Running list of questions and concerns I have about #highered's #funkyfall:
To quote @BryanAlexander: "How many infections will a campus tolerate before ceasing in-person education?"
Will people who show symptoms that are typical of fall return to campus (e.g., cough, runny nose, etc.) be sent home? Who will make that call? Is it a teacher's job to tell a student with who's coughing to leave? Will anyone be left in class if this is the case?
Will contingent faculty and p/t staff be paid if they get sick? Most do not have sick time of any sort. They get paid if they work/teach.
Are campuses at all prepared to deal with the unprecedented level of trauma and toxic stress that people will be bringing back with them to campus?
If campuses opt for HyFlex, and no students come to class, does the professor have to come to campus to teach them via Zoom?
What about people who refuse to use masks and follow social distancing guidelines? Who will be responsible for addressing those people? Teachers? Will there be a no-mask red alert button to push?
What about people who are more vulnerable to COVID-19? Will they be given flexible options to work and study?
If density is the name of the game here, what prevents students from gathering in extremely dense off-campus gatherings, and then bringing the consequences of those gatherings back into the classroom?
Oh! If you bring everyone back, and then a spike shuts everything down in the middle of the term, will you be refunding students their housing costs?
How much money is going to be spent on preparing for return to campus? Is that the best use of those funds? If you spend hundreds of thousands on PPE and other measures, and have to close in two weeks?
Is your institution telling you that your choices are a) a return to campus or b) institutional collapse? Is that true?
I don't know. I just feel like at an institution of teaching and learning, you put the people who teach and learn in the driver's seat and empower them to lead.
For the record, there are few things I want more in this moment than for everyone to be able to return to campus safely.
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