Crowded Classrooms and COVID

[Parasaurolophus]

If we still need to maintain any measure of social distancing in the fall (which seems pretty likely), then it will simply not be possible to do so at my institution unless we lose a third or more of our enrollment, and the admin decides to run classes 2/3 the cap or less (which I doubt they will). The rooms are simply too small for effective distancing.

[dr_codex]

As I've posted elsewhere, most students at my place are required to be in residence. I cannot see that changing unless the industry that we support radically changes, in ways that are conceivable but not currently probable. Even the stuff that we do which is "online" right now will have to be completed in person. Somebody in the "thing you wish you could say" thread was arguing that you'd just not require something like dissection this year; that's fine, but if dissection is required, then you're going to have to get it in somewhere.

Moreover, part of the education is meant to simulate coordinated activity in close quarters. That's going to be tough.

And I, too, expect packed classes in the fall. Our registration is counter-cyclical; the 2008 recession pretty much single-handedly saved my school. The industries that we send graduates into are not recession/depression-proof, and this year's graduating class is going to find it tough going. Indeed, many of them might stick around for graduate school, as well.

I may take a page from Downer's book, and flip my courses in a similar way. I've already got a synchronous hybrid course on my schedule, and may just do the same with the rest of my courses.

[Caracal]

I may take a page from Downer's book, and flip my courses in a similar way. I've already got a synchronous hybrid course on my schedule, and may just do the same with the rest of my courses.

Yeah, its a good idea. Especially, because one very real possibility is that you might see periodic distancing in areas where cases start going up again. It would certainly make sense to think about how to structure classes so they could be switched online without having to change everything. Hybrid models could also be a way to cut down on some of the crowding without losing all the benefits of in person instruction. Again, of course, there are a lot of unknowns here.

[polly_mer]

If you saw people discussing the best way to decorate their unicycles while juggling chainsaws in heavy vehicular traffic, would you weigh in on the relative merits of red stripes versus blue stars or would you point out the more important issues?

Please go read the projections and the larger issues being discussed.https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/next-level-precarity-non-tenure-track-professors-and-covid-19 is particularly relevant.

I still keep thinking of the reports a few years ago of how few American families could come up with $400 in an emergency while I read articles like https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/colleges-announce-furloughs-and-layoffs-financial-challenges-mount .

This particular recession has minimal  underlying factors of 2008 and will not be the same countercycle behaviour.

But, sure, wide red stripes are pretty as long as you ignore the precarious situation for all the unicycle riders.

[dr_codex]

If you saw people discussing the best way to decorate their unicycles while juggling chainsaws in heavy vehicular traffic, would you weigh in on the relative merits of red stripes versus blue stars or would you point out the more important issues?

Please go read the projections and the larger issues being discussed.https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/next-level-precarity-non-tenure-track-professors-and-covid-19 is particularly relevant.

I still keep thinking of the reports a few years ago of how few American families could come up with $400 in an emergency while I read articles like https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/colleges-announce-furloughs-and-layoffs-financial-challenges-mount .

This particular recession has minimal  underlying factors of 2008 and will not be the same countercycle behaviour.

But, sure, wide red stripes are pretty as long as you ignore the precarious situation for all the unicycle riders.

With respect, you have no idea what you are talking about. I'll send you the registration numbers in the fall. We will be packed.

[Caracal]

If you saw people discussing the best way to decorate their unicycles while juggling chainsaws in heavy vehicular traffic, would you weigh in on the relative merits of red stripes versus blue stars or would you point out the more important issues?

Please go read the projections and the larger issues being discussed.https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/next-level-precarity-non-tenure-track-professors-and-covid-19 is particularly relevant.

I still keep thinking of the reports a few years ago of how few American families could come up with $400 in an emergency while I read articles like https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/colleges-announce-furloughs-and-layoffs-financial-challenges-mount .

This particular recession has minimal  underlying factors of 2008 and will not be the same countercycle behaviour.

But, sure, wide red stripes are pretty as long as you ignore the precarious situation for all the unicycle riders.

A. I'm still perplexed about why thinking about the issues of physical infrastructure in light of what might be necessary is somehow ridiculous. I have no idea if my particular classes will be full, heck I don't even know if I will have classes, although I tend to think Dr. Codex is right and that enrollment in the kind of place I teach is not likely to go down. I can tell you, however, that we have a lot of classrooms that can fit 50 students but feel pretty packed with 30 and that even if enrollment is down overall there will be plenty of classes that are full.

B. Ok, I read the article. It just says that nobody has any idea what the situation is going to be in the Fall and that people without security are nervous. No S. I'm anxious about it too. It is really hard to know how any of this is going to play out. As the article points out, administrators don't know either. You seem convinced you have some clear idea of the impact of all of this, but suspiciously enough, it all lines up pretty well with what you thought before this. I'm not going to pretend that I know what is going to happen, maybe you'll be right, but I'm pretty suspicious of confident forecasts of any sort right now.

[dr_codex]

If you saw people discussing the best way to decorate their unicycles while juggling chainsaws in heavy vehicular traffic, would you weigh in on the relative merits of red stripes versus blue stars or would you point out the more important issues?

Please go read the projections and the larger issues being discussed.https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/next-level-precarity-non-tenure-track-professors-and-covid-19 is particularly relevant.

I still keep thinking of the reports a few years ago of how few American families could come up with $400 in an emergency while I read articles like https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/colleges-announce-furloughs-and-layoffs-financial-challenges-mount .

This particular recession has minimal  underlying factors of 2008 and will not be the same countercycle behaviour.

But, sure, wide red stripes are pretty as long as you ignore the precarious situation for all the unicycle riders.

A. I'm still perplexed about why thinking about the issues of physical infrastructure in light of what might be necessary is somehow ridiculous. I have no idea if my particular classes will be full, heck I don't even know if I will have classes, although I tend to think Dr. Codex is right and that enrollment in the kind of place I teach is not likely to go down. I can tell you, however, that we have a lot of classrooms that can fit 50 students but feel pretty packed with 30 and that even if enrollment is down overall there will be plenty of classes that are full.

B. Ok, I read the article. It just says that nobody has any idea what the situation is going to be in the Fall and that people without security are nervous. No S. I'm anxious about it too. It is really hard to know how any of this is going to play out. As the article points out, administrators don't know either. You seem convinced you have some clear idea of the impact of all of this, but suspiciously enough, it all lines up pretty well with what you thought before this. I'm not going to pretend that I know what is going to happen, maybe you'll be right, but I'm pretty suspicious of confident forecasts of any sort right now.

Don't get me wrong: there are many known unknowns facing our campus for at least the next year, many of them arising precisely because of issues of  space and proximity. And it is possible that we will be shuttered altogether -- it's happened once in our history, during a pandemic, and it could again. But if we go down, it won't be because of broader trends in higher education. It will be because very specific, local issues prevent us from operating.

[Hegemony]

The president of Boston University gave an interview in which he spoke about this question.

"We will have government restrictions about how big gatherings are handled. People will behave differently until there is a vaccine for this thing. We are probably going to bring our student community back differently. It probably won't be one mass move-in. We have to be sensitive to all our workers. And then we have to figure out how we'll offer education. It will be in person to the extent we can do it. But can we put 150 students in a classroom? We won't know. People are being naive if they think fall 2020 will look like the fall of 2019."

http://www.bu.edu/articles/2020/president-brown-outlines-bu-path-through-coronavirus-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR311Kr90N0383udFBtPP7xPTXWvhkKJlWqK7cRWIZWM73-ymyZAlxkbV4c

[polly_mer]

A. I'm still perplexed about why thinking about the issues of physical infrastructure in light of what might be necessary is somehow ridiculous.

Because it's part of a very common pattern of behavior and discussion that needs to be addressed to try to ward off entirely foreseeable tragedies and the unnecessary anger/fear/panic/personal lives upheaval.  The fora has the term "Professor Sparklepony" for the professor who has ignored all the discussion on the bigger picture in higher ed in favor of something that aligns with their personal experience, but flat out neglects all the data and context.

It is true that I can't possibly know exactly what the future holds and Dr_Codex might be right about one particular campus.

However, ignoring the big picture of what's happening in higher ed at large or certain sectors leads to entirely predictable and angry claims when  the shit does hit the fan for each individual who has been in that probable outcome bucket for years.  It is a pattern that is so predictable that I dread certain times of the year on these fora and in the quit lit because of the first-person essays filled with such avoidable pain regarding academic employment in certain fields, programs closing, and institutions closing.

"How could this have happened?"
"No one knew"
"No one could have known"
"What do I do now in this situation that caught 'everyone' off-guard?"

The assertion in one recent thread was we should wait to give the bigger picture advice until someone has voiced a naive expectation.  Having individual faculty deal with physical infrastructure planning now is a naive expectation that needs to be addressed in the bigger picture.

It's not ridiculous for administrators or a faculty committee on each campus to be looking at fall and be planning ahead for what physical infrastructure changes would be needed if they are open, holding physical classes, and yet some version of social distancing must hold.  What is naive-on-the-border-of-ridiculous is to expect that somehow the campus is open and all the decisions related to hybrid/online/different physical arrangement of the classrooms would be up to the individual faculty, especially individual faculty who are adjuncts.

Someone will make the decisions in that situation, but it's not individual faculty struggling alone in the first week of class.

It's what you didn't say that makes me sigh heavily about again seemingly like a Professor Sparklepony who is focusing on the wrong aspect by ignoring the big picture.

Threads relevant to faculty preparing for a very different fall that wouldn't have raised that any thoughts of Professor Sparklepony running down an irrelevant rabbit hole include:

* Discussion about converting to a hybrid course from a course one has taught for years in person.  Planning for a different fall in that sense is reasonable and within an individual faculty member's control.

* Discussion about best practices for online and/or hybrid teaching because the quick conversion to online is not right for the fall.  Again, that's planning for a different fall that is within an individual faculty member's control.

* Starting a general discussion thread about how/when/if life returns to normal with one strand hypothesizing on physical distancing in classrooms and office hours.

You've never said, it's all going to be fine for most people, especially those who work hard and get a little lucky, but that's still the obvious impression for those of us who are keeping up with the big-picture discussion upon encountering a hypothesized situation in which the institution is open, plenty of classes are available to people who are teaching this term, those classes are generally full enough, social distancing is still a thing, and yet somehow it's up to individual faculty members to figure out the physical part, decide to go hybrid, or decide to go online.

Of course, if one works at an institution that plans so poorly and is so poorly run that individual faculty members will have to sort it all out in real time in the fall, even the adjuncts who have no control over anything, then, again, that's a different discussion to have regarding that big-picture reality of working at a struggling institution that's probably not going to be open the following fall, not just the concrete details of how to implement social distancing one classroom at a time in the fall.

[Caracal]

Because it's part of a very common pattern of behavior and discussion that needs to be addressed to try to ward off entirely foreseeable tragedies and the unnecessary anger/fear/panic/personal lives upheaval.  The fora has the term "Professor Sparklepony" for the professor who has ignored all the discussion on the bigger picture in higher ed in favor of something that aligns with their personal experience, but flat out neglects all the data and context.

If you weren't interested in the thread you were free to just not read it or respond to it. You're being the person at the conference who always asks "why is this paper about y, I think it should be about x, because I'm interested in x."

And stop trying to police what I'm allowed to discuss. Of course, I don't make these decisions, but as someone who will have to live with them, I'm allowed to discuss them here. You haven't worked in academia for a number of years, don't supervise adjuncts and aren't involved in decision making but feel free to opine on all of these things.

And seriously I really would appreciate if you could keep this more civil. In the last week you have now called me professor sparkleberry, made weird comments about my personal life and insisted multiple times that I don't read enough articles about higher education. It isn't even part of an argument, since you seem to be having an argument with an imaginary version of me that has written things I haven't and believes things that I don't.

[Hegemony]

At my place, I can well believe that individual faculty would be in charge of the decisions related to hybrid/online/different physical arrangement of the classrooms. "Reinvent the wheel" is practically the motto of my place.  Of course, someone would notice halfway through the semester that there was no campus-wide policy, and then they would mandate that everyone report on how they had been keeping their students safe, using a clunky and ill-suited online report form that would go down many times in the middle of entering the many pages of pointless data before a hasty deadline.

[dr_codex]

At my place, I can well believe that individual faculty would be in charge of the decisions related to hybrid/online/different physical arrangement of the classrooms. "Reinvent the wheel" is practically the motto of my place.  Of course, someone would notice halfway through the semester that there was no campus-wide policy, and then they would mandate that everyone report on how they had been keeping their students safe, using a clunky and ill-suited online report form that would go down many times in the middle of entering the many pages of pointless data before a hasty deadline.

Hah! I have a copy of that report, if you want to read it.

[Cheerful]

Count me among those concerned about in-person fall classes.  As others mention, the Registrar over-packs our classrooms.  Faculty have long questioned fire code rules.

My campus is full of frequent global and national travelers -- students, faculty, staff.  As of today, I won't feel safe on campus until there's a vaccine.  I don't want to teach fully online but fortunately have that option and will likely do so.  Many on my campus have long taught "hybrid" courses: partly on-campus, partly online.

Today, 50/50 chance all fall classes at my U will be fully online.

[Anselm]

The Covid thread in general discussion got me thinking... I really, really hope we are back to in person classes in the Fall. But, when I think about many of the classrooms I teach in, they seem incredibly inappropriate for a world where, hopefully, we don't have rampant spread of the virus, but it is still appropriate for everyone to be taking reasonable precautions.

I've had fantasies for years of placing an anonymous call to the fire Marshall about one of my classrooms, which has been packed with so many desks that I have to make sure I hold my bag close to my elbow so I don't bash student's heads as I walk to the front of the room, like I'm walking down the aisle of a plane. Last year a student who was trying to hand his completed exam to me tripped and fell completely over a desk. I really wonder how it meets the fire code.

Is that going to be ok in the Fall? If you're a student sitting in the middle of that room, you probably have 5 people breathing within six feet of you. That just seems like a significant public health risk if we are in a situation where things are better but there's a need to avoid new waves of cases

Long ago on the old CHE Fora people openly claimed to have done this and I have been tempted to that myself.   I forgot about this "nuclear option" recently since enrollment has been down in the past few years. 

[doc700]

I am at an R1.  My university is trying to think about restarting research labs much before they restart classes (although not for some time yet).  I think its not unreasonable to have people in a research lab 6 feet apart.  Its not convenient, but you could imagine some type of shift schedule to do experiments with any data analysis, writing etc still at home.  Group meeting still over Zoom.  We would need at least 2 people in the lab for safety but I could imagine getting back to say 70% (up from 0%) with some pretty heavy restrictions is place.  With some extremely heavy restrictions -- such as 1 person for 1 hour every 3 days -- we could probably get to 20%, operating tools remotely with just a bit of human involvement.

The problem with undergrads on our campus is the dorms not the classrooms.  It seems like we could also solve the classrooms problem but there is no way to solve dorm problem where they are in close proximity. 

At my university they are discussing online classes only for the fall already - might be that crowded classrooms will be a problem postponed to the next spring.
I am wondering about lab research though - in most labs it's difficult to keep 6 feet distance as the lab is not big enough - however I do expect R1 institutions to get back to research sometime soon. Does any other college discuss online classes only? And what about research labs?