Rosepetal35 although I agree that students at Amherst College are social justice minded, so are the kids at UMASS. Perhaps even more so. But the town objected to their presence in the community and off campus in a way that they did not object to Amherst and forced closure of the UMASS campus but not AC. It just exacerbates the private vs public in that town unfortunately.
So I just got an email from a commuter student who is enrolled in my online synchronous class who wants to know what do if he has an in-person class at 8:30 and an online synchronous class at 10:05 (our classes are 80 minutes with 15 minutes in between). The administration has not changed the course time “schedule” at all and, as far as I know, despite numerous requests/warnings from faculty, they have not established designated hygienic socially distanced indoor spaces with wifi access for students to join online synchronous classes. I emailed the higher-ups about it and the response is, “Uh, we’re working on it.” They were so busy trying to figure out plexiglass shields and socially distanced live classroom capacities that they forgot to deal with this larger group. We start classes after Labor Day.
So on the first week, we’ll have commuter students wandering all over campus looking for places to join their online class, and I’m sure they will be nervous and not too worried about social distancing. And will have to wear a mask if in a public area. And they will feel lost and uncomfortable and end up sitting in their cars. 3/4 of all instruction is being offered online, either synchronously or asynchronously, so the number of students affected is large.
I so deeply wish that my institution had committed to all-online instruction and not pivoted back to a mix. It’s going to go very poorly and we are all going to end up online anyway. The university is so committed to the small number of students who will be living on campus and taking in-person classes that they are going to alienate the larger number of all-online students. Chasing that R&B money over providing a good academic experience is a huge mistake IMHO.
How is the university supposed to enforce public safety standards outside of campus? Will campus police be deputized as law enforcement, to start issuing citations and arresting people off campus? Can they arrest those who aren’t students?
They shouldn’t be forced to and it is not their responsibility. Think if NYU is responsible for all of NYC-impossible. However, universities are responsible for the safety of those they have brought back to the campus and put in their dorms and classrooms. That is what they signed up for when they opened their dorms and campus extras. You can not have your cake and eat it too.
It’s a quandry.
What do you do with positive students if you arrest them?
But what can town police do? A number of students refuse to follow guidelines. Can they post guards at apartment complexes? Do they have enough police for this sort of enforcement?
A whole lot of folks predicted what has come to pass. How do we extricate ourselves? I have no idea.
“Police Chief Chris Blue has said the town will begin enforcing the state’s limits on gatherings — 25 people outside and 10 people inside — for repeated and egregious violations. No one has been cited yet with a violation, which is a misdemeanor.”
What can town police do? Start issuing citations… according to the article linked above, they haven’t. That is silent permission to have parties. Enforce the rules, that’s the towns job, not the colleges. Sounds like locals have been calling the cops and they looked the other way. This is NC so maybe they thought Covid was fake news or just another bad flu.
I don’t think it is a private vs public thing. It’s a size thing. UMASS has thousands of kids living off campus, in town and the school has no way to enforce rules with that population. And no testing for those off campus kids. Amherst College has a relatively small number of students, all on campus with an extremely strict plan in place with continual testing. Students are prohibited from leaving campus, so the town won’t have interaction with them.
I think that depends on the location and I understand what you are saying. My son goes back to Michigan on the 27th. The state has laws about bars etc etc. As long as the bars abide by the rules then things should be ok. But in reality it’s up to the students to keep themselves safe. All stores will have a “No mask, no service” sign. In this case the campus and community is intermixed per se. I know the residents of Ann Arbor are worried seeing what’s happening around the US. All the students have been educated and hopefully practicing this now. So if bars get packed then city/campus police (not sure who does what but think they work together) will have to do their jobs till the students get it. Fraternity houses might be shut down, etc, etc.
I know I am bias but I really do have “high hopes” for the kids there. I know I might be being unrealistic also. Regardless my son will stay at his off campus housing and won’t come home like he did in spring semester.
Anybody heard about what Albion College in MI is doing? I ran across a news story but it was from a news site that is pretty alarmist and didn’t look that credible. They said that students are required to download an app that tracks their GPS location for contact tracing purposes, and supposedly also alerts the college if the student leaves the campus perimeter, subjecting the student to possible discipline. I couldn’t find a really reputable news source on this particular story, but how would you feel about mandatory location tracking for your student for contact tracing purposes?
Otherwise, from what I could tell, the Albion plan doesn’t look very different from the plan at my kid’s school, Hope College which is also in MI. Hope makes the kids check symptoms each morning and discourages but does not forbid out of town travel. But AFAIK the Hope plan has a great deal of support from students, parents, staff and the town. (Hope also has an extensive testing plan, which included saliva tests for everyone before arrival, wastewater testing and surveillance testing.)
Of course, many college students attended as commuters, so the socialization aspect is not as important, or not as available, to them. The socialization aspect of residential college is probably best seen as a nice bonus if you can get it, since what the student and/or parents are really paying for is education (of the desired academic content) and certification (conferral of degree at completion, and associated prestige, alumni network, etc. that may be relevant later in seeking employment or additional education).
But then it seems that some colleges are mostly marketed and desired for the socialization aspect (particularly if their education is nothing special or unusual, and their prestige is not at the high end), so those colleges are most likely to suffer when every college is equalized to distance education under COVID-19 outbreak conditions, and those colleges’ students and parents are most likely to be disappointed.
Many 18-24 year old people who are not attending residential college are still living with their parents, so they are unlikely to be able to host a huge wild party at their parents’ house like they could in a fraternity house. I.e. it may not be so much a difference in expectation, but a difference in supervision.
Part of an e-mail from President Bradley at Vassar yesterday:
“Finally, we will begin reporting the number of new COVID-19 cases on campus on a special dashboard each week, beginning this week. We have tested 481 students so far, and we have had four students test positive for COVID-19. These numbers are in keeping with expectations in these early days. All are in isolation and being cared for in another part of the campus in a private room and bathroom; none of the students is symptomatic. Per our protocol, we have conducted contract tracing, and five additional people determined to have had close contact with a person who tests positive for COVID-19 will move to our self-quarantine areas on campus for 14 days. Please keep an eye on the VassarTogether webpage for weekly updates on the number of tests and positive cases.”
On many campuses, campus police are real police or are a division of the local city or county police department. So law enforcement jurisdictional overlap issues have presumably already been set up (before COVID-19) in that case.
Where campus security is not real police, they do not have real police powers on or off campus anyway, so the local city or county police would be needed if real police were needed.
I forget if I mentioned it here before (sorry), but our square-mile city is currently considering a $250 fine for mask non-compliance…just in time for when the Stevens students return to campus. We’ve been pretty much holding the line with new infections here (just a slight uptick over the past few weeks), and no one wants to lose that coveted position. It’s wonderful to have Stevens in town, and yes, the local businesses can certainly use their patronage (to the extent that things are open), but I kind of feel as if we’re waiting for a tidal wave to roll in.
So were these the tests given upon arrival? Did the students have to quarantine until they had their results?
I’ve been worrying about that exact same thing for my students. Many are commuter, and with the mixed classes, the same thing could happen at my school. Thanks for reminding me to look into this!
Colleges can’t do a lot about off campus activity, but they can take strong action against organizations like fraternities.
The college towns need to remove the fun from their town and the students will slowly migrate back to their parents basement. Close the bars, limit alcohol sales, step up enforcement of underage drinking and seek maximum penalties, close parks and other gathering places, etc.
There are many young adults who can follow rules, but I think in some areas where there is currently high community spread the 20-30 year old group has among the highest positivity rates and number of absolute cases. This is the case in Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, for example, and I think it’s true in some areas of California and Florida.
I would expect the covid rates of colleges in those areas to mirror the surrounding area, at least initially.
I still only see results as of Aug 16th, updated yesterday. Is there another site?