Spring 2022 -- Moving Online?

[pgher]

Do you think your schools will extend the first two (2) weeks online for another month or so?

Thanks

Mine already did.  Original plan was "100% back to in person!", then "1st 2 weeks online", now it's "it's 4 weeks online".
I think the admin wants students to move back to campus (and pay for their housing, dining, parking, etc.) even if their classes are online.  Students are NOT amused by this uncertainty.

Yeah, my kid's school is online until after the drop deadline. They feel the bait-and-switch coming already.

[secundem_artem]

The provost at Artem U just announced the first 2 weeks will be online (we have a J term so a late start to Spring classes).  I would not be surprised to see it gets extended.

[FishProf]

My school just cancelled any International field excursions over Spring break.  Including the ones that were needed for about 3 dozen students to graduate in the Spring.   

Mine is domestic and not yet cancelled, but I don't want to run the course without the field component.  We only start the semester Tuesday!

[aprof]

We started this week and admin has made it clear there's no plan to go online.  Most classrooms have been outfitted with recording equipment so isolating students can at least tune in asynchronously.  Frankly, I feel safe.  Everyone is masked, most people are vaccinated and I'm boosted.  My office is in a research building separate from most of the activity.  I do worry for a few people I know who are immunocompromised.

[mamselle]

My school just cancelled any International field excursions over Spring break.  Including the ones that were needed for about 3 dozen students to graduate in the Spring.   

Mine is domestic and not yet cancelled, but I don't want to run the course without the field component.  We only start the semester Tuesday!

Any way to run it right away, as an experiential excursion, even though they're not yet prepared for it, and then 'flip' the preparation, before anyone gets the bright idea to cancel it?

Or are bookings, etc. timed and paid for, so that sort of flexibility is not possible?

Just pondering outside the fishbox...

M.

[FishProf]

Any way to run it right away, as an experiential excursion, even though they're not yet prepared for it, and then 'flip' the preparation, before anyone gets the bright idea to cancel it?

Unfortunately, no.  We are locked-in to March.  I suspect if we were scheduled NOW it would be a hard NO about going.

[Caracal]

Do you think your schools will extend the first two (2) weeks online for another month or so?

Thanks

Mine already did.  Original plan was "100% back to in person!", then "1st 2 weeks online", now it's "it's 4 weeks online".
I think the admin wants students to move back to campus (and pay for their housing, dining, parking, etc.) even if their classes are online.  Students are NOT amused by this uncertainty.

Also pretty useless in terms of actually reducing transmission. Classes where everyone is wearing masks aren't really places where lots of people are going to get infected. Students hanging out in dorms and dining halls is the issue. My school, to their credit, encouraged students not to come back and offered a housing rebate if they wait till in person classes are supposed to resume to move in.

[secundem_artem]

Artem U has just put 1 KN 95 mask in everybody's mailbox.  Can't say as it makes me feel any safer.

[the_geneticist]

Artem U has just put 1 KN 95 mask in everybody's mailbox.  Can't say as it makes me feel any safer.

Wow, they just GAVE you one?  Our safety folks make you sign up to get one, watch a training video, answer questions, sign a form, and walk to [building] to pick it up yourself. 
Then you get exactly one KN95 mask.  Can you get more, you know since you're supposed to change them if they are dirty or damaged?  Of course not!
I wish I was kidding.

[Parasaurolophus]

Wow, they just GAVE you one?  Our safety folks make you sign up to get one, watch a training video, answer questions, sign a form, and walk to [building] to pick it up yourself. 
Then you get exactly one KN95 mask.  Can you get more, you know since you're supposed to change them if they are dirty or damaged?  Of course not!
I wish I was kidding.

Woooow. FYL.

It's like the pandemic hasn't been raging all around us for two years.

[Stockmann]

The deer-in-the-headlights response from my employer has been almost comical. We (non-US) are non-residential so we don't have the dire pressures to fully or nearly fully reopen f2f that some institutions face, but the lack of guidance is farcical. We were supposedly transitioning back towards a mostly f2f/hybrid scenario, but the senior leadership is now basically MIA. What few signals are coming from chairs and so on are that the status quo (online/hybrid, mostly online) will remain in place for the foreseeable future (ironic phrase!). The scarcity of f2f activity is the only serious precaution my employer is taking - there's in principle a mask mandate, but no vaccine mandate in any way, shape or form, no testing, no attempt at contact tracing, etc. I've had a bunch of meetings with students cancelled because they're sick, I've heard through the grapevine of plenty of students getting sick, etc. For f2f sessions in hybrid classes, less than a quarter of enrolled students seem to be showing up - and these are students who chose to enroll in a hybrid class over online alternatives, so right now there isn't much student demand, in practice, for more f2f activity.
On the other hand, students who aren't local are seriously affected by the uncertainty - and for them it's basically binary, either mostly f2f resumes and they move back to the area, or they stay online, hybrid really doesn't work for them. But in any case the senior leadership is relentlessly silent.

[mamselle]

Maybe they're all sick?

M.

[Morden]

While many places in my province have decided to stay online until Feb 24 now, we're going to take a "phased approach" where we bring some face to face classes back, and then 2 weeks later bring on more, etc. if we don't see skyrocketing rates.

[rac]

We will be f2f. But of course we are supposed to accommodate students who may need to be online. What a mess the first few weeks will be! Faculty meetings are in a very crowded small room, we are taking speakers to dinner etc. I won't be attending, but it is not good that my voice on department matters can't be heard. Some other departments are much more cautious, offering hybrid or online faculty meetings. Fabulous.

[Stockmann]

Maybe they're all sick?

M.

I wonder if the absence of a spine counts as a disease...

I forgot to mention one of the more bizarre moves in the whole back-to-f2f theater - our Supreme Leader sent out an email telling us to record videos, do zoom meetings, etc from our desks or offices on campus. This was pure theater, as they're not even pretending to try to enforce it - and it would be insane if they did, given that contingent instructors tend to only have a desk in shared offices, if that, and that a lot of us have a long commute to campus* and many of us bought stuff like whiteboards and stands for phones and so on for online classes, etc so the backlash would be huge if there were a serious attempt to enforce it. It was basically theater directed at the outside world.

*Most profs here do not live at all near campus because most profs are, in fact, not insane (campus is not in Mordor, but...).