I’m sorry, I meant sick as in needed hospitalization, not cold like symptoms or low grade fever. Not saying anyone being sick is ok. I just am thankful there hasn’t been a spike in hospitalizations.
Also, with numbers cut in half across the country since last month, I am hoping this helps with college returns.
My son is heading back to Hamilton College today. All four classes are going back, but students had the option of staying home and working remotely. Classes will be held F2F, hybrid and remotely. My son has a mix of all.
The College built modular housing to help with dorm density. Hamilton sent all students a COVID test to do at home and send back to a lab. They used Let’s Get Checked. That test has to be negative before the student can come to campus. Upon arrival, my son will immediately be tested again. All students have to “quarantine” in their dorm rooms until the second test comes back negative. My son is in a quad, so all four students will need to stay put until all four tests come back negative. Hamilton has set up quarantine and isolation floors in dorms for positive/sick students. Testing will be done on a regular basis.
There are strict rules to follow, but my son is thrilled to be going back to campus and being with his friends. Hamilton is small, around 1800 students, residential and in a remote location, so I feel confident that this semester will work.
This is an op-ed published in The Washington Post yesterday from Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun. I am linking to its reprint on the Northeastern website as the WaPo site is behind a paywall.
http://www.northeastern.edu/president/2020/08/18/the-virus-isnt-going-away-thats-why-campuses-need-to-reopen-2/
“The virus isn’t going away. That’s why campuses need to reopen.”
I’m not sure separating states by days that intersect makes much difference when the virus takes several days to incubate prior to A - testing positive and B - exhibiting symptoms (if symptomatic). But hey…they have a plan.
I like the NEU article about living with the virus for the next 5 years. At some point, colleges will cease worrying about the number of cases on campus and worry about serious illness/hospitalization only. Maybe by Fall 2021, but surely by Fall 2022, for those colleges still in existence.
A lot of solid arguments, but he ebbs and flows between the school and the broader community in support of various arguments. He may be right, but the close feels a bit … i don’t know…optimistic?
Universities need to take control of the virus — and show our communities how to do the same.
A 4 to 5-year problem that we can control?
Control as in, learn to live with it, protect the most vulnerable, and continue living.
The dates were in part driven by MA travel/quarantine guidelines. Kids from non exempt states need a couple of negative tests to get out of quarantine so makes sense they should get to campus earlier, so they can be out of Q before classes start.
A lot of the NESCACs already have a monastic quality built into their DNA. So, it’s not surprising to me that they are the single biggest group of selective colleges resisting the general trend of total remote and distance learning. Pandemics were not unknown in the early nineteenth century when most of them were founded. And, unlike HYPMS, they were deliberately located in small towns and villages away from the temptations of modern urban life. A lot of LACs (Wesleyan, Amherst, Oberlin, Davidson, Sewanee, among others) were founded under religious (often Protestant) auspices, so they come by their hairshirt tendencies honestly. Given their history, it doesn’t surprise me at all that they spent the spring and summer putting in the work and coming up with the funding to make credible plans for re-opening in the fall. No doubt a lot of them will be under the spotlight for doing so.
@EyeVeee They have strict arrival quarantine protocols as well.
What trend? The vast majority of the 3000 colleges and universities across the USA are reopening. On this site and in the national news, you only hear about the most prestigious ones or the ones that had a dramatic change of course. There are (and likely won’t be) no stories about colleges that are making it work. That wouldn’t be news worthy. Just like the national drop in case counts is not in the headlines.
The issue of overcrowded housing
isn’t limited to college students and should be the responsibility of landlords and government, at every level.
Maybe we need to have mandated maximum housing occupancy levels, including guests ?
I could not agree more!!! A sorority or fraternity house that has 20+++ students living in the house already breaks the gathering rule of some locals. Thats before 1 guest ever walks through the door. Many houses are not on campus and are not owned by the university so they have no control BUT, the town/county where they are located should have control. Those landlords have responsibilities.
@suzyQ7 I believe @circuitrider is referring to the vast amount of money the NESCACs have invested into reopening. Most colleges aren’t losing money on reopening.
@suzyQ7 -Well, yeah. Point well taken. I was referring specifically to @Boomer1964 's assertion
NESCAC doesn’t have to worry about filling seats.
It is pretty obvious that we still are not learning how to live with it, unless you mean accepting uncontrolled spread and subjecting people to the negative lottery of who dies or has post recovery health problems. The way college students are behaving suggests that in person education means giving up on trying to limit the virus.
So, NEU thinks they should go back to campus and, right up the street, Harvard is all remote. NEU thinks we should get back to a new normal right now, this fall. It’s not like Harvard or other schools with all remote classes are “shut down”. They are still delivering classes that move the students towards a degree.
NEU must know that this spring, next fall, spring 2022 will bring more info about the virus so that students can be brought back to campuses in a much safer way. I do think it’s true that the “virus will be with us” and there will be no miracle vaccine but why does NEU think it’s crucial to push through right now when we are still learning so much about the virus every week? Their reasoning isn’t sound to me.
And I bet all of the internships they are famous for will still be remote.
Homer -Those aren’t mutually exclusive propositions.
“And I bet all of the internships they are famous for will still be remote”
Totally disagree. The majority of industries in this county were still operating even during the initial shelter in place. Purdue released stats that 65% of their students still had their F2F internships/co-ops this summer. I highly doubt it was any different at NEU. (We know lots of students at UCinn that had their programs go forward in person as well).
Remember, 55 MILLION Americans were considered “essential” services and worked straight through the shut down. Here’s a link to the numbers from the end of May: https://www.epi.org/blog/who-are-essential-workers-a-comprehensive-look-at-their-wages-demographics-and-unionization-rates/
It seems to me that people who have been able to work from home have a skewed perspective…
.
I’ll read the article in a moment, but my gut guess would be that time has an opportunity cost, not only in dollars but in human development.