuses Fall is going to be a disaster for higher education.
I agree. It’s pretty close to go time and these students seem very unsure of quarantine, contact tracing, etc.
I honestly do not understand how this is going to work. At small schools with detailed plans, they could fill up their quarantine dorms within the first two weeks if they are testing everyone upon arrival and then often after that. Vassar is the only school I’ve heard that has a tentative plan for what to do if the virus spikes on campus. On that podcast I listed to, she said if the quarantined spaces are up to 85% capacity, classes will revert to online and everyone has to stay in their rooms. Not sure what other schools’ plan will be. For larger schools, it’s just going to spread quickly when there are cases. I don’t see how it won’t. They won’t run into quarantine space issues if most cases are off campus but they will expect those kids to quarantine. I could see kids in apartments with a few friends figuring that out but what about these larger Greek houses? That just seems more difficult to control.
And this quarantining before coming to college issue doesn’t seem like it’s going to help for all students. Maybe for an in state student to quarantine at home and then drive to the dorm makes sense but, for kids who are flying to school, what’s the point of quarantining for two weeks at home if you’re about to get on a plane and then likely be in a hotel for at least one night before you go to campus?
We are seeing some cases now in our suburb. All teenagers. Usually, one feels a little sick, tests positive, and then all the friends test and a handful are positive. They are all quarantining in their bedrooms but not feeling sick at all. They have parents telling them to stay put. Not sure if college students who test positive but who don’t feel sick will stay in? Some will, but I’m guessing some won’t. We had 16 new cases here last week, 11 the week before. This is after three weeks of no new cases and a total of only 12 cases outside of a nursing home since March. So, the kids are getting it now.
Just read an interesting story of a Phillies baseball player, young and in excellent shape, and his battle with COVID. Was he hospitalized? Nope, but he’s been sick for about a month and said he is in absolutely no condition to return to the game.
I think we need to stop believing college students are invincible to this disease.
It’s ok to want campuses to open, but I think colleges are doing people a huge disservice by pretending campus life is going to be anywhere near normal.
Has your S’s schedule been changing? How many of his classes were originally planned to meet in person and are now online? Does it seems to be changing little bit by little bit?
So sorry about the mom of your good friend. 
It’s absolutely the most realistic take on this that I have seen. For those who have been wondering about the concerns of the faculty - this is from the mouths of the students themselves. We have worked with your little angels for years. We love them but we have no illusions about their very human natures.
We could be in for a bumpy ride.
RE:
So my takeway from this article is “The more cases you have in a society, the more likely it is that you will have an outbreak at a school, or that you will have a teacher or a parent or a child who brings the virus to the school.”
Meanwhile, in my SoCal county with a population of over 3 million, the Dept of Education is submitting a white paper to the Board of Supervisors tomorrow recommending a full in person return to school for k- 12 and specifically recommends no masks be required, no decrease in classroom density, and no social distancing for students. Sending my D19 back to her residential college with its very specific testing and rules is looking better and better…can I send my other kids with her ? https://ocde.us/Board/Documents/2020%20Agendas/Special%20Meeting%20Agenda%2007.13.2020.pdf
Lesson #1: Don’t do it when you have huge outbreaks.
@sylvan8798
Couldn’t agree with you more! That’s what I’ve found so frustrating reading all the college prep plans. Have they not been reading/watching the news? Clearly people, especially young people can’t follow directions, think they’re invincible, will never get sick or if they do get sick won’t get very sick, or some combination thereof. We have testing all over the country right now and quarantine requirements if you’re positive and that doesn’t seem to be making a significant difference. Where will all the masks come from? Hospitals are still complaining but somehow all these universities will be able to find them? And fabric masks are fine but do require washing. Most kids barely wash their sheets, are they really going to wash their masks on a daily basis? I could go on but I won’t.
It’s worth repeating IMHO this is all about the money. Schools need kids on campus so they can charge room and board, case in point: Harvard … who is having kids on campus so they can take classes online from their dorm rooms.
LOL, How did you guess? Actually, while it was historically Republican, it’s changed alot over the past few decades and the majority voted Democrat in the last presidential election. I live in a very liberal slice of the county and I would be shocked if our local school board shares the Education Dept’s stated point of view, but all I could say to this was, wow…to give all the school districts an out to not even try social distancing or have students wear masks for some part of their school day? Stupidity.
That UConn student survey was depressing. The students won’t practice social distancing in social situations, won’t quarantine, won’t stay away from bars, won’t report symptoms, won’t report their contacts to contact tracers. Oh and they demand “empathy.”
This is going to work splendidly.
@homerdog are you in Westfield? What you describe is exactly what I heard on the news last night about Westfield NJ