They are also setting up tents for teacher office hours, to have some human connection with students. Only teachers who feel comfortable will do this.
I love the idea of having a picnic blanket handy for meals. Great idea, Tufts. I was in New England last fall, on a bike touring trip where we camped. The weather was glorious. Obviously eventually it’ll get cold, but there will be weeks of pleasant distanced picnics first.
I thought it was great too. can also do HW and study on it.
That’s a pretty common picture for large public schools. Mostly freshmen live in dorms, and there are RAs and other upperclassmen who do too. ASU has a very large Greek Village which I think is considered ‘on campus’ so there are more upperclassmen there.
@“Cardinal Fang” let me try this again. For the record, yes, I realize I’m probably trying too hard to find a centilla of evidence.
Current California numbers - 225,012 positive cases in 18-34 demo. They represent 24.3% of the population in CA of 39.78 million. My math says that is 9.67 million 18-34 year olds. This equates to a 2.3% positive rate.
Current Notre Dame numbers - 222 positive cases (only one is a non-student). Student body of 11,803 (grad and undergrad with negative tests prior to move-in). This equates to a 1.88% positive rate.
Not a slam dunk obviously, but going back to school does not appear to have increased my DS risk of getting COVID. It is still early, so that will likely move as the days pass.
I did see on reddit a grad student developed a “prediction” tool using open sourced code. It is fairly comprehensive. Worth a look for those interested.
It really doesn’t since that 85% includes ALOT of students who ‘commute’ from apartments off campus. The same students we are talking about that are having parties. If 85% of students lived with their parents, we wouldn’t be having this discussion (campus spread is mostly off campus spread, not on). I’ll dig up the stats, but I think its 50/50 between students that live at home vs on or off campus (not at home).
Edited to add- don’t need to dig up the source - another poster provided:
The Inside Higher Ed page at https://insidehighered.com/views/2020/07/23/colleges-should-be-planning-more-intentionally-students-who-commute-campuses-fall refers to another page that claims that, in 2015-2016, 15.6% lived on campus, 27.5% lived off-campus with parents, and 56.9% lived off-campus not with parents.
Now, that 56.9% could include traditional-age residential college students living in nearby apartments, fraternities, sororities, etc.
Again, your comparison is flawed. One, comparing the entire State of California to ND is not a fair comparison. Compare state to state. Two, ND students just started arriving to campus. The State has been testing for months.
Indiana - Current 7-day moving avg. = 8.9% https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states/indiana
CA - Current 7-day moving average = 6.8%
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states/california
Do the California numbers represent cumulative cases (i.e., from the past 6 months)? If so, the vast majority of those individuals probably are no longer infectious. In contrast, the ND cases are recent and a high proportion of those individuals may still be infectious. If these assumptions are accurate, then the proportion of young people who can currently transmit the virus to your son may be much higher at ND than in California.
On the other hand, because everyone at ND was tested recently but most Californians haven’t been, the proportion of undetected cases is no doubt much higher in California. In the absence of large-scale testing of asymptomatic people, I guess we really don’t know which location is safer, do we?
You’re trying to argue numbers with me, @usma87? OK let’s go.
You correctly calculate that over the course of the entire pandemic, since February, 2.3% of Californians aged 18-34 have tested positive for COVID-19.
And then you compare that to the rate of Notre Dame students who’ve tested positive… in the last week.
That’s comparing apples to apple trees. If we want to compare California to Notre Dame, we need to compare the rate of positive tests in California in 18-34 in the last week to the rate of positive tests at Notre Dame. How many young adults are testing positive now? After all, If your California son stayed in California, he wouldn’t be able to go back in time and get infected in April.
Since August 10, there have been 222 positive cases at Notre Dame, a 1.88% positive rate. Since August 10, there have been about 71,000 cases in California, a 0.18% positive rate for all Californians. But many people who have been tested are not in the 18-34 age group. Let’s say, generously, that half of the positives in California in this time period are in the 18-34 group. Then the rate for 18-34 in California now would be 0.09%.
Then the rate of positives at Notre Dame now is around twenty times higher than it is in California.
The original point was that only a small proportion of 18-22 year olds have the traditional residential college experience. Off- campus apartments are very different to dorms. Non- college educated adults, graduates and family’s live in apartments. Standard Apartment living is not what most people consider as the college experience.
@mathKids graciously pointed out a math error. I should have calculated that 0.18% of Californians aged 18-34 tested positive since August 10 (making certain assumptions).
Still, that’s ten times smaller than Notre Dame.
If covid spontaneously happened this might make a tiny bit of sense.
What does the student do at home? Eating out for every meal? Going to a public building and using elevators or stairwells several times a day? Working and interacting with the public? How often during the day was he sitting in a room with 5-50 people for almost an hour?
My child’s risk for contacting covid is increasing many many multiples by going back to college town, even with almost all online classes. Elevators or stairwells to access apartment and shared air, having to do all his own grocery shopping or eating out/picking up rather than having food magically appear on the table or in the fridge, sitting in a classroom full of other people, some of whom have been partying like its 1999, study groups with others, some whom have been partying like its 1999, etc. , all add elements of risk, masked or not, that are greater for him than when taking online classes from home.
It is a choice to return/go to campus, but I don’t think it is accurate to say that it is less risky based on some testing percentages, when a lot of the risk is behavior dependent on the student and all of those he encounters.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Standard apartment living is a huge part of what people consider as the normal college experience. Most kids congregate off campus in frat houses, sororities, and apartments, and go to classes on campus. Those students will still be doing that even if they shut down the dorms on campus. Probably now more than ever since some colleges are closing dorms. At my D’s college, she just met a sophomore who is off campus - which is highly unusual at a college were 75% of students normally live on campus. They hedged several months ago in case the college didn’t open and went for the ‘sure thing’ off campus.
Yes my D20 is excited about it too. Before she learned that Tufts was giving them out, she was going to bring her HS-branded blanket (part of the slightly more impressive swag the HS seniors got this year because they didn’t get a graduation, graduation party or prom.)
These “blankets” are actually quite light and portable. Water resistant backing and polyester/fleece top to sit on. I’m guessing the students will jump at the chance to eat outside whenever possible–eating meal after meal in your small dorm room obviously not ideal.
Tufts does have plans to allow dining in the dining centers when state guidelines say it’s OK. All food will still be packaged to go, but students can make reservations with their residential “cohorts” to eat together in the dining centers. Any cohorts will be socially distanced from other cohorts.
Agree. I think there is an extremely high chance of success with the Bowdoin plan. But I don’t think it will serve to inform decisions at other schools. It’s 500 kids, all in singles, with lots of testing and mostly online classes in an area with a very small amount of cases. Not sure what their success is going to tell other schools unless there are schools who would just bring seniors back for spring. I think the success of a school like Vassar or Midd where they have everyone back, some in doubles, and with n person classes will be more telling.
What differentiates
Any 18 year old can rent an apartment with or without being enrolled in a college.
The discussion was specifically about college owned dorms shutting due to Covid and how most 18-22 don’t need to go to dorms as part of their development. ( I think, I am confused now ha)
The 18-21 y.o.s in the state of California are not in one big soup of communal living, obviously. You can compare the ND numbers today but what do you think is going to happen two weeks from now?
I kind of agree. Bowdoin has already said that spring classes will be remote. They are trying out their testing and campus changes (dining, limitations on dorm life, contact tracing etc) to see how it goes. They say, if they are successful, that they will be comfortable having sophs-seniors back on campus. Freshmen and transfers go home. I still think that means they would all get single bedrooms but then Bowdoin will have to populate the suites which I don’t believe they are doing for fall. (Suites with single bedrooms that have common living room). The other NESCACs with in-person classes are adding to the risk of failure.
I think Bates and Colby are also having some in-person classes so I’ll be watching if they have to pivot on that and make all classes remote.
And, before anyone comments, I do think it would still be worth going back to campus even if class is remote. Right now, so many sophs-seniors are trying to make shift a way to be together to do remote class. It’s better than being at home. To be on the campus, in the nice dorms with Bowdoin dining, and even with limited use of the facilities, it will be more of a Bowdoin experience than renting a house with friends or being home. Bowdoin saying that professors are available for office hours by appointment. That would also be a perk in the spring if allowed.
We were in MA last weekend for drop off. It appears Medford in Phase 2 doesn’t have indoor dining. We stayed in Assembly Row (about a mile or so away) which allowed indoor dining…being from NY, we are so used to no indoor dining (almost paranoid) so we requested outdoor dining.
I think Tufts is doing a great job of balancing safety and welcoming students. The RA’s have been tested and trained…on campus already .
I think that while all of the homeschooling and learning pods are a valiant effort to keep kids learning and socially connected, they will prove to be a lot more effort than parents can sustain over time, and will not provide a better education than the public schools.
I think parents will flock back to schools when covid is no longer an issue, and there may even be a new appreciation and the political will to strengthen the schools.
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I homeschooled my kids through 7th grade (intentionally did not want to homeschool for high school). I think the folks who are doing these pods and/or homeschooling may actually decide they’d rather STAY with what they’re doing than send their kids back. Homeschooling was an amazing experience for me and my kids - definitely exceeded any expectations I had going in. In fact, when I did send my kids back, it was difficult to get used to the lack of flexibility in their education.