My child has always been and will continue to be fine with her university experience, thanks. This is her second year doing dual credit, and the first time I have ever needed - yes, needed - to reach out to one of her professors. I have never initiated communication with any of her other professors. This is a dual credit situation, and she is still under her parents’ legal guardianship, and there are potential legal issues between her father and I regarding this specific situation. In our very specific situation, it is appropriate for me to provide additional context to the Spanish professor so she gets the full picture of why D21 asked what the clear masks were made of and expressed hesitation over wearing them. It is just a wee bit more complex than me communicating with my child’s college professor “over what she is wearing in class.”
In addition, with all COVID-19 safety agreements, testing, etc. for any student under the age of 18, communication is with and signatures are required by the parents as well as the students. All COVID-related matters need to be addressed by the parents if the students are not legally considered adults.
The top brass at colleges know exactly what they are doing. The problem is their priorities are not the same as the parents’, students’, or professors’ priorities. The school leadership is protecting their school by propping up revenue, protecting their endowments, and maintaining strong ties to government funding.
Just like the virus, everybody and everything is doing what they can to survive.
D says says that if the smell of weed from down the hall in the dorm makes it through the ventilation system, certainly the virus is traveling through it as well.
Many non-flagship state colleges are mainly commuter-based colleges, so the lack of a residential college experience (which is already absent for most of their students) is unlikely to affect them much.
Consolidation of that sector could be more accelerated if online / distance education increases, since there may be less need to have as many state college campuses if students without a commutable state college campus can do online / distance education. However, some class components like labs and arts are still more effectively done in-person, so conversion to online / distance education at the expense of commutable state college campuses covering more of the population could worsen accessibility of education in those majors requiring in-person class components.
For my three kids’ various online classes and activities this spring, I have needed to be on top of something like 11 or 12 different platforms. Platform fatigue is real! Your students will thank you for taking it into consideration.
If instead of crowded dorms with lots of shared spaces, students lived in off-campus apartments, that would certainly impede the spread of the virus, because students would be less crowded.
But the timescales are not right here to talk about colleges leaving the housing business and its effect on covid-19 spread. We’re dealing (or not) with covid-19 now, this very minute. If universities get out of the housing business, that will play out over years if not decades.
UNC is interesting to watch, since in addition to the conflict between financial (ex. not refunding housing if cancelled) and health concerns (County Health advised on-line classes only), there is the added political pressure to keep the campus open.
If the students are socializing on campus or with those who they would normally be with on campus (like at a fraternity, sorority, friends, study group, social club, etc.), the risk to the university is greater, not lower, as there is extended community contact beyond the walls of the campus. Schools are testing everyone before they step foot on campus, but they aren’t testing the neighbors or restaurant/grocery store workers the off-campus students engage with daily.
The university is still responsible for managing the safety of everyone who is a member of their community.
I think they are all to some extent interesting to watch (not always in a good way) as they are all just a little different. BUT IMO most state schools are political. They get state funding. Im my state (Maryland) the 5 state colleges that I pay attention to from the largest of 40,000 and the smallest of about 1500 are all open yet every county of k-12 is closed and there are law suits about the opening of the private k-12 in some places.
Just for comparison, universities here in Canada are not testing students and they are not requiring students be tested prior to arrival on campus (though schools in the Atlantic provinces are requiring 14 day quarantines for those arriving from outside of the region, but that applies to everyone, not just students). That’s the responsibility of local public health departments regardless of whether or not students live on campus or off. Students are expected to follow local public health guidelines the same as everyone else. Universities may have greater control over ensuring that students in on campus housing follow the rules but even so, am I expecting there to be outbreaks of cases? Yes. Those universities that decided to open on campus housing may have no option but to close residences if the spread starts to get out of control. Time will tell. That still doesn’t address the issue of spread among students living in off campus housing. Universities have absolutely no control over them.
Really? On CC everyone argues that these are adults who live off campus, have jobs, sometimes have kids of their own. Why is the school (or employer, or landlord, or relative) responsible for controlling their off hours actions?
People are paying for their kids to live off campus and they may not be taking classes on campus at all, or even registered with the school, yet they are going to parties or even just meeting with 5 other students who do attend the school. How can the school be responsible for that?
My son has graduated but I still follow his school. Students started moving in yesterday and I fully expect them to go all online with in the next three weeks. You have to be out the dorms in two weeks in order to recieve a refund. I fully expect a outbreak and they shutdown all face to face classes in three weeks. I just can’t see how you control nearly 38,000 students in a college town. My heart goes out to all the parents during this most difficult time.
There is a difference between responsibility and control. No school has the ability to ensure anyone’s safety, but they have a responsibility to do whatever possible to keep their community as safe as possible.
What schools can do is mitigate risk on behalf of their community. Schools have a responsibility to implement policies to protect as many as possible…which includes those who are part of the institution but live off-campus.
My 21 year old sister moved back in with our parents this past year after 2 years of college. From following her Facebook account Her “ partying” behavior was significantly less living at home ( pre pandemic) compared to when she was in the college dorms. The peer pressure aspect,and the general opportunities available for partying is significantly less. At college, bars and nightclubs where 5 minute Uber drives away and the kids “ pre drink” in friends rooms before even going out since they all live in the same building . A night out at home required significantly more effort to organize.
I don’t think that idea that college age kids will behave the same living on or off campus is true. The residential College experience it self has a grand festival element to it unlike anything the adult and childhood life stages have .
I got the strong impression that UNC AMA student is female. For example, they ask for donations to Planned Parenthood, which IMO is something that a young woman is more likely to do than a young man. But that’s beside the point.
This student is an adult, as are almost all the other students in quarantine. But that cuts both ways. Because they’re an adult, the university cannot lock them up in the quarantine dorm. But also, because they’re an adult, they are responsible for their behavior and can be disciplined for it. If UNC was serious about stopping disease spread, which they clearly are not, they could say, “You are free to leave this dorm. If you do, don’t come back to the dorm or the campus. We are free to expel people who leave quarantine or isolation,* and we will not hesitate to do so.” And the university could enforce this.
*Except for fire alarms. The university is setting itself up for crazy liability if a student is injured because they ignored a fire alarm and it turned out to be real. That’s an insane request. I doubt UNC ran it past their lawyers.