It’s Princeton students living in an apartment in Ithaca. Classes from Princeton, social life from Cornell. I laughed too. What else can you do?
I thought of it as an example of how solutions sometimes seem straight forward, but there are complications and unintended consequences.
@TheVulcan Amherst is not allowing any students off-campus access to the campus, but there are still many students not invited back who opted to rent local apartments because they’d rather live off-campus, doing classes virtually with friends than doing them with parents. Also, some students who WERE invited back opted to live off-campus to not be bound by the campus restrictions, so they can roam freely in the local area (since on-campus students are banned from leaving campus).
@TheVulcan Amherst is doing in-person classes, and has had extraordinary success so far. They are now testing everyone 3 times a week, and are now starting the second week of classes. They have only had 2 students and 1 staff member test positive. It is believed the staff member contracted COVID outside the college.
Wow! Ithaca is lovely during the summer, but winter is a long season. I cannot imagine wanting to live there during the winter months if there were other options available. Also, apartments are overpriced.
Definite unintended consequences. Any idea what prompted the Princeton students to want to move to Ithaca?
@vpa2019 – Yale is also testing the enrolled, off-campus students. The only students who are not covered by their testing plan are any sophomores who elected to move to New Haven to take their classes remotely. First Years are in residence this fall, and will have to move home for spring term, whereas sophomores are remote this term, but will be living on campus during the spring term.
Jrs & Srs living off-campus are included in the twice weekly testing. More detail than you probably want or need.
Struggle to see how what I said could be interpreted to be talking about the Ivy League unless I guess you are of the view that no other colleges/universities exist (which actually is a view held here by some which I think is humorous). Also not a she but whatever. 
Sure. But with no access to campus, they can’t reasonably be expected to submit to testing requirements… in return for what?
My point is, barring off-campus undergrads from campus is a difficult decision, but in the end one that could very well make the difference between an institution able to stick to its plan and one that isn’t.
Vanderbilt revised the way they present their dashboard yesterday. They still only update it each week but it is more helpful now. The numbers do include athletes who have contracted the virus. During the week of 8/24-31 they administered 4101 tests and there were 52 positives. They will be testing all students (on and off campus) once/week.
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/coronavirus/covid19dashboard/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=COVID-19%20public%20dashboard%3E%3E&utm_campaign=RTCupdate-august17
After a long staggered move-in and trying to create their bubble, Vassar started classes yesterday. They are updating their dashboard daily. So far, they have administered 3610 tests and have had 20 students test positive.
https://www.vassar.edu/together/dashboard/
Colleges have no legal right to tell students where they should live if their classes are all remote, but should these colleges encourage, or effectively encourage, their students to live off-campus while taking classes remotely? The presence of these students certainly help the local businesses but their congregation is also highly likely to help the spread of the virus in the local community.
MIT classes started today. I didn’t realize that unlike CA, MA doesn’t offer free testing to everyone. Students who stay off campus need to pay $75 at MIT Medical to get tested.
Are they doing in person classes or hybrid classes where some students are in the classroom and the rest are listening in over zoom?
…Ok, I googled it. They are doing “some” in person classes.
“The College is installing 20 tents around campus that will host, in particular, seminar-style classes. There will be back-up indoor classrooms available in case of inclement weather.”
Well. That doesn’t scale well, does it?
Apparently so…
“Some classes will be taught entirely in a remote format, including all classes with more than 35 students.”
I guess “extraordinary success” is in the eye of the beholder.
Do some colleges actually go as far as encouraging it? In what way?
I guess this could be seen as MIT not encouraging students to move into the off-campus housing in the surrounding areas…
Sorry. I mistook you for @3SailAway. I’m not nautical.
If they don’t discourage it and they don’t have a plan to deal with it, they’re effectively encouraging it.
Actually, now that I think about it, many schools are not simply not discouraging it, but in fact are expecting their students to secure off-campus housing and dangle the “in-person classes” carrot while trying to limit on-campus housing density.
Maybe not free across the state, but Boston and Cambridge will test anyone for free. (just a quick google search)
SUNY Geneseo suspended 2 fraternities, a sorority, and 9 students for holding off campus parties. One of the fraternities took guests’ temperatures and had hand sanitizer available, but there was no social distancing.
An update for DS #2’s school - Arizona State. They published an update on their COVID management plan https://biodesign.asu.edu/research/clinical-testing/asu-covid-19-management-framework
As of August 31 - 40,402 students and staff tested. 28 staff positives (0.2%) and 775 student positives (1.4%). All positive cases are in isolation per CDC guidelines with contract tracing done.
For those playing along at home, ASU has been back on campus for 2 weeks. Classes are offered in a variety of formats. Any class with over 100 people automatically went 100% online. Under 100 was offered as ASU Sync with students attending in person on an alternating schedule or they could opt for all online. For a school with such a party rep, these numbers are not too bad. There is a note that they are de-densifying dorms with shared bathrooms as of today. It is not clear what impact that has overall. Roughly 9600 students live on campus in Tempe.
I’ll keep you posted as I see updates.
JMU switches to all on-line for September.
After consultation with the Virginia Department of Health, James Madison University will transition to primarily online learning, with some hybrid instruction for accreditation and licensure requirements, graduate research, and specialized upper-class courses requiring equipment and space, through the month of September. Courses currently offered online will continue to be online without any break in instruction. Classes will take place as scheduled for the remainder of this week unless students are otherwise notified by their faculty. In-person classes will transition online no later than this coming Monday, Sept. 7. Additionally, in an effort to reduce the number of people on campus, residents will be asked to return home by Sept. 7 unless they seek an exemption to stay.