Spring 2022 -- Moving Online?

[Caracal]

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...).

I'm not really sure I understand it even as theater. Who, exactly, cares where faculty record their zoom lectures from? Surely not students, but I can't really see  the state legislators or trustees giving a crap either.

If I lived fifteen minutes from campus, I probably would go to my office to teach my zoom classes. I find teaching from home sort of depressing. However, I'm not going to spend 80 minutes in the car and have less time to help with the morning stuff at home just so I can teach at a different desk.

[the_geneticist]

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...).

I'm not really sure I understand it even as theater. Who, exactly, cares where faculty record their zoom lectures from? Surely not students, but I can't really see  the state legislators or trustees giving a crap either.

If I lived fifteen minutes from campus, I probably would go to my office to teach my zoom classes. I find teaching from home sort of depressing. However, I'm not going to spend 80 minutes in the car and have less time to help with the morning stuff at home just so I can teach at a different desk.

I would bet good money that someone had an "unprofessional" setting for a Zoom call.  In their car?  Not fully dressed?  Pool deck from an exclusive resort?

[Caracal]

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...).

I'm not really sure I understand it even as theater. Who, exactly, cares where faculty record their zoom lectures from? Surely not students, but I can't really see  the state legislators or trustees giving a crap either.

If I lived fifteen minutes from campus, I probably would go to my office to teach my zoom classes. I find teaching from home sort of depressing. However, I'm not going to spend 80 minutes in the car and have less time to help with the morning stuff at home just so I can teach at a different desk.

I would bet good money that someone had an "unprofessional" setting for a Zoom call.  In their car?  Not fully dressed?  Pool deck from an exclusive resort?

I've met with students in my car. The car was parked...

[Stockmann]

I'm not really sure I understand it even as theater...

It wasn't good theater, that's for sure. Some of the politicians and media do seem upset that campus looks pretty empty. Maybe we should put inflatable dolls next to the windows or something. I passed the campus of one of our regional competitors on the way to the dentist a couple of times late last year and it didn't really look very different from ours. Like us, they don't dare have vaccine mandates, testing mandates or contact tracing.

If I lived fifteen minutes from campus, I probably would go to my office to teach my zoom classes. I find teaching from home sort of depressing. However, I'm not going to spend 80 minutes in the car and have less time to help with the morning stuff at home just so I can teach at a different desk.

I'd say at my employer most profs live at least half an hour's drive from campus with low traffic. I do know one prof who used to live within walking distance, but that's just one of many insane things he's done. So yeah, almost nobody is going daily.

I would bet good money that someone had an "unprofessional" setting for a Zoom call.  In their car?  Not fully dressed?  Pool deck from an exclusive resort?

I've met with students in my car. The car was parked...

I attended a zoom meeting with a Chair and a bunch of profs in my car, which was parked. Apparently, as I learned today, some folks from the local media showed up to the campus, and the higher-ups kind of panicked and hence the email.

[mamselle]

My Oxford Bodleian library backdrop is very useful in some situations...

Zoom doesn't require a green screen anymore for most basic background coverups.

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

R2C postponed to the 24th...

[mamselle]

..as you predicted...

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

..as you predicted...

M.

Hehe.

January 31 now.

[the_geneticist]

And after 2 weeks of radio silence, we got an email yesterday morning to say "we're going to entirely in-person classes next week!".

Better buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[apl68]

Public libraries around the country are now deciding not to even try to have in-person summer reading.  For the third year in a row.  Three years!  That's a big chunk of a childhood with no regular library activities.

[Stockmann]

Yesterday I went to campus to sign some documents, because apparently electronic signature wasn't enough. The secretary in charge of it didn't show up at all, and it took a while to get hold of anyone with the required keys and knowledge of where everything is so I could friggin' sign the paperwork. I was lucky I didn't try on a Friday, because even though the who eventually got me the paperwork is supposed to physically show up every day, he skips Fridays - he's still apparently the most frequent flyer of folks with access to that office, including the Head of Department. While we were chatting afterwards, some guy showed up saying he had an appointment with one of the MIA secretaries, apparently about something accounting-related. So we seem to be, far from professors back regularly working from their desks, inching towards de facto online; at any rate, omicron does seem to be keeping people away from campus. Given the omicron surge, some new restrictions have been announced, though physical attendance is low enough that these were being met before the surge anyway; the suggestion? requirement? that professors zoom, etc from their desks isn't even mentioned in these announcements (Is it in effect in some abstract, theoretical way? Is it dead from lack of exercise? Who can tell?).

[downer]

It's odd reading these descriptions of empty campuses. At the campus I teach on, everyone is triple vaccinated, and everything is as normal, except that people wear masks.

In the region, numbers of COVID are going down fast and hospitalization has plateaued, maybe declining a little. I was half expecting the semester to be delayed, but now I am glad it wasn't.

So far no students have been absent due to COVID. Everyone is turning up to class.

[the_geneticist]

Staff folks here have been TERRIBLE about communicating their "remote work schedule".  I have TAs that can't get keys because the person who signs out keys isn't in; a new hire from Fall still doesn't have a chair for her office because it hasn't been ordered; and don't even get me started about the lead time needed to send anything out (supplies, copies, etc.).

Look, I'd LOVE to be able to work from home, but it's better for everyone else if I don't.  My department looks abandoned with the lights off in the hallways, all the doors closed, no one actually in their office. 

[AmLitHist]

BFF/colleague in the next building over has only 34 students total in 2 F2F classes, and already has had 3 students who attended class last week let her know today that they've tested positive.

[Puget]

We return to in person a week from today. I'm looking forward to it-- cases are dropping both in the community and campus, boosters and masks are required.

Of course, I just got my first email from a study suggesting she wants to stay remote. On one level I'm sympathetic, but unless she applies for and gets an actual accommodation for remote instruction (which they are giving out only for students with particular health risks), I'm not going to make the class hybrid just for her. For one thing it's a seminar and there is no way she can adequately participate in discussion that way. I referred her to the appropriate office if she wants to pursue an accommodation.