UChicago Fall Quarter

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
,
81

“frat party [versus] #CareNotCops rally”

It appears that relative safety of a gathering is more based on indoors/outdoors and probably spacing and ##, than on the viewpoint of the congregants. For part of the school year in Chicago, it will be hard to do any congregating outside, and I assume that the university isn’t allowing its students to have any rallies inside. What’s gonna happen with the frats, though? Seems like that might be more important that whether kids are eating 5 or 7 feet from each other in outdoor spaces.

82

^ Regardless of outside, inside, on or off campus, students will have to agree not to join large densely packed crowds - or perhaps agree not to join any large gathering (we’ll need to see how the wording is). There may be more opportunity for proper spacing with a demonstration than a frat party - though not clear at all of the latter is held outdoors.

83

NU rule specifies that there should be no more than three persons per room. There is no such rule spelled out at U of C goforward website.

I wonder how you can stop a bunch of U of C students from congregating around stairways to talk in the wee hours of the morning. If you look at the 4 bedrooms unit layout of WRC, it will be hard to enforce the rule. Those units are purposely designed to facilitate or even encourage close students interaction inside the suite, which is great in a non pandemic world but questionable in the current situation.

84

The UC rules say six feet or more, wear a mask. As long as they are doing that, why limit the number to three? Dr. Landon says layered imperfect approaches work to keep the virus at bay. Based on their own clinical experience.

85

Just re-watched the College Townhall meeting. Here are the “stacked interventions” which, if used together, will work effectively to contain any spread of Covid. These are also available on the UChicago Forward website.

  1. Mandatory face coverings.
  2. Hand washing and surface cleaning - LOTS of both.
  3. Social Distancing (details on website); signs provided throughout campus with specifics.
  4. Frequent testing. Mandatory for those living and working in dorms. Encouraged for those who wish to participate in a voluntary surveillance program.
  5. Daily self monitoring and reporting of any symptoms (details on website).
  6. Contact tracing as developed by UChicago Med.

Website also has information for reporting violations of safety protocols and the (by now well known) restrictions on travel. Provost Lee made reference to new ventilation protocols but those haven’t been uploaded (or uploaded yet). As mentioned on another thread, UC isn’t going to be installing HEPA filters or anything but perhaps they will increase the number of times that the ductwork is cleaned out.

Also, as we know, everyone returning to the dorms will be tested immediately and will have to “stay at home” for 10-14 days. If you come from a state on the “list” you will need to self-quarantine at that time.

After watching Dr. Landon at three webinars in the past several weeks (planning, college, and grad student), the basic takeaway I’ve gotten is that no one intervention is going to stop Covid. But if they are stacked and practiced practically all the time, you can remove one and still be in good shape. From the Chicago Maroon article on the mid-June planning meeting:

“Though Landon recognized that social distancing may be impossible in locations such as in bathrooms or elevators, she added that the University was focused on implementing multiple layers of intervention, in order to minimize overall exposure risk of COVID-19 by other university members. ‘You can take out one piece, like [social] distance, for a short period of time when you walk past somebody in the hallway because you’re not coming to work sick, you’re still wearing your mask, we have good community and university contact tracing, you’re getting testing when you need to have testing, and we’re cleaning surfaces and keeping our hands clean,’ Landon said.”

Regarding the importance of the self-monitoring program:

“Landon also said that members of the university community would be asked to take their temperature twice a day, in line with protocols for health-care workers at the Medical Center. However, members of the community would also need to consistently self-report any potential symptoms of COVID-19. ‘It’s less about taking temperatures at the door. Having those thermal scan machines at the door is really going to miss a lot of people. We’re putting into place much more comprehensive methods of making sure that everyone is checking in with themselves,’ Landon said.”

These practices will require cooperation from the community. If there are a critical number of slackers/non-cooperators, Covid will spread and the university will have to shut down and send everyone home to do remote learning. That’s why they are making sure that you do the online training and sign the health pact before returning to campus. After that, they expect you to keep your word. No one will do a perfect job but, together, hopefully everyone will do a “good enough” job to make it work.

It’s important that UChicago physically re-open. Actually, it’s important that ALL universities re-open - to everyone. Universities work best when everyone is in physical community, as Dean Boyer has been pointing out, and a proper training of the mind comes as much from continual collaboration among students and between students and faculty as it does from individual study. Speaking to faculty I know at other universities, remote learning has hurt graduate students, particularly the weaker ones who are no longer in proximity to the more able (and remote learning allows the more able to easily communicate with one another and exclude - inadvertently or otherwise - the weaker ones). That reality of altered behavior is totally applicable to undergraduate education as well. If we want ALL who are capable of a college education to get one, then EVERYONE needs to get back to campus.

86

Latest video on fall quarter from the University Administration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1O4UqjlV4&feature=youtu.be

And IMO it is quite well done with some great drone coverage of the campus.

87

My kiddo graduated this past June. It is such a beautiful campus — I’m still sad we didn’t get to visit for in person commencement ceremonies. (The contents of kiddo’s off-campus apartment are still in storage, so maybe one day we’ll see it again if we ever go back to retrieve all that.) I just wanted to wish everyone good luck with the Fall quarter.

88

@Moniker8 I’m sure I will feel the same way a couple years from now. I just love Chicago and the UChicago campus.

This year, I am looking forward to seeing campus when/if we drop our 3rd year off. She got a room in Woodlawn. However, seeing the schools that are switching to 100% online very recently - Columbia, Barnard, UNC - I am not betting on (but am hoping for) a road trip to Chicago.

89

@browniesundae - there is no need for your daughter to cancel her road trip if UChicago switches to full online. It’s not even clear they’d be emptying out the dorms in that case. Also, the quarter system is only 2/3’rds the length of semesters and much easier to switch back and forth between in-person and online (unlike other places). Your daughter might consider just planning to return for the year and switch formats as appropriate. UChicago is thinking about this whole Covid/university thing a bit differently from other schools, and has planned accordingly.

NB - my fourth year has stayed in HP through Covid and the riots and the looting and the continued protests. Her roommate even got Covid in the beginning! (from riding public transit to work). If we had thought for one minute that either was in danger they’d be out of there quick. But she loves living independently, loves Chicago and was able to find employment in the city (albeit remotely) and do her work from her room. She wanted to stay and we supported that.

90

@JBStillFlying Agree, I absolutely want her to be there and am not too worried about safety, but there is the small matter of cost - paying room and board for 100% virtual classes might not be worth it with grad school costs looming. Hoping all will go well, but if I’ve learned anything in the last 6 months, it’s to expect the unexpected!

91

^We definitely benefitted financially from our son at home last spring. This fall I’d worry about lack of housing in winter/spring should the campus return to normal later in the academic year. Lots of uncertainty either way. The opportunity to continue saving due to online classes sounds reasonable on its face, and certainly when you read this and other social media you get the strong impression that 99% of the country agrees with that sentiment. But, there is a lot more to a university community than the classroom, per Boyer. I happen to agree with him. I’d never tell my kid to go back - they are always welcome at home. But they like spreading their wings and living independently, even if the class format has changed, and to us a university education is best completed in a university community and not at home. We are probably contrarians on this issue.

Do leases now have an “out” if the university shuts down or switches to remote before you move in? How does that work?

92

Latest update from Provost Ka Yee Lee:

https://provost.uchicago.edu/announcements/additional-details-autumn-quarter-2020-plans

I think U of C has a good plan. As the University starts late in September, the Administration should have plenty of time to watch COVID problems in other schools and adjust their plan accordingly.

Still I am a bit uneasy about the potential COVID risk amidst students and staff members living off campus. All the vigorous testing are done for students living on campus. I think the University should implement a weekly testing for off campus students and staff too. To cut down the cost, the Administration can imitate the Cornell way of testing students and staff in groups of ten. If the test comes back positive, each student or staff member will be tested individually. That will provide better tracking of asymptomatic COVID positive students and staff.

93

@85 they will have a 5,000 person voluntary program for staff and off-campus. My guess is that they will get quite a few takers. What better way to keep on top of whether you have Covid?

94

U of C has a population of close to 20,000 if you include faculty and staff. I am hoping that the Administration would do mandatory testing periodically for the whole school. Using the group method by Cornell may be able to cut down the testing cost by a lot.

95

^ Pooled testing is a great idea.

96

I would like to think U of C and NU are watching like a hawk at other peer schools that have welcome students back on campus. If the Cornell group/pool testing method works, I expect Provost Lee will come up with the email of U of C doing the same testing within 2 weeks.

97

Last Fall Yale had 1,554 first-years for Class of 2023.

For Yale Class of 2024, according to news release yesterday, there are 1,267 with an additional 344 deferring until next year (Fall 2021). That is, 21% deferred.

98

I wonder how much that screws up class size and admissions?

99

UChicago has the opposite problem. Last night I counted up nearly 2,000 enrolled in core Hum! The number has been meandering downward slightly, but over the last several weeks they only lost 20-25 or so from when I first started counting it up in late July when core Hum was originally assigned. Even assuming a larger-than-normal group of transfer students taking Hum or perhaps even tossing in some now-2nd-years who had to repeat, the College has potentially blasted through its prior enrollment records for a first year class.

100

The announced target size for the College is 7,000. Last year there were 6,800 undergrads. I expected the College to hit 6,900 or 7,000 this year, and definitely 7,000 by next year at latest. But the numbers people have been mentioning do seem to suggest an even larger first year class. They may have had trouble predicting class size because of the COVID mess and maybe overenrolled (again) on top of expected growth.