In the many divisive discussions of school reopenings, most have centered on K-12 education and the dangers of transmitting the COVID-19 virus, but many people had seemingly forgotten about the openings of colleges and universities across the country, until social media and news outlets showed pictures of crowds of college freshman, and returning students, at off-campus socials with nary a mask in sight, causing more than a little concern among other students, and of course parents.
That changed on Tuesday with the announcements from Notre Dame and Michigan State University that in-person classes would go online, at least for the next few weeks with increases in positive test results for many of these same party going students, mostly undergraduates.
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| Notre Dame campus |
Earlier, in many Southern states, there were increased incidents of students being quarantined, along with some staff and faculty; and then the political irony that many of these same incidents were in states that put an emphasis on reopening sooner, rather than later; and, who were lockstep with President Trump in his quest to use the economy as the key plank in his reelection campaign.
Some have questioned whether these colleges and universities should have opened their doors, at all, especially to undergraduates, ready to party down and catch up, or meet each other; and with many living away from home, for the first time, the time seemed ripe for socializing without the distance.
The intersection of politics, money and academia are also adding a secondary measure of not only the value of an education, but also if instruction is going to be remote, should cash-strapped parents be paying full tuition for what many people see as the lack of a full-on campus experience with late night study session, midnight pizza and ice cream;but, not to mention, at the more prestigious schools, the associations that would lead to high-end jobs, or even admission to prestigious graduate schools.
How these factor into public health and safety with a virus that seems to be with us, despite lowering U.S. infection rates, has given many of the self named people pause, and with more than a little reluctance, some schools, such as Notre Dame, in the face of community infections, and bad publicity, it was time to get ahead of what could damage one of the leading Roman Catholic universities.
According to NPR, “The Rev. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, announced that starting Wednesday, in-person classes will be suspended for undergraduates until Sept. 2 and for graduate and professional school students until Aug. 24.
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| Fr. Jenkins |
The move was prompted by what Jenkins called "a steady increase in positive rates" among students in the days since classes resumed on Aug. 10.
"The virus is a formidable foe," Jenkins said. "For the past week, it has been winning. Let us as the Fighting Irish join together to contain it."
While that seems cautiously optimistic, Notre Dame and MSU are large midwestern universities that have large student bodies, whose actions, or inactions affect many other people and institutions, outside of their respective communities; not to mention usually being the largest employers in their areas.
“ . . . 146 students and one staff member have tested positive for the virus since Aug. 3. None has been hospitalized. Jenkins “added that seniors living off-campus account for a large share of the cases, and most infections are coming from "off-campus gatherings where neither masks were worn nor physical distancing observed.”
The report did note that “While Notre Dame plans on keeping many auxiliary functions open, such as labs and libraries will remain open with some expected protective measures, such as temperature checks and contact tracing.”
In East Lansing, things are somewhat different and “The university is asking undergraduate students planning to live on campus to stay home and encouraging off-campus students to consider doing the same "if that is a safer place for you."
It expressed doubts about being able to keep students safe in the face of a pandemic that remains largely unchecked.
"Given the current status of the virus — particularly what we are seeing at other institutions as they re-populate their campus communities — it is unlikely we can prevent widespread transmission of COVID-19 between students if our undergraduates return to campus," officials wrote.
Looking at some of the colleges in Chicago, there seemed to be a myriad of measures, and communications regarding COVID, but some revealed more than others. A recent story in the Chicago Tribune, about a surge of off campus parties at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill. has put the onus on reporting these mostly unsafe parties, to local residents, which has created a backlash among community members, who ask why they are the mandated reporters, with little, or no governance from University officials.
The University of Chicago seemed to focus on contact tracing, self- management and even a pledge to be signed by students, but otherwise seemed mum, on specific measures, other than boiler plate guidance, such as social distancing, face covering and the like.
Their guidance page did state,“We anticipate a limited number of classes will be held in-person. Many classes will include a combination of in-person and remote instruction and discussion. Others will be conducted fully remotely,” and then, “Each academic area and its instructors will determine the delivery mode for its courses, to serve curricular and pedagogical needs and align with public health guidance.”
Northeastern Illinois University, on Chicago’s Northside has planned a detailed and more far-reaching effort for instruction and safety of students, faculty and staff. It’s website offers details on protective cleaning and sanitation, plus the availability of classes offered remotely and hybrid, as well as with synchronization of real time instruction, and options for those academics requiring face to face interaction, as well as asynchronous instruction and contacts via the web, email and dedicated servers.
Adding to the controversy, and concern, was Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Task Force Leader, who on Thursday offered the strong suggestion, in a private call, that “Each university not only has to do entrance testing,” she said, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. “What we talked to every university about is being able to do surge testing. How are you going to do 5,000 samples in one day or 10,000 samples in one day?”
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| Dr. Birx |
The idea would be a mammoth enterprise and would face both funding and organizational challenges, and it has not been recommended by the CDC because it has not been “systematically studied” reported The Center for Public Integrity on its website.
They also reported that, “More than 600 American colleges and universities are returning to in-person classes or mostly in-person classes this fall, according to a tracker from the College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College. Most are testing students as or before they return, said Katie Felten, interim assistant director of the initiative, with some mailing test kits to students’ homes before they travel to campus.”
While the growing body of research and data that can inform American colleges and universities is on the upswing, most, which are often seen as microcosms of non academic areas, the effort is not easy, nor is it consistent, as we have seen.
Or, to put it simply, the United States has more than 5.4 million infections and over 172,000 deaths and it is against this background that colleges and universities are struggling to make decisions about the coming Fall semester.
Working retroactively, as was the case with Notre Dame, who began classes in the middle of August, and proactively, is the case with MSU shows that a timeline and date, plus infections seem to govern how and when university administrators can make the decisions to go forward with in person learning, hybrid, or entirely remote.
Scrapping plans “for a partially in-person semester just one week after classes began. Faculty Chair Mimi Chapman told NPR on Tuesday that she hoped other schools would learn from its experience, and said, “If we can't bring those resources to bear in the way that we did with a more successful result, I think it should give every other large public university in the country pause before going forward.”
Classes at MSU begin on Sept. 2, and in a statement MSU’s president, Samuel L. Stanley, Jr, M.D, a physician and biomedical researcher,said: “This was an extraordinarily difficult decision, but the safety of our campus community must be our paramount concern. Please know that we are making choices based on reliable public health data, updates from local and state officials and our understanding of the science and research available to us on the novel coronavirus.”
At The University of Illinois at Chicago,there was a statement, from The United Faculty (UICUF) stating that, "we do not have confidence that the Administration's plan will sufficiently provide for a safe reopening, let alone sustain a healthy open campus for the fall semester," in response to the school's plan for a return to campus.
They also cited deep concerns for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for their members to "keep our campus and community safe." The Union is planning a strike vote in September.
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| Pres. Stanley |
Joining the increasingly long list of colleges and universities that are switching to partial, or completely remote instruction are the University of Maryland, The University of Pennsylvania, the University of South Carolina and the University of Virginia.
Of equal concern are those students and parents who want a refund, or at least partial discounts on hot having the full on campus experience.
The New York Times in its coverage earlier this month, and with a recent update, highlighted the dilemma: “A rebellion against the high cost of a bachelor’s degree, already brewing around the nation before the coronavirus, has gathered fresh momentum as campuses have strained to operate in the pandemic. Incensed at paying face-to-face prices for education that is increasingly online, students and their parents are demanding tuition rebates, increased financial aid, reduced fees and leaves of absences . . .”
Lacking a consensus on how these demands can be met, and how, it seems that one statement offers one official response, “These are unprecedented times, and more and more families are needing more and more financial assistance to enroll in college,” said Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president for the American Council on Education, a higher education trade group. “But colleges also need to survive.”
Again from the Times: “Starting up an online education program is incredibly expensive,” said Dominique Baker, an assistant professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University. “You have to have training, people with expertise, licensing for a lot of different kinds of software. All those pieces cost money, and then if you want the best quality, you have to have smaller classes.”
“A handful of universities have announced substantial price cuts. Franciscan University of Steubenville, a private Catholic university in Ohio with about 3,000 students, announced in April that it will cover 100 percent of tuition costs, after financial aid and scholarships, for incoming undergraduates. Williams College in Massachusetts took 15 percent off in June when it announced it would combine online and in-person instruction this fall,” they added.
“Officials at the University of Illinois at Chicago are holding firm. As chancellor Micheal Amiridis said in a statement, “since UIC continues to teach all courses remotely, we have not considered a partial refund on tuition. However, we are considering a partial refund of the fees for interrupted services (recreation, student centers, student programming, athletics, etc.), as well as some lab fees associated with specific courses,” noted edsurge.com in May.
Yet some students are asking for a reduction, such as University of Chicago students, which provides the most expensive undergraduate education in the country, saying they charged too much tuition to begin with, they said.
“It's not about the like online classes,” says Julia Attie, one of the student leaders of the movement at University of Chicago. “This crisis is highlighting problems that already existed” around the affordability of higher education.
Perhaps the question is not only the worth of a university degree which does provide greater earnings over a lifetime, (only about 33% of Americans have a B.A.) but exactly how much actual learning has happened, versus managing to get a degree, especially at elite colleges, such as Harvard or Brown, who have the most fierce opposition to keeping tuition rates, even to the point of fighting lawsuits.
Podster Jeffrey A. Young, for Edsurge interviewed Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at The University of Pennsylvania who said, ““I don't think we know enough about how much students were learning under the face-to-face model to calculate what an alleged loss might be under this new model,” Zimmerman says. He adds there has been a “longstanding reluctance to try to figure out how much people learn,” and therefore “it's quite difficult, if not impossible, to figure out what sort of drop off there might’ve been with the introduction of online.”
Updated 27 August 2020
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