Spring 2022 -- Moving Online?

[aprof]

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.

Agreed.  It's like living in a different world from what I hear people worrying about on here.  I've been teaching in person for 2+ weeks.  We wear masks just as in the fall, and students who can't attend watch a recording later.  I appreciate that everyone's student body and class structure are not equivalent but at least here we've had no major problem.  Actually, my biggest problem is getting the "hybrid" office staff to respond to any of my requests.

[Mobius]

We aren't moving online. We can record our lectures, but I chose not to for a few reasons. One is that it does discourage in-person attendance, and students aren't paying attention via live webcast or watching a recorded lecture. The second is I believe instructors should be paid a premium for teaching HyFlex (or whatever you call it).

[the_geneticist]

T minus 5 days until "return to in person instruction".  There is a LOT of unrest.  We have students demanding remote options, students excited to be back to in person, faculty who are quietly deciding to not teach in person even though it's required, faculty who are insisting on no remote options, and any other combination you can think of.
My chair has said "labs are in person".  I figure that issues for students who are not willing/not able to attend in person is above my pay grade to solve.  I'll just defer and kick it all up the chain of command.  Hopefully it's just a handful of noisy students making the most fuss & it won't be an issue for the majority of our students.

[wellfleet]

We learned today that we are returning to in-person next week. Our students have strong vaccination requirements and are eager to return. So am I!

[Parasaurolophus]

Full speed ahead on the 31 because there's no spread traceable to classrooms.

Presumably because they're all online, but whatever. I remain very glad to be sitting this semester out.

[lightning]

We learned today that we are returning to in-person next week. Our students have strong vaccination requirements and are eager to return. So am I!

We learned of a phased return to in-person teaching for those classes that were supposed to be in-person. I'm not sure our students are truly eager to return, even if they say they are eager to return to in-person classes.

[the_geneticist]

I knew it would be a bit of a bumpy first week back, but most students are showing up to their classes on time and prepared.  Most of the chaos is replying to emails about "I might have COVID/been exposed to COVID/woke up feeling [fill in your choice of icky symptom], what do I do???". 
1. Take the survey to see if you can come & then
2. do what it says (come to campus or stay home)
About 2% of my students are missing classes due to COVID symptoms/exposure/what ever other factors go into the "daily COVID survey" check to see if they are OK to come to campus.
I'm sure I'll hear about more when TAs update the grades.  Nothing like a 0 to motivate a student to contact their instructor.

[Aster]

We had a full college meeting recently where the main agenda item was finding ways to get students back onto campus to engage in campus life and campus activities.

But then the admin-wonks devoted the first 15 minutes of the meeting congratulating everyone for all of the fully online courses that we were offering, and then encouraging us to develop more of them because "students really want that."

Perhaps I am in an alternate reality.

[apl68]

We had a full college meeting recently where the main agenda item was finding ways to get students back onto campus to engage in campus life and campus activities.

But then the admin-wonks devoted the first 15 minutes of the meeting congratulating everyone for all of the fully online courses that we were offering, and then encouraging us to develop more of them because "students really want that."

Perhaps I am in an alternate reality.

Well, yes--it alternates between online and in-person.

[Puget]

Our first week back in person went smoothly. We are right back down to 0.28% test positivity rate on campus (boosters and indoor masking required). Everyone seems very happy to be back. ..

Except for one student who says she can't come to class because of her health anxiety is too severe. She thinks she's going to get accommodations for remote instruction but I think that's very unlikely, especially as "reasonable accommodations" have to allow fully meeting the course objectives and this is a discussion based seminar. I feel bad for her, but avoiding being around people in objectively one of the safest environments right now is actually doing her no favors in terms of her anxiety disorders. Also she's been not doing a lot of the online work either, so there is more going on there.

[Mobius]

Right. Reasonable accommodations is not creating a special online program for them.

[rac]

Cases here are increasing amongst students (though so far still decreasing amongst employees) and the updates the university sends out are becoming ... strange. The intended message seems to be that things are going great, but if you read between the lines, there is transmission happening on campus (though not "widespread") and there may be severe illness and hospitalization amongst employees (we do have vax and booster requirements).Perhaps I am reading too much into the messages, but I really don't think so. 

[Caracal]

Cases here are increasing amongst students (though so far still decreasing amongst employees) and the updates the university sends out are becoming ... strange. The intended message seems to be that things are going great, but if you read between the lines, there is transmission happening on campus (though not "widespread") and there may be severe illness and hospitalization amongst employees (we do have vax and booster requirements).Perhaps I am reading too much into the messages, but I really don't think so.

Well, of course there's some transmission happening on campus. What makes you think there are severe illnesses among employees? Obviously possible, but much less likely among vaxed and boosted people all else being equal.

[aprof]

Last week was our 4th week of in person classes and despite this, case rates have fallen dramatically like most places in the US.  The number of cases last week was 1/4 what it was the first week.  With reasonable precautions and relatively high vax rates (unfortunately we do not have a requirement), life can proceed.  We all need to learn to live with COVID as it is not going away.

[Aster]

The U.S. is currently still very much in the omicron wave. Over 2,000 Americans are still dying every day from COVID. That's over 10x the flu death rate.

Case rates might in some regions be rapidly falling (and part of this is a statistical artifact of unreported self-tests), but mean hospitalizations and deaths much less so.

I've currently got one professor across from me who's suffering from long-covid (she caught covid right before her booster shot, and 6 weeks later still has not fully healed), one student who's just recovered from an extended hospital stay, and last night one of my adjuncts reported a sick student who is now in isolation and self-monitoring her symptoms.