U of MN president announces 2 week delay in dorm move-in for most students and a “pivot” to 100% remote instruction for those weeks. Plan requires Regents approval at their Monday meeting.
What will really be different in 2 weeks.
Two weeks later, it will be obvious that this whole in-person college is not working anywhere, at least not at any big state school, and Minnesota can move everything to online without the students already being on campus.
Roll Tide! Bama sees a big spike as classes start.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/08/new-restrictions-coming-alabama-campus-amid-covid-concerns.html
29% positive?!?!?!?
I don’t think it’s meaningful to quote the 29% positive figure about 'Bama. That was one day, at one of their testing locations, and they may not have done many tests at that location.
However, the true numbers are bad enough: 4-5% and rising. And we know why they’re rising: because Alabama students aren’t social distancing. Scolding is not going to work, and the cases will continue to rise exponentially because they’re doing nothing much to stop the spread.
Totally agree that college admins should have seen what would happen, but folks, look back that the first many pages of this monster-sized thread, and read all the posts by parents, and in some case students, attesting how “our kids” and “other kids” would follow any given rules in order to be on campus again. We didn’t give students enough credit, yada yada yada.
But now, it’s: the admins’ fault (and yes, plenty to go around. But magical thinking has been ubiquitous). I hope this has been a learning experience for all.
And yes, now that I have gotten my first “Hi prof–I just tested Covid positive! post” I am thankful I can teach remotely.
Magical thinking has been ubiquitous, but it’s time to put away the wand and step away from Hogwarts. This isn’t working. It’s not going to work.
Most students are compliant, but the students who are not compliant are dramatically non-compliant and they’re infecting each other and the compliant students. (There’s some reason to think that one of the dorms at UNC might be spreading the disease through the air-conditioning. It’s just a theory though.)
I too am a practicing attorney (24 years) and I agree.
Before we totally right off this year, let’s see if any of these colleges can “survive” in-person classes and on campus students and if they can tolerate some (many) positive cases among the students and faculty. Some may be able to pull this off…but I think if/when someone dies on campus from CV-19, that will be the true test whether or not they will pull the plug. I just don’t know how a college like UT-Austin with 40K undergrads can possibly maintain in-person classes for the semester. It will be a miracle if they can pull that off, right?
I won’t post it, but there is an “August Madness” bracket making the rounds to “guess” which will be the last in-person college standing.
There are no winners in it.
Just back from dropping D at Purdue.
Covid dashboard is up and running. 33,000+ tests and less than 1% positivity. They break it down by student vs staff, by week, and tests done on and off campus. They start random testing next week.
Check in was a drive thru set up with police taking temps and verifying negative test results. Stage two was a second verification that students were cleared to be on campus. Stage three was a contactless system for getting keys.
Hand sanitizer at every entrance and outside all elevators. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was mask wearing, indoors and out.
Huge tents with plexiglass barriers set up outside every dining hall. Reminders about protect Purdue everywhere.
The school is taking this very seriously.
Classes start Monday.
[quote=“socaldad2002, post:14589, topic:2088334”]
So it would be helpful when discussing schools like UT Austin, to know how many classes they actually have online vs in person. This is from the most recent letter from the President: “76% of the seats taken this semester will be for courses that are completely online, another 19% are for hybrid classes that combine online elements with in-person elements and only about 5% are fully in person.”
In addition, the on campus housing is currently at about 45% of normal capacity. There are still many who are living just off campus.
In addition, the school has indicated, “45% to 50% of undergraduate students have chosen to take all of their courses online in the fall. Over 60% of UT faculty members will teach online-only this semester”
UT also has plans for an extensive, in-house testing capabilities, which are being developed with the goal of proactively testing up to 5,000 community members per week; a robust contact tracing team; and isolation capabilities.
I guess we will all be watching to see if the plan survives the start of classes next week.
UIUC is saying they can “minimize” positive cases with their saliva test and their plans show they will be able to keep cases under 700. Wow. There’s a new goal.
700 total? 700 at a time?
If they could do that, it would be a success.
ND Observer Editorial Board:
https://ndsmcobserver.com/2020/08/observer-editorial-dont-make-us-write-obituaries/
@homerdog and @sushiritto - did you see the ND number today? While one day doe not make a trend, their new cases appear to have leveled off (23 new cases today, down from 70-ish). I have a sense from my son that most on campus have “gotten the message.” Time will tell.
The ND observer is a student led newspaper that definitely leans to the SJW. The article doesn’t surprise me.
They sound like good, smart kids. That’s the kind of stuff that their peers will actually “hear,” I think. The schools’ lists of rules and the vague idea that there MIGHT be consequences to breaking them probably just sound like the teachers in the Charlie Brown cartoons–“Wah wah wah WAH wha blah blah blah…” 
for a lot of them. Hearing the real deal from their fellow students will no doubt be more effective.
I do think part of ND’s problem is that they aren’t punishing the kids who break the rules, even the ones that blatantly break the rules hosting large parties. Other schools are suspending or even expelling students. 23 cases. Do we think that’s a real number? My friend’s D thinks there are sooooo many more cases than are being found. Sick kids who can’t get tested. Then those kids have roommates who are worried about getting sick.
I guess we can just look at the trend at ND and other schools and see how that looks. I’m skeptical at this point about exact numbers.
For the record, and I’ve mentioned this before, I’ve been an ND fan since childhood.
I posted the editorial for informational purposes only. The national news reported it.
I don’t know how any one student can get the sense that the “message was received” for an entire campus.
Whether ND’s Observer is filled with SJW’s doesn’t matter to me. I have no issues with those that are characterized by others as SJW’s. But to keep things in perspective, I will say the ND Observer ain’t the Daily Californian or even the Stanford Daily, my local university student-led newspapers.