This seems like a fun experience. Albion College
That’s because for the entire fall semester — the next 14 weeks — students cannot leave the campus’s 4.5-mile perimeter, under penalty of suspension. Nor can they have outside visitors — including family — without prior approval, normally about five days notice, according to a recent email from school officials.
“We also have to agree to sign up for a phone app which tracks our movements,” said Bakker.
All of these announcements are laying the ground for the administration to blame everyone but themselves when the inevitable happens.
A couple of months ago, the administrative message was that the customer is always right, so professors should get back into the classroom and teach f2f so Johnny won’t transfer to another school to party and we won’t go out of business. Now it’s “Bad students! The customer is always wrong!” What is the university? An institution of learning, or a lifestyle service provider? Responses to the pandemic are really throwing this question into stark relief.
Bucknell students had to have two negative tests before getting room key and will be tested every 10 days.
Two students tested positive.
The school president sent an email criticizing students for large off campus parties and not wearing masks, with a warning that they will be sent home.
@ElonMomMD Thanks for posting about Albion. I posted about it several pages ago but couldn’t find a good (reputable) news source about it. So thank you for linking to the Detroit News article.
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 on the Hope website but didn’t make them download an app. Hope discourages but does not forbid out of town travel. My kid has gotten takeout several times already from the stores in downtown Holland that are just immediately off campus.
But are seniors (at any college) the main partiers? Seems like, at a residential college, frosh/soph students recently “freed” from parental supervision would be the biggest partiers. Also, seniors are probably less tempted by the novelty of the forbidden (alcohol) that is now familiar and allowed to them if they are/were ever interested (“been there, done that”).
Graduate and professional school students are also likely to be self-selected to be those more serious about their academic and professional goals, as opposed to seeing college as a new social experience.
A wealthy parent’s lawyer could argue that the suspended / expelled student did not really disobey the rules (technicalities or mistakes in enforcement) or that the campus’ process for determining violations and punishment was somehow improper (remember the problems that some colleges had with campus disciplinary action regarding accusations of sexual misconduct?). Perhaps the arguments may not win, but does a college really want to deal with a bunch of lawsuits?
@Corinthian -Yeah, the dining out or taking food out on Main Street seems to be a chief point of departure at Albion and Wesleyan from other LACs. I think in Wesleyan’s case there is some assurance from the local infection rate (9 per 100,000) which is among the lowest in the country. That, and a visibly high rate of compliance with mask wearing and SD among the townspeople.
From what I understand at Notre Dame, kids tend to live on campus for 3 years. And its mainly seniors who live off campus. School is saying cases are tied to off campus parties which would mean senior hosted parties. Though I am sure it varies by school and kid, I would expect there are a lot of juniors and seniors partying.
And kids will vary no doubt but 6-7 of my close friends in undergrad are doctors today. They partied hard in undergrad. I rememer telling them once they started practicing that they all are likely good doctors but watching them on Thursday/Friday/Saturday nights, I would never let any of them treat me. Though to be fair, some of the doctors who do treat me were likely doing the same thing in undergrad; I just never saw them.
Yes, the legal experts on this thread know more. I just meant that the punishment (no refunds for a product not delivered/used and that is a substantial or material cost) seems greater than the infraction. Unless the college proves that this one student infected student B who then died or had long term complications etc - otherwise it is conjecture – risky behaviors can cause infections but in this instance not proven.
I was just curious. It does seem that the lawsuits wouldn’t be worth the headache or bad press. Suspension from the semester or banished to online remote learning (and not allowed on campus) seems more reasonable, as schools expel/suspend students all the time.
Well word will catch on, peer pressure and all. Hoping for the best for all of these students, staff and communities!!
This is the issue EVERYWHERE, not just with college students and on campuses. Everyone thinks they are being careful, wearing their masks, washing their hands, only going out when it is really necessary. Except it is okay to go on vacation because they are really careful and don’t stay in hotels, only get take out for food, only go to places where they are 6 feet away. Eek, there was someone at the store without a mask! Oh no, the waiter came too close! Oh, I had a reservation at a national park but so did 4000 other people. People have been posting on CC since the beginning how they ‘do’ covid19 and justify vacations and take out and going to work or visiting their college kids or their mother because it is what they need to do or want to do. But they are careful so don’t worry.
I’m not excusing myself. I went to the dentist yesterday, I’ve gotten my hair cut, I go to the grocery store. I had brunch at a friend’s house (outside) but I’m not justifying it as a smart move or the best move. I did it because I wanted to see my friends. All legal, but I know it is not as safe as staying home. I’ve made 400 masks and wear mine but masks are not bullet proof vests and they can’t protect everything. (I agree with the expert from Minnesota that they don’t really work at preventing the droplet spread but do work to remind people to stay apart and not touch their face, they do no harm so why not?)
I’ve never thought colleges could control their students or the dorms. Of course the isolation room is going to look like a cell in a convent with no conveniences (like a pillow), bad food, a roll of toilet paper. Colleges aren’t hotels and aren’t hospitals and chicken soup is not going to be delivered.
People aren’t getting covid on the beach or at the National parks or dining outdoors at places doing it right. You can do all those things with a mask and distancing and be absolutely fine. That is the very definition at this time of doing covid right.
This fall has already been instructive for making D21’s final college list. Some schools in CA who decided not to have kids on campus are looking better and better.
You don’t have to kill somebody DWI to receive a ticket or have your license suspended.
@twoinanddone I expect that, for close to $40k a semester, Notre Dame and NYU would be taking care of its undergrads in isolation.
Hard to do dining while wearing a mask…
But doing things outdoors in uncrowded areas where any proximity to others is transient (as opposed to being near the same other people for a while*) and where “proximity” still allows ample distancing is relatively low risk to yourself and others.
*Stationary activities like dining would be higher risk, because if a contagious person is sitting upwind of you, you are more likely to be infected over the course of an hour than if you merely pass the contagious person in a few seconds while walking around or whatever. Since a college or K-12 classroom is a place where people are stationary, that increases the risk, so that greater distancing, masks, moving outside, and/or changes to the ventilation would be necessary to mitigate the risk.
I think that the people on this thread are a selective serious group.
Just got a Snapchat from a young friend flying back to school today. The family was at a restaurant celebrating their college student’s departure.
School has a 14 day home quarantine. The family went on a road trip last week.
So for all those being very careful, there are others not taking this seriously. And that is the problem.
When they can’t live on campus kids are traveling to live near the schools in off campus housing which seems to be driving a lot of the clusters and cases.
The reality is that there isn’t a fool proof plan, no matter how carefully planned and implemented. If your child goes to college and lives on or off campus there’s a risk they’ll be infected and will infect others.
Also I don’t see peer pressure being a big driver.
If schools go 100% online kids still want out of the house, to live with friends, socialize and party. Short of a national lockdown that prevents interstate travel and requires everyone to stay inside this is going to be an ongoing issue for colleges.
Please add me to the list of those thanking Cardinal Fang for the introduction to Professor Susan Dynarski, “Cassandra of Troy endowed professor of behavioral studies.”
quoting
Except that you still have no idea how they would deal with the same issues every other college that has opened has been or will. Why would an information vacuum be more attractive?
I think that it is still best practice to " spread" the college age population into mini bubbles of 5 max in their own separate off campus homes. The traditional multi story block of hundreds of these kids together is just inviting spontaneous wild parties.
18-22 year olds both in and out of colleges have lived somewhere since March and they haven’t been significantly charged with being super spreaders until now and residential colleges have restarted. I think that the college party culture itself is fanning the flames. Splitting them up seems to be a good idea.