Thread by @TRyanGregory

A few thoughts on planning for the upcoming winter semester. 🧵

We're in a comfy little pocket here in Ontario right now, with low case numbers in most regions. But we've lost sight of the fact that the virus is surging around the world, including elsewhere in Canada.

1/

Restrictions are being lifted in Ontario. Unsurprisingly, cases are rising again here. The Rt value is above 1 again.

Kids <12 are still not vaccinated. We will probably need boosters over the winter as immunity wanes.

Faculty and staff are utterly exhausted.

2/

I understand the reason to get everyone back to campus in the W22 semester: $$$. I wish we could be more honest about that. We've been losing ancillary fees (food, parking, athletics) and real and potential enrollment dips continue to cause concern about revenue.

3/

What I don't accept is the claim that it's about student mental health. If it were, we would have been asking students what they need and want. We haven't been. Faculty who survey their students find it mixed. Some want a full return, some want remote, most want flexibility.

4/

I personally have taught 5 courses and >1,800 students during the pandemic. This includes a remote lecture format, developing a new distance education format, and thrice co-hosting our massively multidisciplinary pandemics course where we specifically talk about such issues.

5/

Faculty and staff in my department have invested heavily in creating new, accessible, flexible, and interactive ways of teaching in mixed formats. Several of these have garnered media attention and they have been very positively received by students.

6/

Unfortunately, it's now a challenge to defend teaching in these modes. By fiat, every course has to have a face to face component unless instructors get an accommodation through occupational health. Our wildly successful pandemics course wouldn't qualify.

7/

So what should leaders do? A few things.

1) Be honest about the motivation for decisions. The university is full of very, very smart people. They can figure it out anyway so no point damaging trust.

8/

2) Trust your faculty and staff to do what is best for their students. Some will phone it in, sure. They were doing that before too. But some have poured their hearts into making real change for the benefit of our educational mission and they feel totally disrespected.

9/

3) Have flexible policies. Not every course is the same. Not every instructor is the same. There needs to be a mechanism to oversee course formats at the level where programs are managed. A one size fits all policy aimed at preventing abuse only stifles creativity.
10/

4) Listen to people. Really listen. Hear them when they tell you they are exhausted. Hear it when they say they are worried about their kids. Hear it when they say collegial governance is being badly damaged.

11/

5) Take a longer view. We need to be able to recover from this, and the way that will happen is by tapping into the creativity and passion of faculty and staff across campus. If they are burned out, disillusioned, and don't feel valued, this will be impossible to achieve.

12/

6) Look ahead to F22. In between now and then, kids will be vaccinated. People will have boosters. The weather will be good and people will be outside. Faculty and staff will have a major break to recover. There will be time in between to figure out course format policies.

13/

7) Offer support for innovation. Instead of forcing everything back to the old ways of teaching, really look for where there has been serious innovation, and provide logistical and financial support to encourage it. (Note that we're dropping the pandemics course in W22).

14/

None of this is new. I and others have been shouting this into the wind since summer 2020. But I somehow remain hopeful that we can change course and come out of the pandemic stronger and better by working together.

15/15