There are way smarter & more qualified people out there analyzing the COVID-19 crisis, but there are things gnawing at my mind with regards to students returning to college in the fall. For the record, we still have not been given any concrete plans at my institution 1/
This thread will be way longer than any sane person will bother to read, or even should 2/
First, I'll stipulate that there are some encouraging trends in the data (notwithstanding some geographic outliers). Testing up, positive rate down, deaths down. However, we've achieved this with some pretty extreme restrictions on human contact 3/
If you asked someone in late Feb/early March what 20-30K new cases & 1500-2000 deaths/day in May would mean, I doubt they would have expressed anything other than shock & horror. We've basically improved from catastrophic to pretty bad 4/
Uncertainty is rampant. Experts make informed hypotheses, but for every dire warning that fails to materialize, there's an unanticipated calamity & vice versa. Maybe reopening states won't result in increased outbreaks b/c people are taking proper precautions or other factors 5/
Mark me down as skeptical b/c there is ample anecdotal evidence that there is a not insignificant number of people ignoring best practices, or just not understanding what those practices are 6/
Also, I'm sick of hearing the talking point that only older & individuals with compromised health should worry. I've seen enough examples of people in the prime of life who've had severe problems, or even died to know that I don't want to gamble on getting this virus 7/
Second, there is general consensus that online learning is inferior to in-person classes (particularly when thrown together in an emergency). This is very true for large introductory classes with freshmen/sophomores, but much less so with upperclassmen in their majors* 8/
*a huge exception being labs, which seem almost pointless when conducted virtually IMO. If the class is small enough, virtual meetings are relatively easy to manage & students can still get personal attention. Online just exacerbates the existing problem with large classes 9/
I also think it's safe to say that professors want to go back to work in the real world. No one wants to work from home for any longer than is actually necessary & we like having the opportunity to interact directly with (most) students 10/
This is the kind of thing that concerns me though 11/
And this. It's the Ivory Tower version of what we've seen in meat packing facilities & other businesses deemed essential 12/
insidehighered.com/news/2020/05/1…
insidehighered.com/news/2020/05/1…
The President of the University of Louisiana is pushing for a return to in-person operations, but notably is very vague about what the plans are to do so safely. He is outsourcing the formulation of a plan & setting an end of May deadline 13/
Of course, this president makes $600K/year. Probably has a university-owned house & a spacious office in an administrative building that students rarely enter, but he's ready to make decisions that impact the frontline workers in higher education 14/
Staff, adjuncts & lecturers will have the bulk of the in-person interactions with hundreds or thousands of students. Elon Musk may be a raving lunatic, but he had the chutzpah to proclaim he'd be on the production line with his workers 15/
Tenured & pre-tenured faculty would not be far behind, but with the same pecking order about who gets assigned the largest classes. The same problematic hierarchy where part-time & early career faculty often disproportionately take on "undesirable" assignments /16
It's not surprising that university presidents would seek protection from liability if opening a school resulted in an outbreak & subsequent lawsuit 17/
Equally unsurprising that these decisions are financially motivated. I don't think there's actual proof, but they're asserting that students will take semesters off, or transfer to open schools if virtual instruction continues 18/
Of course those financial worries are largely moot if the gains of reopening are wiped away by lawsuits if/when there's an outbreak. Hence, we need liability protection! Note, this is not driven by the pedagogical quality of in-person vs online instruction 19/
One solution I've heard pitched is reducing class sizes. If we ignore the fact that most lecture halls are already packed morning to night & assume one could resolve space issues with creative scheduling, this does not even begin to solve the problem 20/
Where are the worst COVID-19 hotspots right now? Nursing homes, prisons & facilities like meat packing plants 21/
Let's be honest, meat packing plants are analogous to lecture halls & dormitories are just prisons with better amenities where the inmates can move about more freely. Even if you "fix" classroom packing, where are all those students going to live? 22/
Let's not forget dining halls, recreational facilities, libraries, etc. At the best of times, cold viruses & stomach flues rip through college campuses like wildfire. And it's not just crowding, it's the air handling systems in that could accelerate an outbreak 23/
Now one way to prevent an outbreak is to make a residential institution a closed system, like this nursing home in CT 24/ msnbc.com/all-in/watch/i…
Ignoring the complication of getting thousands of students from all over the US (and world if travel is allowed) onto campus without someone inadvertently arriving infected, a university by definition is not a closed system 25/
Faculty & staff are likely vectors as they live outside the immediate campus community. The aforementioned president of UL is also asked about students partying. His solution is more restrictions on such activities. So telling students not to party 26/
I can believe that most, even a majority of students, will act responsibly. However, I went by one of the houses were students live yesterday (on a different campus that's also been closed since March) & there was a smallish party on the lawn complete with beer pong 27/
It only takes a few students breaking the social contract to get a problem started. It doesn't even require students partying or engaging in banned activities. The simple act of going home for the weekend or leaving campus to go to a bar has the potential to start an outbreak 28/
The very act of students behaving like normal students is a potential problem 29/ time.com/5836699/south-…
What's the proposed solution? Again referring to UL, testing! Great! Everyone already knows test & trace is the best way to prevent/contain outbreaks. What confidence does he have (or do we have)? As a nation, we're still at <400K tests/day 30/
That's capacity just being used to test sick people before hundreds of thousands of students potentially return to campuses (& secondary schools). And, that assumes that the tests a college chooses are sufficiently accurate 31/ nymag.com/intelligencer/…
The federal government made mistakes & squandered much of the last 2 months, otherwise we might have been in a better position to be ready for something like this 34/
The sewar test has also be proposed for campuses, but are you going to have a sufficient detection limit & once virus is detected in sewage could it be too late to prevent widespread transmission? Seems like gambling on an unproven tactic 33/ nytimes.com/2020/05/01/sci…
As much as POTUS is accused of magical thinking, there seems to be an outbreak of this in some college administrators 34/ theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
In contrast, it appears reopening university research seems to be much more responsible, albeit something I believe is easier to manage 35/ cen.acs.org/safety/lab-saf…
We're hoping to reopen research labs soon once allowed by the state & safety guidelines established by university. Priority will be given to funded projects. Offices are slated to remain closed (b/c of the air handling system & ability to WFH). 36/
As a smaller operation, I suspect the greatest risk will be commuting to campus If students, postdocs & staff can avoid public transit, I believe we can significantly reduce risk while allowing some work to restart 37/
My prescription for academic operations (not that anyone is asking)?
1. Allow students on campus who absolutely need to be there. Those doing thesis projects for example
2. Reduce the overall on-campus population to 25-33% of normal capacity
38/
1. Allow students on campus who absolutely need to be there. Those doing thesis projects for example
2. Reduce the overall on-campus population to 25-33% of normal capacity
38/
3. Rotate other students onto campus during normal or modified academic terms & use that on-campus time exclusively for labs
4. Continue conducting lectures online. While not ideal, it's also the fairest thing to do for students (e.g. international) who can't return 39/
4. Continue conducting lectures online. While not ideal, it's also the fairest thing to do for students (e.g. international) who can't return 39/
No reason to disadvantage students who couldn't be on campus more than they already are. 40/
That's all I've got
(for now) 41/41
(for now) 41/41
