This article explains where we're going to end up. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/30/coronavirus-shutdown-altitude-ethics-223569
"The pandemic highlights a different way of understanding relativism. It is not that values are no more than a matter of taste, in the way that you like pistachio but I like vanilla. It is to acknowledge—in a way our politics usually does not—that any important value is inevitably, at key moments, in competition with other important values. Individual liberties are in tension with public order. Respect for tradition is in tension with tolerance for diversity. And, yes, averting some number of tragic deaths from coronavirus is in tension with the need for a much larger number of people to resume life—sometime after it is no longer reckless to do so but sometime before it is perfectly safe."
For the first time in many decades, there were no homicides in Miami during the month of March. https://wgntv.com/news/miami-reportedly-went-6-weeks-murder-free-for-first-time-since-1957/
I could then argue that we must stay in quarantine forever, even after COVID-19 is eradicated, or we will again have a regular incidence of homicide. But as the governor said 'that's not the world we live in.'
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Our 'open forum' discussion with the administration yesterday shed light on some of their thoughts. Someone in power is thinking that we will be 'hybrid' in the fall... what they are thinking is that classes will meet, but 1/2 the students will come to class on Monday, and then the other half on WEdnesday and then we will be online for the other half of the week's education. One of our braver faculty piped up that the faculty, who are more likely to have worse outcomes, are still exposed to 100% of the students! Isnt the administration concerned about the faculty? (probably not).
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 08:41:41 AM
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Would it cause changes primarily because these professors get sick and die, or because they would retire as soon as possible? Maybe the question would be for them to answer.
I'm in a higher risk group because of age and one other factor.
I wasn't thinking of our workplace specifically, initially. Just society in general.
We're also seeing the kind of categorical thinking that is common in politics ("pro choice" vs. "pro life;" "gun rights" vs "gun control") creeping into a space where it transparently makes no sense. We don't have a choice between "shelter in place" orders and "football games in packed stadiums." There's a wide range of policies available that we need to consider on the merits.
The city of Somerville in Massachusetts, for example, instituted a mandate to wear masks that applies to anyone over the age of 2 and applies even within residential buildings. So if you don't have a washing machine in your unit, it's now a substantial ordeal to take a child down to the basement. It's pretty hard to argue that there's much of a public health benefit to this: the mask would only help if they encountered someone else from the building in the basement and one of them had been infected. Very low probability, pretty high cost.
More ambiguously, restrictions on visiting friends can have very high social and psychological costs... but how risky is it really to have a couple over to grill in the backyard? That's just not a meaningful transmission vector, even though it will lead to some additional infections. That's very different from attending a church service with 600 other people in a tight space: a very obvious public health risk. That's where we have to get serious in thinking about trade-offs.
Draconian policies would still be defensible if they were very limited in duration. Sure, we can all get past not hosting friends for a month. But that's just not the timeline we're operating on. "Flattening the curve" has been achieved: ICUs never got overwhelmed, we didn't run out of ventilators, etc. But we're not going back to normal until there's a vaccine available, which in the very best case would be a year from now. Perhaps two years. Banning dinner with friends for the next two years is neither feasible nor sensible.
The most interesting discussions, I think, will be around a vaccine. The NYTimes has this great series of infographics on a timeline for vaccine development that lets you play with some counterfactuals: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/coronavirus-covid-vaccine.html
In theory, it's possible to speed it up even further: Phase 1 trial results for Moderna's vaccine should be in soon. If it worked, we'd normally go to Phase 2 (larger, representative sample; test for generalizability) and Phase 3 (large sample, test for safety). Then we'd do a follow-up after a year or so to look for side effects of the vaccine. That's where a 2 year projection starts to make sense. But we could do Phase 2 & 3 in parallel, and Phase 3 could be very large with tens of thousands of healthcare workers. The trade-off for them is different than for the general population, since they're at higher risk. In fact, we almost surely should vaccinate high risk groups before young and otherwise healthy individuals, until we have a better sense of the vaccine's potential side effects. If someone is in their 80s, the risk of death from a COVID infection is way too high to worry about the potential longer-term consequences of the vaccine.
In two months we went from 100 infected people to over one million cases in the USA. Daily new cases have been about constant in the past month. I fail to see how you bring people together again without also getting another rapid spread of CV19. If I get sick I sure will not be logging into a computer to run an online class. From my direct observations, these students will not stay apart from each other.
Also, I wonder if the admin-critters have any plans for hybrid sports?
I've been reading about some colleges having hybrid courses for the fall, or only permitting smaller classes (12 or less). I'm not sure what will happen over here.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of ignorant people in our state government who fear (and do not trust) science. These people determine when things 'open.' Does not bode well.
QuoteA moral relativist, by these lights, is someone who thinks that if it feels good, do it;
No, that's hedonism, a broad category which includes utilitarianism.
Quotewho believes that values are no more than personal preference
Sort of. This is the weakest, least plausible form of moral relativism, and most people who subscribe to moral relativism prefer to index it to the convictions, practices, and traditions of
groups of persons. Usually it's applied at the level of
societies.
Quotewho does not believe in fixed notions of right and wrong
Sort of, but this is mostly false. The moral relativist believes in right and wrong, and those beliefs are fixed--but they're indexed to a group of persons. So, e.g., eating horses is morally wrong where Anglophones are concerned, and perfectly fine where Francophones are concerned. But it doesn't shift around; it's always wrong relative to this one group, always OK/right relative to the other. It's just that what does the fixing are contingent properties of groups of people. Different groups, different assessments; likewise, if groups change, the assessments may change. But it's always true relative to this particular group or that one that some action is right/wrong, even as different groups existing at the same time come to different judgements.
This is also pretty misleading, since it gives the impression that we should lump in moral anti-realism and various kinds of moral fictionalism with relativism, which is just wrong. The relativist is not necessarily an anti-realist--in fact, moral relativism is not really a kind of anti-realism at all.
To my mind, the correct sub-header is not "In the pandemic, everyone is a moral relativist". It's clear to me that it should be "in the pandemic, everyone is a
utilitarian"--with the caveat that most people are very,
very bad at calculating utility, especially in this pandemic. I have seen virtually no evidence of relativism in the discourse surrounding the pandemic. What I
have seen an awful lot of is C- -student descriptions of act-utilitarian calculations, and they all make the common mistake of casting the net too narrowly.
Quote from: Anselm on April 30, 2020, 09:12:45 AM
In two months we went from 100 infected people to over one million cases in the USA. Daily new cases have been about constant in the past month. I fail to see how you bring people together again without also getting another rapid spread of CV19. If I get sick I sure will not be logging into a computer to run an online class. From my direct observations, these students will not stay apart from each other.
It just isn't possible to have everything be shut down till there's a vaccine. That's not just from an economic standpoint, but from a social and emotional one as well. In the short term the trade offs are worth it, but in the long run they couldn't be. The question isn't "should current restrictions last for the indefinite future?" Instead, we are going to have to figure out which things are most important, which things are the most risky and find a way to balance those things. For example, k-12 schools need to be open in the fall. We have to be able to accept some elevated level of risk from that, because the costs of kids just not going to school would be unacceptable. The key is going to be figuring out the level of risk and finding ways to limit that.
It would be hard to argue that colleges being open are as important as grade schools, so it will really depend on how much it is possible to mitigate risks. A lot of that is going to depend on the success of testing and contact tracing.
Picking up on Pigou, upthread, as one learns more about the virus, policies can be implemented that are selective. E.g., I just read that observations in Wuhan and in a German hotspot more than suggest that ordinary person to person contact, especially outdoors but even indoors, leads to little transmission, but that intense indoor contact, such as at parties, leads to lots. That tells us the kinds of things that can be loosened up and those that shouldn't be.
And the whole thing might be easiser if there were a functioning market for N95 masks, but never mind.
Politicians are afraid of such halfway houses - in little affected states the electorate may not believe it necessary, and in heavily affected states the electorate is possibly scared of its brains and thinks selective measures are too littel.
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 08:41:41 AM
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Positive. I'm 54 with a chronic immune system disorder but healthier than the average person my age. We've got plenty of people in their 70s who should have retired long ago. I.e., "no, I'm not going to sit next to you and hold your hand while trying to teach you what a 'submit' button on an LMS webpage does."
Quote from: spork on April 30, 2020, 10:50:00 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 08:41:41 AM
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Positive. I'm 54 with a chronic immune system disorder but healthier than the average person my age. We've got plenty of people in their 70s who should have retired long ago. I.e., "no, I'm not going to sit next to you and hold your hand while trying to teach you what a 'submit' button on an LMS webpage does."
Will they be replaced by hotshot young TT profs who will take the department to new prominence, or by a rotating roster of adjuncts? (Sorry, I had to poke that issue.)
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 30, 2020, 09:54:05 AM
QuoteA moral relativist, by these lights, is someone who thinks that if it feels good, do it;
No, that's hedonism, a broad category which includes utilitarianism.
Quotewho believes that values are no more than personal preference
Sort of. This is the weakest, least plausible form of moral relativism, and most people who subscribe to moral relativism prefer to index it to the convictions, practices, and traditions of groups of persons. Usually it's applied at the level of societies.
Quotewho does not believe in fixed notions of right and wrong
Sort of, but this is mostly false. The moral relativist believes in right and wrong, and those beliefs are fixed--but they're indexed to a group of persons. So, e.g., eating horses is morally wrong where Anglophones are concerned, and perfectly fine where Francophones are concerned. But it doesn't shift around; it's always wrong relative to this one group, always OK/right relative to the other. It's just that what does the fixing are contingent properties of groups of people. Different groups, different assessments; likewise, if groups change, the assessments may change. But it's always true relative to this particular group or that one that some action is right/wrong, even as different groups existing at the same time come to different judgements.
This is also pretty misleading, since it gives the impression that we should lump in moral anti-realism and various kinds of moral fictionalism with relativism, which is just wrong. The relativist is not necessarily an anti-realist--in fact, moral relativism is not really a kind of anti-realism at all.
To my mind, the correct sub-header is not "In the pandemic, everyone is a moral relativist". It's clear to me that it should be "in the pandemic, everyone is a utilitarian"--with the caveat that most people are very, very bad at calculating utility, especially in this pandemic. I have seen virtually no evidence of relativism in the discourse surrounding the pandemic. What I have seen an awful lot of is C- -student descriptions of act-utilitarian calculations, and they all make the common mistake of casting the net too narrowly.
Sorry, in a way, to link an article that had a weak grasp of these concepts. I would normally look in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. But I thought the point about competing values (if that's the word) was correct.
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 11:08:25 AM
Will they be replaced by hotshot young TT profs who will take the department to new prominence, or by a rotating roster of adjuncts? (Sorry, I had to poke that issue.)
A rotating roster of hotshot young adjuncts who will take the department to a new plateau.
We're a department of seven, three of which are over 70 (two over 75), and teaching
substantially reduced loads due to a patchwork of leaves and knowledgeable exploitation of the system (one only teaches two two-week intensive courses in the summer, but draws a full salary). Unfortunately, the fact that their loads are so reduced means that even if they fully retire, we two noobies won't be much better off, since it will only free up a few sections, nowhere near enough that we can rest easy with the guarantee of full loads. If enrollment drops significantly, their retirements probably wouldn't affect us at all.
Nominally, however, it would be good news for us, and would hopefully bring us a step closer towards regularization.
Quote from: mahagonny on April 30, 2020, 11:16:30 AM
Sorry, in a way, to link an article that had a weak grasp of these concepts. I would normally look in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. But I thought the point about competing values (if that's the word) was correct.
Shrug. I don't really mind, it's just that the pedant in me can't let these things go.
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 11:08:25 AM
Quote from: spork on April 30, 2020, 10:50:00 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 08:41:41 AM
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Positive. I'm 54 with a chronic immune system disorder but healthier than the average person my age. We've got plenty of people in their 70s who should have retired long ago. I.e., "no, I'm not going to sit next to you and hold your hand while trying to teach you what a 'submit' button on an LMS webpage does."
Will they be replaced by hotshot young TT profs who will take the department to new prominence, or by a rotating roster of adjuncts? (Sorry, I had to poke that issue.)
They will probably be replaced by adjuncts who also don't know what a "submit" button does -- retirees who got an MA or PhD thirty years ago, or MBA types from the corporate world who are looking to pick up some extra cash but who have never taught before. Quality is never a concern here.
Quote from: dismalist on April 30, 2020, 10:45:08 AM
Picking up on Pigou, upthread, as one learns more about the virus, policies can be implemented that are selective. E.g., I just read that observations in Wuhan and in a German hotspot more than suggest that ordinary person to person contact, especially outdoors but even indoors, leads to little transmission, but that intense indoor contact, such as at parties, leads to lots. That tells us the kinds of things that can be loosened up and those that shouldn't be.
This does make a lot of sense, intuitively. A lot of things have to go exactly wrong for a person to be infected by just walking by someone, or having a brief interaction. If you work with an infected person, or are sitting around a table with a bunch of people, there are a lot more opportunities to catch it.
Quote from: Caracal on April 30, 2020, 11:21:55 AM
Quote from: dismalist on April 30, 2020, 10:45:08 AM
Picking up on Pigou, upthread, as one learns more about the virus, policies can be implemented that are selective. E.g., I just read that observations in Wuhan and in a German hotspot more than suggest that ordinary person to person contact, especially outdoors but even indoors, leads to little transmission, but that intense indoor contact, such as at parties, leads to lots. That tells us the kinds of things that can be loosened up and those that shouldn't be.
This does make a lot of sense, intuitively. A lot of things have to go exactly wrong for a person to be infected by just walking by someone, or having a brief interaction. If you work with an infected person, or are sitting around a table with a bunch of people, there are a lot more opportunities to catch it.
So in a classroom, even if you cut the number of students in half so they can distance, how big a vectoe is it going to be by having multiple classes in that room throughout the day? You can't have a crew sweep through to disinfect after every class. Lab and work spaces that are communal will have a similar problem.
Quote from: marshwiggle on April 30, 2020, 11:28:26 AM
Quote from: Caracal on April 30, 2020, 11:21:55 AM
Quote from: dismalist on April 30, 2020, 10:45:08 AM
Picking up on Pigou, upthread, as one learns more about the virus, policies can be implemented that are selective. E.g., I just read that observations in Wuhan and in a German hotspot more than suggest that ordinary person to person contact, especially outdoors but even indoors, leads to little transmission, but that intense indoor contact, such as at parties, leads to lots. That tells us the kinds of things that can be loosened up and those that shouldn't be.
This does make a lot of sense, intuitively. A lot of things have to go exactly wrong for a person to be infected by just walking by someone, or having a brief interaction. If you work with an infected person, or are sitting around a table with a bunch of people, there are a lot more opportunities to catch it.
So in a classroom, even if you cut the number of students in half so they can distance, how big a vectoe is it going to be by having multiple classes in that room throughout the day? You can't have a crew sweep through to disinfect after every class. Lab and work spaces that are communal will have a similar problem.
The estimates I've seen have been that transmission from surfaces accounts for only a small percentage of infections. It might be more of a concern in a classroom which is a high touch environment. It wouldn't be that hard to imagine it becoming standard practice for students to carry antibacterial wipes with them and wipe off the desk before and after they sit down.
Viruses have been found on all manner of surfaces, floating on dust particles and projected beyond 6 feet when talking/coughing etc. But I've not seen anything to suggest that in these cases, the virus is either viable or of sufficient inoculum to cause infection.
If we are face to face come fall, I trust that those of us whose age or underlying health makes us at higher risk will finally be seen as heroes along with grocery store cashiers and hair dressers.
Quote from: spork on April 30, 2020, 11:21:39 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 11:08:25 AM
Quote from: spork on April 30, 2020, 10:50:00 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 08:41:41 AM
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Positive. I'm 54 with a chronic immune system disorder but healthier than the average person my age. We've got plenty of people in their 70s who should have retired long ago. I.e., "no, I'm not going to sit next to you and hold your hand while trying to teach you what a 'submit' button on an LMS webpage does."
Will they be replaced by hotshot young TT profs who will take the department to new prominence, or by a rotating roster of adjuncts? (Sorry, I had to poke that issue.)
They will probably be replaced by adjuncts who also don't know what a "submit" button does -- retirees who got an MA or PhD thirty years ago, or MBA types from the corporate world who are looking to pick up some extra cash but who have never taught before. Quality is never a concern here.
Why would we assume they will be replaced?
Quote from: jimbogumbo on April 30, 2020, 12:38:35 PM
Quote from: spork on April 30, 2020, 11:21:39 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 11:08:25 AM
Quote from: spork on April 30, 2020, 10:50:00 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 08:41:41 AM
Bringing a bunch of infectious students into contact with infectable older tenured professors could cause big changes in the structure of the faculty ranks. Is that a net positive or negative?
Positive. I'm 54 with a chronic immune system disorder but healthier than the average person my age. We've got plenty of people in their 70s who should have retired long ago. I.e., "no, I'm not going to sit next to you and hold your hand while trying to teach you what a 'submit' button on an LMS webpage does."
Will they be replaced by hotshot young TT profs who will take the department to new prominence, or by a rotating roster of adjuncts? (Sorry, I had to poke that issue.)
They will probably be replaced by adjuncts who also don't know what a "submit" button does -- retirees who got an MA or PhD thirty years ago, or MBA types from the corporate world who are looking to pick up some extra cash but who have never taught before. Quality is never a concern here.
Why would we assume they will be replaced?
Hmmm. Apparently I'm knocking off the oldsters too optimistically. With the lower projected student numbers, this may be the RIF that saves the schools. Or is that too optimistic?
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 30, 2020, 11:19:05 AM
Quote from: Hibush on April 30, 2020, 11:08:25 AM
Will they be replaced by hotshot young TT profs who will take the department to new prominence, or by a rotating roster of adjuncts? (Sorry, I had to poke that issue.)
A rotating roster of hotshot young adjuncts who will take the department to a new plateau.
We're a department of seven, three of which are over 70 (two over 75), and teaching substantially reduced loads due to a patchwork of leaves and knowledgeable exploitation of the system (one only teaches two two-week intensive courses in the summer, but draws a full salary). Unfortunately, the fact that their loads are so reduced means that even if they fully retire, we two noobies won't be much better off, since it will only free up a few sections, nowhere near enough that we can rest easy with the guarantee of full loads. If enrollment drops significantly, their retirements probably wouldn't affect us at all.
Nominally, however, it would be good news for us, and would hopefully bring us a step closer towards regularization.
A young man is looking for a job. He goes to the general store and says to the manager 'I heard one of your employees quit, so how would like to hire me to fill the vacancy?' The manager says 'he quit all right, but he didn't leave any vacancy.'
Yeah, being on the older side myself, I am getting a little ... fed up ... with people who intimate that older people are expendable. Doddery, pointless, may know some stuff but not much of it is worth knowing, and if they're not hotshots on computers, to hell with 'em, their deaths are no loss. (And as for stereotypes: I'm as good on computers as you are, Mr. Smug.) Let's clean out the ranks by infecting the older folks and watching 'em die! All Lives Matter, except for the people I personally don't value. And as for older people worrying that in-person teaching might lead to their deaths — we can't shut down the economy just so some people don't die! If it were young people like the ones making the decisions, maybe, but not other people. Bring in the mortuary trucks and let's get those people dead so we can get moving.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 30, 2020, 09:54:05 AM
To my mind, the correct sub-header is not "In the pandemic, everyone is a moral relativist". It's clear to me that it should be "in the pandemic, everyone is a utilitarian"--with the caveat that most people are very, very bad at calculating utility, especially in this pandemic. I have seen virtually no evidence of relativism in the discourse surrounding the pandemic. What I have seen an awful lot of is C- -student descriptions of act-utilitarian calculations, and they all make the common mistake of casting the net too narrowly.
I completely agree about people being very bad at considering enough of the facts to pick the actions/views most consistent with the things they claim to value.
I sigh a lot as I encounter strongly stated views that don't seem to be based on any of the relevant facts, but instead are wishes for a different world.
I'm beyond tired of seeing the situation in which someone states a desired goal, insists a specific action will achieve that goal, and then pushes back on all advice/commentary/evidence-backed statements that the action won't lead to the desired goal but will in fact be much more likely to lead to a set of stated anti-goals.
And that was before the pandemic changed the circumstances with new and different outcomes for specific actions.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 01, 2020, 05:38:14 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 30, 2020, 09:54:05 AM
To my mind, the correct sub-header is not "In the pandemic, everyone is a moral relativist". It's clear to me that it should be "in the pandemic, everyone is a utilitarian"--with the caveat that most people are very, very bad at calculating utility, especially in this pandemic. I have seen virtually no evidence of relativism in the discourse surrounding the pandemic. What I have seen an awful lot of is C- -student descriptions of act-utilitarian calculations, and they all make the common mistake of casting the net too narrowly.
I completely agree about people being very bad at considering enough of the facts to pick the actions/views most consistent with the things they claim to value.
I sigh a lot as I encounter strongly stated views that don't seem to be based on any of the relevant facts, but instead are wishes for a different world.
I'm beyond tired of seeing the situation in which someone states a desired goal, insists a specific action will achieve that goal, and then pushes back on all advice/commentary/evidence-backed statements that the action won't lead to the desired goal but will in fact be much more likely to lead to a set of stated anti-goals.
And that was before the pandemic changed the circumstances with new and different outcomes for specific actions.
You deserve to be 'beyond tired.' I hope you're so 'beyond tired' you can't sleep. The callous provosts you cozy up to have made a point of fighting faculty advocacy for health insurance, living wage, etc. and treating their workforce like crap.
Quote from: Hegemony on April 30, 2020, 10:04:34 PM
Yeah, being on the older side myself, I am getting a little ... fed up ... with people who intimate that older people are expendable. Doddery, pointless, may know some stuff but not much of it is worth knowing, and if they're not hotshots on computers, to hell with 'em, their deaths are no loss. (And as for stereotypes: I'm as good on computers as you are, Mr. Smug.) Let's clean out the ranks by infecting the older folks and watching 'em die! All Lives Matter, except for the people I personally don't value. And as for older people worrying that in-person teaching might lead to their deaths — we can't shut down the economy just so some people don't die! If it were young people like the ones making the decisions, maybe, but not other people. Bring in the mortuary trucks and let's get those people dead so we can get moving.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 30, 2020, 09:54:05 AM
What I have seen an awful lot of is C- -student descriptions of act-utilitarian calculations, and they all make the common mistake of casting the net too narrowly.
Those calculations are all to easy to mockingly simulate.
Quote from: mahagonny on May 01, 2020, 07:48:54 AM
You deserve to be 'beyond tired.' I hope you're so 'beyond tired' you can't sleep. The callous provosts you cozy up to have made a point of fighting faculty advocacy for health insurance, living wage, etc. and treating their workforce like crap.
Look! A clear example of disconnected actions that can't possibly have the desired outcomes.
Advocating for health insurance, living wage, and "better" treatment does not address the realities of:
* limited budgets and other resources
* changing student demographics
* disparities between various fields including ratio of qualified people to jobs and how those are willing to allow themselves to be treated to have a particular type of job
Nor does
advocating result in any of the desired things. Negotiation might result in the desired outcomes. People deciding for themselves to do something else where the overall situation is better might result in the desired outcomes for individuals and possibly groups when it becomes clear that "no" reputable professional will work under those conditions.
However, soon, mistreatment of many faculty members by the academic administrators will end because those faculty won't have any kind of job. Stopping mistreatment was the goal, right? Then, you should be quite happy when all those folks can't be exploited any longer and have to do something else.
The assertion that more resources should be spent in a given way is not actually the same as having the resources to spend that way.
The assertion that more resources should be spent in a given way because that makes specific people happier is not at all the same as the reality that almost always competing interests mean that someone is unhappy with how the resources were spent. The leadership question is usually a matter of deciding who can be allowed to be unhappy with a given decision and who will sink the whole endeavor if they are the unhappy ones.
Quote from: polly_mer on May 01, 2020, 08:11:06 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on May 01, 2020, 07:48:54 AM
However, soon, mistreatment of many faculty members by the academic administrators will end because those faculty won't have any kind of job. Stopping mistreatment was the goal, right? Then, you should be quite happy when all those folks can't be exploited any longer and have to do something else.
That's my affair. Henry F. Potter would have liked you.
There are of course many colleges that could have afforded to let adjunct faculty into the heath insurance pool, but didn't because they calculated that they didn't have to. and they didn't feel like it. Yet you insist on talking about your 'Super Dinky' as though it were some sort of cross section of higher ed in the USA. Which kinda makes people wonder about a person's inner state.
Advocacy works in relation to the sensibility and empathy of the players on the scene.
Our Admin sent a message yesterday saying they kinda sorta halfway plan for us to be back F2F in August, especially for lab/high-touch classes (nursing, several engineering/hands-on career type programs, etc). They also promise frequent deep-cleaning of rooms, the wearing of masks, and such, and the "hope" to reduce class sizes to 10 or thereabouts.
An online town hall is set for next Friday, and they solicited questions. The two I submitted are: what about those of us considered vulnerable/at-risk--can we be granted a fully online schedule, if we're qualified and willing? And if F2F sections do drop to 10, will faculty then have to teach multiple such sections to make load?
(As an at-risk faculty member, I'll join those protesting the get-rid-of-the-old-coots sentiment. Just because I'm 59 and have some health problems doesn't mean I don't still work my butt off. If I could retire, I'd gladly do so, and if I can last 4 more years, I'll be out of here. But that's for me, not my boss, to decide, so long as I'm still doing the job I was hired to do and getting great student and dean evals. And it's certainly not my colleagues' call, either; the last I checked, they're responsible for taking care of themselves, not worrying about my age or health or when I need to leave.)
This isn't just a theoretical question for me. Although the decision lies officially with our library's Board of Trustees, I have to make recommendations for them to act upon. I've been consulting the guidance I can find on the State Library's web site, and listening to what colleagues are saying. I've began having conversations with the staff to make sure they all have their input.
There are lots of details to work out. How many library computers can we let people use while maintaining social distancing? How many people can we allow into the stacks at a time (Or DO we let patrons use the stacks, or just offer curbside service at first?). How insistent will we be on patrons wearing masks? Where are we going to get the masks, hand sanitizer, etc. we'll need (Placed orders today)? Do we let children in at all? If so, what measures are needed to keep them under control?
There's a good deal of advice to consult, but ultimately we're the ones who know our facility and patrons, and have to work out the details. Nobody at the state level has the authority to make the decisions for us. And I'm ultimately the one who has to make the recommendations. It's enough to make a person nervous.
I'm just a director of a small-town library. I don't envy leaders of universities, cities, states, or nations who have to make decisions on a much larger scale. The bigger the responsibility, the more of a no-win situation you're put in when it comes to making decisions that the constituents will accept. Whatever you decide, you're going to have others accusing you of all sorts of evil, and holding you to blame for all the bad stuff that happens.
My own direct observations lead me to conclude that the students absolutely will not stay apart from each other at proper distances. My other concern is that practical decisions are being made by school administrators who are not experts on public health. Whose advice will they follow, that of the CDC, WHO or their state governor?
Maybe I'm a jaded old man whose thinking usually devolves to "Get off my lawn!" but it looks to me like the desire to avoid financial and reputational damage is the primary driver of university administrators' decision making. If a governor says "the stay at home order is now rescinded, and you don't need to worry about socializing in groups of less than ten people," then administrators are going to open campuses. Then when people get sick in the second wave of contagion administrators can simply say they were following the governor's guidelines.
Quote from: spork on May 02, 2020, 04:35:27 AM
Maybe I'm a jaded old man whose thinking usually devolves to "Get off my lawn!" but it looks to me like the desire to avoid financial and reputational damage is the primary driver of university administrators' decision making. If a governor says "the stay at home order is now rescinded, and you don't need to worry about socializing in groups of less than ten people," then administrators are going to open campuses. Then when people get sick in the second wave of contagion administrators can simply say they were following the governor's guidelines.
If there isn't a huge ramp up in testing and contact tracing by the fall, and a big drop off in cases, I don't think there's any way schools can reopen.
What strikes me as odd about these discussions is the way they seem to assume we can predict the future of the epidemic and responses to it. Nobody knows if there will really be a "second wave," or even if there will really be an end to the "first wave."
Quote from: Caracal on May 02, 2020, 06:53:39 AM
Quote from: spork on May 02, 2020, 04:35:27 AM
Maybe I'm a jaded old man whose thinking usually devolves to "Get off my lawn!" but it looks to me like the desire to avoid financial and reputational damage is the primary driver of university administrators' decision making. If a governor says "the stay at home order is now rescinded, and you don't need to worry about socializing in groups of less than ten people," then administrators are going to open campuses. Then when people get sick in the second wave of contagion administrators can simply say they were following the governor's guidelines.
If there isn't a huge ramp up in testing and contact tracing by the fall, and a big drop off in cases, I don't think there's any way schools can reopen.
What strikes me as odd about these discussions is the way they seem to assume we can predict the future of the epidemic and responses to it. Nobody knows if there will really be a "second wave," or even if there will really be an end to the "first wave."
Which means, I believe, that eventually we will attempt to resume normal life because 'there's no time like the present' and we're just tired of waiting, or getting too poor.
But that's no reason people in academia who have willfully neglected opportunities for health insurance availability are not at fault.
Quote from: mahagonny on May 02, 2020, 08:48:24 AM
Quote from: Caracal on May 02, 2020, 06:53:39 AM
Quote from: spork on May 02, 2020, 04:35:27 AM
Maybe I'm a jaded old man whose thinking usually devolves to "Get off my lawn!" but it looks to me like the desire to avoid financial and reputational damage is the primary driver of university administrators' decision making. If a governor says "the stay at home order is now rescinded, and you don't need to worry about socializing in groups of less than ten people," then administrators are going to open campuses. Then when people get sick in the second wave of contagion administrators can simply say they were following the governor's guidelines.
If there isn't a huge ramp up in testing and contact tracing by the fall, and a big drop off in cases, I don't think there's any way schools can reopen.
What strikes me as odd about these discussions is the way they seem to assume we can predict the future of the epidemic and responses to it. Nobody knows if there will really be a "second wave," or even if there will really be an end to the "first wave."
Which means, I believe, that eventually we will attempt to resume normal life because 'there's no time like the present' and we're just tired of waiting, or getting too poor.
Well, extreme social distancing isn't a long term strategy and was never intended to be one. The point is to:
1. Avoid a disastrous surge of cases that would overwhelm the healthcare system
2. Buy time to get PPEs, find better methods of treatment, ramp up hospital capacity etc.
3. Get cases down enough, while also getting contact tracing and testing up enough that you can have a chance of containing outbreaks or at least knowing when they are getting bad enough in an area that you have to put restrictions back up.
The problem, of course, is that we don't actually have a functioning federal government, and so progress on all of these things has been sporadic and fragmented. But, some form of normal life is going to have to resume. What that means for colleges is really dependent on how much the risks can be contained and managed.
My university is one of the ones planning to open up in the fall. I sat in on a very detailed description of how they're going to try to do it, and I was impressed by the professionalism, which is so sorely lacking in our national plan. They've formed a consortium with other universities in the region and have been developing a plan together, pooling knowledge and expertise. So I think they probably have what approaches as good a plan as can be made. The trouble is that the unknowns are so huge — from what condition the country will be in at that point, to whether students can be induced to keep their distance and behave responsibly outside of class. (I have my doubts about the latter, and in fact my doubts about the former.) They're really just whistling in the dark.
The most persuasive thing was the massive trouble to the university if it cannot open in the fall. The tens of millions that will be lost anyway is staggering; and if the university cannot open, we're the Titanic in the open sea. That's no reason to open at the cost of student lives, however. The plan is to monitor things carefully and go into lockdown in place if the virus exceeds a certain amount. At the moment we are in an area of the country and of the state with very little virus — less than a handful of hospitalizations this week. It's so little that they are doing contact tracing, and they plan to continue this when students return. The idea is to quarantine infected students in hotels for the duration. However, my epidemiologist friends note that this will prove pointless unless they also quarantine everyone the infected student has been in contact with for the previous two weeks. All I can say is: we'll see how well it works. Fortunately I am on leave in the fall.
Quote from: Hegemony on May 03, 2020, 03:57:24 AM
My university is one of the ones planning to open up in the fall. I sat in on a very detailed description of how they're going to try to do it, and I was impressed by the professionalism, which is so sorely lacking in our national plan. They've formed a consortium with other universities in the region and have been developing a plan together, pooling knowledge and expertise. So I think they probably have what approaches as good a plan as can be made. The trouble is that the unknowns are so huge — from what condition the country will be in at that point, to whether students can be induced to keep their distance and behave responsibly outside of class. (I have my doubts about the latter, and in fact my doubts about the former.) They're really just whistling in the dark.
The most persuasive thing was the massive trouble to the university if it cannot open in the fall. The tens of millions that will be lost anyway is staggering; and if the university cannot open, we're the Titanic in the open sea. That's no reason to open at the cost of student lives, however. The plan is to monitor things carefully and go into lockdown in place if the virus exceeds a certain amount. At the moment we are in an area of the country and of the state with very little virus — less than a handful of hospitalizations this week. It's so little that they are doing contact tracing, and they plan to continue this when students return. The idea is to quarantine infected students in hotels for the duration. However, my epidemiologist friends note that this will prove pointless unless they also quarantine everyone the infected student has been in contact with for the previous two weeks. All I can say is: we'll see how well it works. Fortunately I am on leave in the fall.
I think this is the sort of thing that more and better data about transmission and better testing will help with. From what I understand, people are probably usually only contagious for two or three days before they show symptoms. If instant tests became standard you could quickly figure out if someone has the virus and notify all their contacts during that time period. Once they hit the point where a test would show it if they were infected, you test them and they only stay in quarantine if they're positive.
But if they've had low-level symptoms (as are most common with college-age students) for a while, and finally go and get tested after they've already had symptoms for a week, it could easily stretch into 10+ days that they've been spreading the virus. And on a campus, that's a whole lot of people they could have been near enough to transmit it.
Quote from: Hegemony on May 03, 2020, 05:36:16 AM
But if they've had low-level symptoms (as are most common with college-age students) for a while, and finally go and get tested after they've already had symptoms for a week, it could easily stretch into 10+ days that they've been spreading the virus. And on a campus, that's a whole lot of people they could have been near enough to transmit it.
Right, that wouldn't work, but we've seen over the last couple months that people are capable of changing their behavior. It doesn't seem hard to imagine to me that you could create new norms. Give every student a thermometer and have a bunch of posters everyone on campus about the importance of paying attention to symptoms to protect the community. I don't think it would be that hard to create a norm that if you wake up and feel cruddy, you take your temperature. If you have a fever, or some other important symptom, you put your mask on and go straight to the health center where they run an instant test.
The issue with testing is that most colleges are not going to have the capacity to do as many tests as needed. Universities that have their own hospital attached to them? Yes. Everyone else? Highly unlikely.
It's also impossible to guess how students (and their parents) are going to feel about residential college life and in-person classes in August. There may be a sizable group that refuses to do in-person classes even if legally allowed by the local/state government, or a group that is initially for it, but immediately panics once cases arrives on-campus and requires the option to move online even if in-person is still a go with required quarantining of positive cases.
My thinking is that we need a collective guideline to know what could allow for quarantining in residence in the dorms - if we keep dorms to no more than 4 people per bathroom, for example, can those residences remain open even in the face of a city/state mandating another Stay at Home order? Only then can in-person classes be seriously considered and planned for, in my mind, since we're all (presumably) at the mercy of the government as to whether we can truly be open or not, and that could be technically be revoked on a moment's notice, no?
My university is allegedly developing a test. We'll see. As many have said, in all of this we're just building the plane while we're flying it.
"if you wake up (ON A TEST DAY) and feel cruddy, you take your temperature. If you have a fever, or some other important symptom (LIKE TEXT ANXIETY), you put your mask on and go straight to the health center where they run an instant test (TO GET A NOTE TO NOT TAKE THE EXAM)."
I added a few extensions.
I know that I dont want to be furloughed. Im pretty sure that IF we had to choose between open and furlough, open is a better choice. On the other hand, Im in the older with at least one complication group, so I wonder IF my job is worth my life? What is the latter worth without the former (at least until my retirement account recovers AND THEN SOME?)
I wonder about the discussion that Parents dont want to send their youngins off to college IF the virus is around applies to elementary age kids? DO parents of children want their kids home in the fall IF the virus is still around?
Are hotels capable and willing to accept infected people who need to quarantine? Is this really a good plan? If you were infected with a deadly disease would any of you want to spend two weeks in a hotel room?
My own school was planning to have a few students come to campus for hands on work with labs and art studio work starting tomorrow. They were planning to check temperatures and ask questions at certain entry points. They then sent out a desperate email asking for volunteers to staff the entry points. Sorry, I need to rearrange my sock drawer. Now, they canceled all of this after positive cases in our county doubled within a few days.
Quote from: clean on May 03, 2020, 08:28:43 AM
"if you wake up (ON A TEST DAY) and feel cruddy, you take your temperature. If you have a fever, or some other important symptom (LIKE TEXT ANXIETY), you put your mask on and go straight to the health center where they run an instant test (TO GET A NOTE TO NOT TAKE THE EXAM)."
I'd put that very low on my list of concerns. Just have a flexible exam makeup policy. I don't want sick students coming to class.
And please, can we all just agree that whenever classes resume, we aren't going to require doctors notes for absences? It has always been a bad idea, but the last thing we need is to encourage students to waste healthcare resources.
QuoteAnd please, can we all just agree that whenever classes resume, we aren't going to require doctors notes for absences? It has always been a bad idea, but the last thing we need is to encourage students to waste healthcare resources.
On the one hand, they are adults, and I dont require a doctor's note for any reason. I dont require attendance and several times a term I tell them that if they are not feeling well to stay home (or at least to stay the hell away from ME!!)
On the other hand, I dont have ANY problem encouraging students to seek medical treatment! They pay a fee for our student health clinic. I dont know what is there, but even if it is just a nurse practitioner, better that they confirm that they are actually sick (as compared to just having test or other anxiety) so that WHATEVER the cause of the symptoms, that they get it addressed!
(My make up policy is that I dont do make ups. The grade on the final exam replaces the missed tests. There are plenty of in class quizzes and only the top fraction (5 of 8 or 7 of 10, depending on how many we have) count, so there are plenty of opportunities to make up grades for missed quizzes/exams. I dont see that I will change those policies).
Quote from: Anselm on May 03, 2020, 11:17:54 AM
Are hotels capable and willing to accept infected people who need to quarantine? Is this really a good plan? If you were infected with a deadly disease would any of you want to spend two weeks in a hotel room?
Probably. They have a lot of empty rooms and need the money. Would I want to spend two weeks in a hotel room sick? Not for fun, but the alternative would be shutting myself in the spare bedroom in our house and trying desperately to avoid having any contact with my family in our not very big house. Compared to that, a hotel room where a medical professional came by once a day to make sure I was doing ok seems ok.
Quote from: Caracal on May 03, 2020, 11:45:18 AM
Quote from: Anselm on May 03, 2020, 11:17:54 AM
Are hotels capable and willing to accept infected people who need to quarantine? Is this really a good plan? If you were infected with a deadly disease would any of you want to spend two weeks in a hotel room?
Probably. They have a lot of empty rooms and need the money. Would I want to spend two weeks in a hotel room sick? Not for fun, but the alternative would be shutting myself in the spare bedroom in our house and trying desperately to avoid having any contact with my family in our not very big house. Compared to that, a hotel room where a medical professional came by once a day to make sure I was doing ok seems ok.
We tried that (the self-quarantine in home). It didn't work all that well - I'd take a hotel where I have food put outside my door, as long as I have an oximeter and a quick phone line to help I knew would come. I wouldn't want to feel like I'd been abandoned to die there, and there is the rub. At least at home I had my oximeter and knew that someone would come if I called.