Why would it be bad other than being wasteful or useless?
Ok I have we have a few professors on this thread. My Kids are telling me that their classes whether virtual or the few my S has in person are getting cancelled . If we were back before the pandemic I rarely heard of about professors cancelling class. I am paying good $$ for tuition at these schools. I could understand a professor not being able to make it on campus for whatever reason, but at least the synchronous online classes should not be cancelled. If this continues, then maybe it does make sense to take a gap semester in the spring. we are constantly being told that the Education in the fall was not going to be like what happened in the Spring, but it seems to continue to be in both schools that I know of.
@123Mom123 My BC junior was exited this past January about study abroad for Jan. 2021. As of three days ago, he hasn’t received a cancel notice but DH said no (to me only). It’s ok, son is realistic they won’t have spring abroad anyway since cases up and down in Europe. Too many unknowns.
For Spring 2021, juniors and seniors have on-campus housing priority. My understanding is that they are currently being surveyed to see how many would like to live on campus next spring and the results will be out sometime in October. Just my opinion, but since Duke has had good CV-19 results so far, I don’t think they will allow more than half the class back on campus in spring so it really just depends on how my upperclassman want to live on campus. Since spring is only about three months of on campus living and many already have apartments in Durham, they probably will not want to move back to campus for a few short months? The wild card are the students who are living at their parent’s home taking online classes; so do they move to Durham for 3 months to be on campus, maybe? The possibility to have some in-person classes may sway their decision (especially for seniors) for whom this is their last semester of college.
@sdl0625 that’s really unfortunate your kids classes have been getting canceled. Are they at different schools? How often has it been happening? S19 just happened to call this morning, so we talked about how his classes have been going. He has one fully in person, two hybrid and two synchronous online. He also works for his advisor in one of her in-person courses 2x/week. He said his classes have all been going well - no technical glitches, profs seem to be managing the hybrid/synchronous well, etc. None have been canceled.
D17, OTOH, has all synchronous remote courses. She has a very busy schedule; she would probably welcome an occasional cancellation just to catch her breath ? But nope, her professors have all been teaching live every day, no cancellations.
If it is happening frequently, maybe your students should complain to the department heads? I can understand your frustration!
@123Mom123 - my son’s supposed to be studying at DIS in Copenhagen next semester. DIS, so far, is on. But…waiting to hear if his school will be canceling and we should find out any day now. When we spoke over the weekend, he was resolved to the fact that his college was likely canceling their involvement for next semester.
I think it all depends on the college- I have a friend whose daughter is at another college and she left for the UK a month ago for her semester. I was actually quite surprised at the decision by the college seeing our son’s school canceled fall study abroad over the summer, but so far she’s staying…
@sdl0625 , I understand your frustration. I’m not a professor, just a parent, but I can think of reasons that classes (whether in person or remote synchronous) would be much more likely to cancel this semester: Covid symptoms (even a runny nose), technical difficulties, caretaking of children who are remote learning, or even if a large percentage of the class is absent or in quarantine, the class may be cancelled.
At my 3 kids’ schools (one college remote, one college hybrid, one high school remote then hybrid), the situation is MUCH better than spring. If it wasn’t, and if the cancellations continue, I would have a hard time with the tuition too. But I do think that our educators who have young children learning at home are in a very, very hard spot. And that staying home for for the entire list of covid symptoms, many of which are minor and can happen frequently (runny nose, headache) will increase in person cancellations.
@vpa2019 - I have a DS at Notre Dame. They are conducting surveillance testing. At this point, they have almost 15,000 surveillance tests done. The current 7-day positivity rate is 0.8%. They have most students back on campus with normal housing density. The only people not there are those who opted for a gap year.
So far, my DS says it has been pretty smooth.
In my opinion, the key is frequent testing and contact tracing. I don’t think housing people in singles does anything to stop Covid spread since kids HAVE to interact with other kids anyway and having a roommate is less isolating. Colleges that have singles only could increase capacity by going to doubles and bring back more staff for in person/hybrid learning. Extra testing costs can come from extra R&B revenue.
Notre Dame seems to be doing fine as long as you are not on the football team.
I wonder what happens when it gets cold. Where do kids eat?
Is everything else open? Library, gym, all buildings so they can duck in and find a place to study? I still think that it depends on one’s expectations. If you’re cool with grab and go food and a mix of in-person and remote class and no events on campus, then this is less of a big deal. But if you want to be in class and meet new people and experience all of the events and making new friends that every other year before this one brings, then it’s harder. I can’t imagine being on NDs campus without football and basketball and feeling like it’s going well.
At Purdue the libraries, active learning center, and the rec center are all open. My D typically studies with her pod in an empty classroom in their chem e building.
The university has already announced the locations for socially distanced dining when the weather turns colder.
Obviously “all the events” aren’t happening but that doesn’t mean that students aren’t having a meaningful experience on campus. Heck, my D just told me she went on a date last week (masked up but still a date ; )).
Having roommate(s) increases contacts for anyone who gets Covid. Maybe that’s a consideration. If you bunk alone, you’re likely to not really have any contacts according to the definition unless you haven’t been following the rules.
Its unrealistic to expect zero contact, so its better to have a roommate. I don’t think the colleges with all singles are doing better than the the colleges with doubles, so it should be a consideration for spring.
I hope you’re right. Not sure the schools that only have singles this semester and are doing well will want to risk it and change their tune. We will know pretty soon.
Football is going on and the students can go. Not sure if all of them can get tickets because stadium capacity is reduced for games. But students and faculty/staff got tickets (over alums) from what I understand. Not the same in terms of tailgating, etc. though.
I know two families with freshmen at ND now. Both have older siblings there right now as well. Both full pay families. I haven’t talked with the students but have talked with their parents. Sounds like things are going well. Both parents and students are satisfied with experience to date and hope it continues through end of semester. Both had concerns the kids would be sent home a few weeks back.
Given that different people have different likes/dislikes, preferences, etc., it makes sense to me that different students (and their parents) will have different views on the various offerings on college campuses across the country. What works for some won’t work for others and that was true pre-virus.
This study of nursing homes in Ontario, Canada showed a significant correlation of spread with number of occupants in a room. They estimated that cutting all 4 bed rooms to 2 bed would have prevented 18% of deaths.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.23.20137729v1
My kid’s school is close to full density with the vast majority of kids in doubles. I do think that one attraction of doubles is that you are allowed to go maskless in your own room with your roommate. But if you want to socialize with others you have to be in the common areas with masks and distanced, or outdoors with masks and distanced. The temptation is huge to have 5-6 kids with no masks in one dorm room. GVSU, which had an outbreak, said their outbreak was traced to multiple instances of 5-6 kids hanging out in a dorm room. So the hope is that being able to hang out with your roommate at least reduces the temptation to break the rules and invite the gang into your room.
That makes sense for that situation. Its not like its inevitable that nursing home residents are socializing in others’ rooms if they were all in single. Also, with the death rate of Covid being 20% for nursing home residents, i’m surprised ‘all singles’ in nursing homes didn’t result in an even lower rate of death.
These are 2 totally different scenarios. Kids WILL socialize in rooms with others, but if you give them a roommate, that may not increase the spread rate very much at all and perhaps its allows the schools the funding they need to put the money where it really makes a difference - testing and contact tracing. Also prevents the horrible loneliness some kids are feeling.
RIT has doubles and they have had very little cases. I dont think the issue is how many in a room, but rather the amount of socializing that occurs.