Quarantine versus Lift Quarantine Discussion

[spork]

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.

[Caracal]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[Caracal]

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.

[secundem_artem]

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.

[jimbogumbo]

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?

[Hibush]

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?

[mahagonny]

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.'

[Hegemony]

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.

[polly_mer]

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.

[mahagonny]

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.

[Hibush]

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.

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.

[polly_mer]

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.

[mahagonny]

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.

[AmLitHist]

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.)