Every variation of student attitude exists, I imagine. My DS20 who is there physically at the same college, given the chance would probably do that class in his dorm room, not necessarily for the same reasons as your daughter. He’s not too worried about the risk but is just somewhat of a hermit and would likely prefer taking the class from his bed 
My DD20 at another college would without doubt show up in the physical classroom, just to have whatever limited peer interaction was available.
Yes, on another thread, another poster noted other major universities have suspended several of their Ph D programs - Columbia (several disciplines), U of Chicago, etc.
Wow, this is sobering as a parent of a student who plans to get a PhD in a bio field…
The news that the State of MA is to take over contact tracing at BC has hit the media in Boston in a big way
https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2020/09/14/we-were-lied-to-students-criticize-boston-college-over-lack-of-transparency-around-covid-19
BC is clearly operating inside its own fan fiction. Not sure how much advice Broad Institute may or may not have given them. But, their example would seem to indicate that even lab-based testing, at least twice a week, makes a big difference in preventing big outbreaks.
@2ndthreekids As a parent of a student planning on applying for the Fall 2021 PhD admission cycle, I agree that it is very sobering. There is a thread on the gradmissions subreddit with a spreadsheet of specific programs that are not accepting admissions for Fall 2021. They are mostly humanities programs such as sociology, political science, history, anthropology, comparative literature etc. The Penn SAS announcement was a shocker because it is school-wide. At Penn though, bio fields that fall outside of the SAS would not be affected by this announcement, such as bioengineering.
“The school’s Board of Trustees increased tuition for the 2020-2021 academic year by 3.69%, bringing the overall annual cost of attendance to $75,422.”
I hope some or all of that increase was earmarked for testing and other Covid protocols…but it doesn’t appear that way. Communication seems to be an issue here…especially contact tracing. I can see why the state wants to take over.
It’s Day 9 of Gate 1 (Limited In-Person activity) for Colgate University. This week the school started doing random testing on 6% of its students and employees. My daughter was one of the students tested this week. As of Sept 14, the school has an active case for 1 student and 2 employees with a 7 day rolling average of 0.5%. Madison County where the campus is, has a 0.7% of new positive cases on a 7 day rolling average.
On the 20 metrics that the school displays on their health analytics dashboard, the student commitment to health is currently yellow, meaning moderate alert. I am not surprised as a lot of freshmen students are still violating the guidelines set by the school. The fact the school sent other students home for violations and recently told students this and I quote, “Students: With the end of the drop/add period, it is no longer possible to adjust your course schedule should you forfeit on-campus study privileges due to a violation of the Commitment to Community Health. Violations will now result in an involuntary withdrawal and the grade of “W” for each course that you must drop. There can be no tuition refund for these lost credits. We wanted to remind you of these additional considerations and the importance of continuing to adhere to the Commitment to Community Health.” One would think it will deter these violators to stop being selfish, to grow up and to just adhere to the guidelines. But no. They continue to act as if there is no pandemic. I am waiting to see next week how things are going to be on campus as they enter week 4 of fall semester.
I don’t like Colgate’s dashboard:
Or perhaps there was no possibility of getting an effective plan with enough buy-in from the partying students (as a precedent, see the fraternity situation there).
@Knowsstuff We just got an email from Hope College saying that Ottawa County has entered a “Staying in Place” order for Grand Valley State University.
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIOTTAWA/bulletins/2a0b9ba
Because GVSU is just 20 miles from Hope, Hope has admonished its students to respect the order and not socialize with any GVSU students.
I think it’s interesting to note that the County is directing students NOT to return home. I think the tide is turning in terms of recognizing that shutting down and sending students home is a bad idea. There will be more pressure on schools to deal with any outbreaks without shutting down and sending students home.
My understanding is athletes will be tested daily. No spectators at games, except for families of the players. While I understand the spirit of the latter, it seems silly to have a stadium which can hold 100,000 people sit empty. it seems that we could come up with some way to let a circumscribed set of people watch the game (maybe only seniors?) and spread them all over the place. But my son thinks that’s a stupid idea and no student would want to go.
So this is interesting. My D20 has a very close friend at UF. She’s been at school about a month. D20 hadn’t heard much from her in the past couple of weeks and assumed she was just busy in her new life.
Well, they spoke today and it turns out friend was COVID positive (symptomatic), was put in quarantine and was instructed NOT TO TELL ANYONE. Wha…? She said that’s why she had gone radio silent, she didn’t want to lie about where she was/what she was doing.
That seems…just not right.
I wonder if @privatebanker has any insights on the BC situation. Has he been on the thread lately?
At a press conference today, Ohio State’s athletic director (Gene Smith) said the issue isn’t people sitting in the stands (they are confident they could spread people out with limited attendance) but with concessions and restroom facilities. They also are not ruling out having fans at some point. Just not allowing any right now. Also have issue with applicable state orders. Browns and Bengals were authorized to have 6k fans in stands for 2 games each. Absent some type of authorization, I think the limit in Ohio is lesser of 20% of capacity and 1,500.
Why is that? Is it because its in graph form? I find Colgate has more information than my son’s school, RIT. I’m sure other schools has dashboard that works for them. NY state has a similar one, a combination of table and bar graph with rolling averages.
My niece is at Grand Valley off campus and is a sweet heart and taking it all very seriously. Besides her and her roommate… Stay away!! ?
Part of it is the graphics; it makes my eyes hurt. It only highlights active cases. And, it feels like they are making it as difficult as possible to figure out the running total of positive cases.
If my college told me I couldn’t tell anyone about my own illness that I myself had, I’d be tempted to take out a TV ad announcing it, or hire a sky writer to write CARDINAL FANG HAS COVID or something like that. UF has no business attempting to put a gag order on students, none.
Honestly, I’ve been wondering how UF has had such suspiciously low numbers of positive cases.