Not publish any information about how much Covid is on campus?
If you don’t test, you won’t have cases!
I’m eager to see how Purdue does as a large state school with a more robust testing plan. I believe the schools without one are doomed before they begin, happy to be proven wrong!
The NESCAC schools are getting the same advice that Northeastern is getting. They know that there is a very real chance this virus could be with us for 5 years.
What do you think Wesleyan’s enrollment and quality of the students will look like when they are 2 years into charging $50k for online classes?
@AlwaysMoving wrote:
That’s the question that @homerdog has been pursuing (with however many detours, LOL) for the past 700 pages! And, I don’t have an answer. A lot will depend on what becomes “the new normal” from now on. For example, it’s interesting that 90% of Wesleyan students appear poised to return to campus in a couple of weeks despite warnings that they will have to spend up to 14 days in quarantine. Williams is practically daring students to return under similar circumstances. This, to me, indicates a very highly inelastic demand for college away from home - whatever that means.
As a Birdie just told me Purdue currently has 25,000 students on campus as they move in this week. Michigan is next week and I guarantee you they are taking notice.
But with all the precovid modules the students take for education. All the emails the parents and students are getting almost daily now. All the things happening on campuses across the country… In my opinion, which won’t be favorable here, to me it’s up to the students. If they see a party brewing online. Call to shut it down. Also… Don’t go to the party. The students have lots and lots of choices to make. This is just another one. I told my son lovingly… Make smart choices, I don’t want to see you back here anytime soon… ?. He gets it. He’s a senior and “wants” to be on campus no matter what . This is his new normal.
Sociology 101 will tell you once they hear of or see a party brewing and mass gathering, younger students (yes, older too) are going to want to "check it out ". Maybe letting your students know that maybe waiting for spring is a better choice. It’s their new normal and they need to decide what type they want.
ASU has 70,000 students. Let’s say 10,000 of them stayed home. With ASU’s nonplan, we can expect half or more of the ones there to get infected.
Today’s math lesson, my friends: a small percent of a very big number is a big number. A small percent of the 30,000 students who get infected will get very sick, but that small percent, in numbers, could be 1000 or more. Has ASU really reckoned with the reactions of the 2000 parents of those 1000 students?
I just look at this and shake my head.
I wonder if the herd immunity advocates will end up being correct and these colleges that “ don’t give a …” will stabilise the viruses within their student body quicker. I guess if the kids only interact with their fiends and don’t visit older family or take a part time supermarket job and give it to old people buying their groceries it won’t be so bad.
Depends on what you mean by stabilize. We have to get rid of the idea that if a student doesn’t die of covid, they will be perfectly fine.
As a general observation I find it confusing that for months we’ve been told in various forms and at various times that we need to stay at home, limit travel, work from home if possible, wear masks, socially distance, limit the number of people we spend time with, avoid bars and indoor dining and so forth, but now an exception has been carved out for a certain segment of the population due to the importance of the residential college experience and the seemingly critical importance of living away from home to the development of teens into young adults, and it’s fine for thousands of kids to travel, live in close quarters, attend in person classes, dine indoors, play sports etc. regardless of the potential consequences to the surrounding communities.
Look at college sports over the next few months. If cardiac and respiratory complications are a significant thing in the young then that might result in a lot of athletes having to medically retire.
While I agree with you, the same could be said for any other college or university that is returning back. They all think they can control the spread with their own theory and ways.
I agree 100% with this. All along, I have felt very confident about the leadership of my state’s governor (Murphy - NJ). He has been so conservative with things that I felt if he was ready to open something up, it must be reasonable to do so. His about-face with education last week has shaken my confidence. I wish he would just be candid and say, “Look, it’s probably not really safe/prudent, but for x reason (economics, mental health or whatever else is driving it), we’re going to allow f2f schooling.”
I truly feel sorry for the faculty at the institution where I work. I have close to zero faith in the ability or willingness of a significant percentage of our students to abide by any seemingly draconian restrictions on their socializing.
I’m very curious to see how long the NESCAC schools can maintain in-person classes, because I think many of the New England LACs are among the colleges best positioned to weather the storm. In particular, schools that have a small, tight-knit community in which nearly all of the students live on campus, that are located in a part of the country where people generally take the virus seriously, that are in a rural or suburban area, that don’t have a strong frat/party culture, and that have sufficient resources for lots of testing have a shot at maintaining a virus-free (or almost virus-free) bubble. (I realize that, as others have noted, not all of these characteristics apply to all of the NESCACs).
Overall, though, if these schools can’t get through the semester without a debilitating outbreak, I don’t see how a school like ASU can.
Not sure I follow. Let’s see how the virus affects the healthiest among a population that is least susceptible and draw conclusions?
The young and healthy seem to be more cavalier though. It’s not groups of retirement home residents on the news right now having wild parties and causing spikes of cases.
We already know that tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of Americans who get covid are still sick months later. We already know that some nonzero number of athletes who get covid have to stop competing, at least for a season, because they have serious heart problems.
It seems like we ought to be able to answer the question, “Does covid cause a significant number of infected people to get permanent heart damage” without infecting a large number of college athletes. Infecting entire campuses seems to me to be a rash way of doing science.
According to Inside Higher Ed, fewer than 15% of college students live on campus. More than 85% commute. So when posters worry about the mental health of residential college students they’re worrying about a small segment of that age group.
The non compilers are not doing science though, it’s the opposite. They are thinking “ it’s just the flu, I want to have fun with my friends. Screw the rules”
Implications for K-12. Masks and social distancing are here for the long term.
University of Pittsburgh delays start of in-person classes until 9/14.
https://pittnews.com/article/159235/featured/pitt-announces-no-in-person-classes-until-at-least-sept-14/
@homerdog @socaldad2002 @“Cardinal Fang” - I make no claims that ASU has a great plan. I appreciate their perspective. As a brief review, I have twins, one at ASU one at Notre Dame. I expect ASU to see cases given their party reputation.
I would have been very upset if ND had given up after 2 weeks. Yes, there are 222 cases as of today. Yes, the jury is still out on long term health implications. This gets back to the ‘new normal’ perspective. Is the risk of contracting COVID less at home or at school? We will see. In California, the current tested infection rate for the 18-34 y/o demo is 24%. The rate at ND right now is…17%. So, again, where is my son safer, living at home in CA or at school at ND?
https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Cases-by-Age-Group.aspx
I also appreciate those on this thread that deem protocols “totally inadequate.” I suggest you call the Mayo Clinic, Rush University, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins to provide them with your advice. These institutions provided input to the two schools my sons attend. They could surely use your help.
At Notre Dame, the cases can be traced back to one off-campus party. I understand why there has been no discipline (contact tracing), but it really ticks me off. I wonder how the calls from quarantine to their parents are going? I wonder how many will admit some fault?