🚨After we released preliminary results of our reopen survey, @UHawaiiNews Pres Lassner released this pathetically tepid statement on changing fall reopen plans. Admin is totally deferring taking any leadership. Our lives are at stake. And we're pissed. hawaii.edu/news/email/eve…
The statement essentially "requests" that faculty to "determine if those instructional components can be moved online" for those classes online and do so if possible. WEAK 👏 ASS 👏 NOTHING 👏 #spineless
Deferring all responsibility for the health and safety of our community to faculty, who are frantically preparing for teaching and mentoring students during a global health and economic crisis with only 1.5 weeks before school begins is irresponsible and not–in fact–policy.
Furthermore, we learned from our survey that many grads who are being forced to teach in person this fall are in fact the TAs and instructors for those classes that will still be conducted in person: science labs, art studios, etc. Nothing has changed for them!
TAs are still expected to meet f2f w/ 40+ students/wk & return home to their loved ones–children, gparents, immunocompromised folks. Meanwhile admin will sit in their sterile ass empty ass offices with 1 PA & not meet w/ a single student all semester. We're being sacrificed!
Students are asked to change their courses to as much online as possible. How can we do this when it's unclear what will & wont be online? We learned from our survey that many students are forced into f2f classes bc of degree reqs! This cant be left to case-by-case discretion
Essentially this statement amounts to "things are dangerous right now but instead of doing anything about it ourselves, we're just going to tell our students and employees to be responsible for their own health and then they're on their own."
For months epidemiologists have assured us that there would be a 2nd wave in the fall. Now it's fall and here’s the 2nd wave. Who honestly thought that the State and country would be in a better place regarding COVID-19 in the Fall?
Rather than listening to experts, admin pulled the classic plug-their-fingers-in-their-ears-lalalalala. They pushed ahead w/ a plan for fall semester that included optional online classes and many forced f2f classes. It's clear this was all a stunt to lock in tuition dollars.
You can bet that as soon as that "last day to drop with a 50% refund" passes, weʻll move to all online to save them from the crap PR of a massive death toll on campus. It will be chaotic, stressful & dangerous, w/ the only “safe” thing the tuition money in admin’s pockets.
It's also clear that online learning is the only safe option now. If admin was really focusing on “health and safety” they would offer online-only instruction and spend time, money, resources ensuring access and a good online learning environment for students and instructors.
UH adminʻs insistence to the contrary for the past few months is irresponsible and nefarious. If the health of students & workers was a priority, an online-only Fall semester could have been announced months ago and allowed course instructors to properly plan for online teaching.
If @UHawaiiNews and @uhmanoa admin want fall classes to be in person so bad, they should teach the classes themselves. They can die their sadistic death in sacrifice to the "college experience" and the death cult of capitalism if they really want it so bad. We refuse.
We need guarantees. We need security. We need health. #OurRiskOurChoice
This moment provides clarity. It is all of us–students and workers–against admin. It is clear that those in power do not care about us. It is clear that we must band together and fight back, for a world that doesn’t put a bottom line above people’s lives. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…
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