It's time to end the consensual hallucination of fall in-person classes

[Liquidambar]

I happened to hear Fauci speaking this week.  He was asked when college students will get vaccinated and said probably May '21.  If so, that bodes well for a normal Fall '21 semester.

My school is supposedly doing not one but two graduation ceremonies this May.  We have the normal one for this year's graduates and a delayed one for last year's graduates.  I am unexcited.

[Vkw10]

Any news from your places about commencement?  Clouds on the horizon suggest Artem-Prez wants to hold a F2F ceremony.  We have a very low prevalence of Covid on campus, but who knows what cases of the rabies and the scabies and the flu all the various grandmothers, uncles and third cousins twice removed will visit upon our little corner of the ivory tower.

I'm thinking this is a bad idea.

Haven't heard a word, but I highly doubt F2F commencement will happen at my place in early May. Probably in December though, if trends continue.

We had a couple of f2f commencements in December, with May and August graduates given option to participate. We have six f2f commencements scheduled for May. We're expecting to be mostly f2f in fall. We may even run camps and travel study programs this summer, although probably just in USA.

[Mobius]

Fauci needs to stop riffing about what's going to happen, especially with vaccine availability. He's already had to backtrack about all adults have the chance by April or May. That being said, students should be able to get vaccinated by fall.

I happened to hear Fauci speaking this week.  He was asked when college students will get vaccinated and said probably May '21.  If so, that bodes well for a normal Fall '21 semester.

My school is supposedly doing not one but two graduation ceremonies this May.  We have the normal one for this year's graduates and a delayed one for last year's graduates.  I am unexcited.

[the_geneticist]

It's a tangent, but somewhat related. In reality, who has the authority to determine mode of instruction? In most institutions, faculty are encouraged to emphasize certain modes (especially online before the pandemic) in an effort to stem enrollment declines. Funny how F2F is the emphasis, even though students don't seem to prefer it if you look at F2F attendance across the country (especially at regional publics with fairly lax admissions standards).

It is an issue for the faculty senate and/or union to hash out with provosts and deans.

I think the previous emphasis on online coursework was due to a widespread belief that once you have a university and its infrastructure running, adding online classes is a relatively cheap way to bring in more tuition. Allegedly all you need is (cheap) instructors and a little extra IT support, so most of the new tuition is *profits*

Now we are dealing with the fact that at many places the traditional students we built and maintain the infrastructure for want a "college experience" and their parents don't want to pay for room and board and expensive tuition if the actual education part looks to them just like online coursework at the local community college.

I don't actually think either of these premises is particularly well grounded in fact, but it's my guessat the perverse incentives that are driving our decisions right now.

Actually, most community colleges have AMAZING online courses.  Why? Because the courses were always intended to be online and someone has spent a lot of time and effort to make them really good.  My online classes are pretty good, but nowhere near what I'd want if I'd had more time, money, training, and the intention of creating an online class.

[Aster]

Actually, most community colleges have AMAZING online courses.  Why? Because the courses were always intended to be online and someone has spent a lot of time and effort to make them really good.  My online classes are pretty good, but nowhere near what I'd want if I'd had more time, money, training, and the intention of creating an online class.

I'll agree that community colleges often have in-built infrastructures that support excellent *layouts* for online courses. They may certainly be very pretty looking. But I've certainly seen just as many (if not more) online courses at community colleges as I have for those at 4-year universities that are nothing more than stagnant courses in a can. Same recorded lectures re-posted every term. Same assessment used every term... and eventually copied/sold on the internet. Indeed, my online professors usually give me the most grief out of most of the rest of the faculty for choosing to never update or change anything to their canned courses. It's one of the pitfalls of fully online instruction. It takes so much more effort to modify and publish online content that once a professor does it, he/she is very reluctant to mess with it. Many of my fully online colleagues have become so disengaged from actual teaching now that they are also mostly disengaged from other job duties also.

It's a much more slippery slope with fully online instruction. There is the capability to create good courses on par or maybe even better than standard courses, but there is also the capability to create extremely bad courses that are worse than anything imaginable in a standard course. Fully online instructors have to have a greater professional discipline to keep their courses fresh and dynamic. And if you only teach online, there is the tendency for a greater and greater "slacking off" with one's courses over time. My very worst professors are the fully online ones. I've even had to fire some. And every one of those fired folks had very pretty online web-designs and some had even won local awards for how pretty they looked.

The COVID pandemic makes me very anxious for the future of Higher Education, because so many professors are teaching remotely right now that normally would not/should not/could not. I have very real fears that a lot of additional professors will see just how easy it can be to absolve oneself from teaching duties by slapping their classes into pre-programmed cans and letting the things alone. I am already observing signs and symptoms of this at my current institution. Indeed, I've been observing some pretty crummy behaviors with this in myself. The sooner than we get back to regular teaching and a full on-campus restoration of academic services, the much better off that the Academy will be.

[marshwiggle]

I'll agree that community colleges often have in-built infrastructures that support excellent *layouts* for online courses. They may certainly be very pretty looking. But I've certainly seen just as many (if not more) online courses at community colleges as I have for those at 4-year universities that are nothing more than stagnant courses in a can. Same recorded lectures re-posted every term. Same assessment used every term... and eventually copied/sold on the internet. Indeed, my online professors usually give me the most grief out of most of the rest of the faculty for choosing to never update or change anything to their canned courses. It's one of the pitfalls of fully online instruction. It takes so much more effort to modify and publish online content that once a professor does it, he/she is very reluctant to mess with it.

I definitely concur. Even just the logistics of slogging through the LMS is much more complicated than skimming over my webpages which I used pre-pandemic. I could scroll down one page for each course, and click on any link to examine the underlying document. However, with the LMS, it requires much more going in and out of folders, and EVERY.SINGLE.OPERATION involves more steps then before. Coupled with not directly observing students trying to perform the tasks, it's a much more abstract and detached process.

[histchick]

Any news from your places about commencement?  Clouds on the horizon suggest Artem-Prez wants to hold a F2F ceremony.  We have a very low prevalence of Covid on campus, but who knows what cases of the rabies and the scabies and the flu all the various grandmothers, uncles and third cousins twice removed will visit upon our little corner of the ivory tower.

I'm thinking this is a bad idea.

We found out yesterday that we are having "multiple small ceremonies," but no one has a clue of the details.  This includes folks who are normally tasked with graduation planning from start to finish.  If my husband and I aren't vaccinated yet, though, we're not attending. 

[spork]

Any news from your places about commencement?  Clouds on the horizon suggest Artem-Prez wants to hold a F2F ceremony.  We have a very low prevalence of Covid on campus, but who knows what cases of the rabies and the scabies and the flu all the various grandmothers, uncles and third cousins twice removed will visit upon our little corner of the ivory tower.

I'm thinking this is a bad idea.

We found out yesterday that we are having "multiple small ceremonies," but no one has a clue of the details.  This includes folks who are normally tasked with graduation planning from start to finish.  If my husband and I aren't vaccinated yet, though, we're not attending.

We got the same sort of announcement -- possibility of multiple events because of social distancing, graduates not allowed to have guests present. I am not attending in person even if I am vaccinated.

[whynotbc]

Is it time to revive? Rice University is going online for the first two weeks given a high positivity test rate. In terms of vaccination, 94% of students are vaccinated and 82% of the faculty. They have a mask mandate indoors and are testing. Obviously, the fact they are testing is why they detected the virus in the Rice community. Faculty can get an exemption to keep teaching in person.

https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/provost-fall-course-instruction-update-aug-19
https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/dou-please-read-important-updates-our-fall-start
https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rice-university-covid-virtual-learning/285-9413fc02-9035-4ef0-9a77-5989b2a97e1f

[Caracal]

Is it time to revive? Rice University is going online for the first two weeks given a high positivity test rate. In terms of vaccination, 94% of students are vaccinated and 82% of the faculty. They have a mask mandate indoors and are testing. Obviously, the fact they are testing is why they detected the virus in the Rice community. Faculty can get an exemption to keep teaching in person.

https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/provost-fall-course-instruction-update-aug-19
https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/dou-please-read-important-updates-our-fall-start
https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rice-university-covid-virtual-learning/285-9413fc02-9035-4ef0-9a77-5989b2a97e1f

I mean, what's the end game? Vaccines aren't perfect, but they should blunt transmission and will prevent the vast majority of severe disease. That doesn't mean we should just do nothing, but online teaching isn't sustainable in the long run. This won't go on forever, but I don't think there's any reason to think this is all going to be gone by next semester.

[mamselle]

Is it time to revive? Rice University is going online for the first two weeks given a high positivity test rate. In terms of vaccination, 94% of students are vaccinated and 82% of the faculty. They have a mask mandate indoors and are testing. Obviously, the fact they are testing is why they detected the virus in the Rice community. Faculty can get an exemption to keep teaching in person.

https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/provost-fall-course-instruction-update-aug-19
https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/dou-please-read-important-updates-our-fall-start
https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rice-university-covid-virtual-learning/285-9413fc02-9035-4ef0-9a77-5989b2a97e1f

A friend teaches there, and his wife's going through an immunotherapy regime for breast CA.

I'm glad to hear that, I know he has been worried about the ramifications of having to teach in-person, and was checking into a waiver.

M.

[Caracal]

Is it time to revive? Rice University is going online for the first two weeks given a high positivity test rate. In terms of vaccination, 94% of students are vaccinated and 82% of the faculty. They have a mask mandate indoors and are testing. Obviously, the fact they are testing is why they detected the virus in the Rice community. Faculty can get an exemption to keep teaching in person.

https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/provost-fall-course-instruction-update-aug-19
https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/dou-please-read-important-updates-our-fall-start
https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rice-university-covid-virtual-learning/285-9413fc02-9035-4ef0-9a77-5989b2a97e1f

A friend teaches there, and his wife's going through an immunotherapy regime for breast CA.

I'm glad to hear that, I know he has been worried about the ramifications of having to teach in-person, and was checking into a waiver.

M.

Yes, to be clear, I'm really sympathetic to faculty who are immune compromised or have someone in their family who is. They need to be able to stay out of the classroom if that's what they choose.

[marshwiggle]

Is it time to revive? Rice University is going online for the first two weeks given a high positivity test rate. In terms of vaccination, 94% of students are vaccinated and 82% of the faculty. They have a mask mandate indoors and are testing. Obviously, the fact they are testing is why they detected the virus in the Rice community. Faculty can get an exemption to keep teaching in person.

https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/provost-fall-course-instruction-update-aug-19
https://coronavirus.rice.edu/news/dou-please-read-important-updates-our-fall-start
https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rice-university-covid-virtual-learning/285-9413fc02-9035-4ef0-9a77-5989b2a97e1f

I mean, what's the end game? Vaccines aren't perfect, but they should blunt transmission and will prevent the vast majority of severe disease. That doesn't mean we should just do nothing, but online teaching isn't sustainable in the long run. This won't go on forever, but I don't think there's any reason to think this is all going to be gone by next semester.

As long as we're still having waves of infection and hospitalization, we haven't reached a "new normal". Specifically, if the area surrounding an institution is having a rising rate of hospitalizations for covid, remote teaching may be the most prudent choice. On the other hand, if/when we reach a point where there is a steady state of 2-3 hospitalizations (or whatever)  for covid over a period of at least a couple of months, then it's probably realistic to see it as the forseeable future reality.

[Diogenes]

A bit of a lite wildcat strike at Spelman. Many faculty are refusing to return to face-to-face https://www.ajc.com/education/some-spelman-faculty-refusing-to-teach-in-person-due-to-covid-19-safety-concerns/65UMGAILTBETDGZOE4EUUPM4MU/

[mleok]

I've requested to teach remotely in Fall, as I have a young child who cannot yet be vaccinated. In talking to my vice chair for undergraduate affairs, a number of my colleagues in similiar situations have made the same request. I think more generally, the pedagogical value of in-person instruction for large lecture classes do not outweigh the increased risk, and it probably makes more sense to prioritize in-person instruction for smaller, discussion or lab based classes.