Off campus for a few weeks

[lightning]

Do students desirous of a real, ftf class,for which they have signed up, ever actually complain when professors abuse this post-covid ability to switch classes to online?

On traditional residential campuses, definitely yes they complain, for undergraduate level courses within their major.

On those same traditional campuses, you can *probably* get away with it on large enrollment (50+ students) gen ed courses that the students are forced to take and don't really want to be there. The problem is there is always that one guy that will complain when there are a lot of students enrolled. If the enrollment is low (<20), I would say it would *probably* be safe. You can read the room, too, if the enrollment is low, and figure out if the students that are there would care if you switched delivery formats on them.

For the regional commuter universities, the chances of getting away with it increase.

[kaysixteen]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

[lightning]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

The pandemic changed everything. Everyone (students, faculty, admins, & staff), no matter what they said on the outside, on the inside they loved the remote & asynchronous mediation of the work of their jobs.

[fishbrains]

One other concern I might add would be that quite a few students might get used to not coming to class and want to turn the class into something of a hybrid course--whether you want to or not.

[FishProf]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

Family member illness, attending a conference, weather, etc.

Oddly, at my school, When we do request permission to pivot to an online day, even for legitimate reasons, we are usually denied.  So that content just doesn't get delivered.  How is that a "win"?

[ciao_yall]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

The pandemic changed everything. Everyone (students, faculty, admins, & staff), no matter what they said on the outside, on the inside they loved the remote & asynchronous mediation of the work of their jobs.

I hated it. I hated doing everything on Zoom. Hated feeling alone and disconnected.

[EdnaMode]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

The pandemic changed everything. Everyone (students, faculty, admins, & staff), no matter what they said on the outside, on the inside they loved the remote & asynchronous mediation of the work of their jobs.

I hated it. I hated doing everything on Zoom. Hated feeling alone and disconnected.

I hated it too, the lack of connection with students and colleagues, not to mention it was nearly impossible to do anything that resembled proper lab work virtually. And I like keeping work and home totally separate.

[ciao_yall]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

The pandemic changed everything. Everyone (students, faculty, admins, & staff), no matter what they said on the outside, on the inside they loved the remote & asynchronous mediation of the work of their jobs.

I hated it. I hated doing everything on Zoom. Hated feeling alone and disconnected.

I hated it too, the lack of connection with students and colleagues, not to mention it was nearly impossible to do anything that resembled proper lab work virtually. And I like keeping work and home totally separate.

And I hated all the shaming.

Going into the office was because you had no life, hobbies, or self-motivation.

And as faculty if you couldn't keep students engaged online, you suck.

[Larimar]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

The pandemic changed everything. Everyone (students, faculty, admins, & staff), no matter what they said on the outside, on the inside they loved the remote & asynchronous mediation of the work of their jobs.

I hated it. I hated doing everything on Zoom. Hated feeling alone and disconnected.

I hated it too, the lack of connection with students and colleagues, not to mention it was nearly impossible to do anything that resembled proper lab work virtually. And I like keeping work and home totally separate.

And I hated all the shaming.

Going into the office was because you had no life, hobbies, or self-motivation.

And as faculty if you couldn't keep students engaged online, you suck.

I hated trying to teach over Zoom too. I was pouring all my plans and energy into a black hole of silent black screen squares. The students were probably not even there but there would have been no way to prove that they logged on and left. I will never teach a Zoom class again.

[jerseyjay]

Obviously professors do get legitimately ill, but barring illness, whatever possible legit reason for doing this could there be?

The pandemic changed everything. Everyone (students, faculty, admins, & staff), no matter what they said on the outside, on the inside they loved the remote & asynchronous mediation of the work of their jobs.

I hated it. I hated doing everything on Zoom. Hated feeling alone and disconnected.

I hated it too, the lack of connection with students and colleagues, not to mention it was nearly impossible to do anything that resembled proper lab work virtually. And I like keeping work and home totally separate.

And I hated all the shaming.

Going into the office was because you had no life, hobbies, or self-motivation.

And as faculty if you couldn't keep students engaged online, you suck.

The students were probably not even there but there would have been no way to prove that they logged on and left.

I hate Zoom, too.

But my technique was to read the roll at the end. (Since students often logged on from "iphone6" and other nonrelevant accounts, it was necessary to take roll to find out who was there.) Always there'd be some students who were logged on but who did not respond to the roll call. I would leave Zoom on (turning off my camera and muting) and students would often come back in ten, twenty, ninety minutes later and be confused that they were still logged on.

[Langue_doc]

We'd be in big trouble if we decided to change our in-person classes to an online format. The only exception would be a weather-related campus closures when all the classes would be taught online.

[apl68]

My own experience with taking online classes--I never tried to teach one--has always suggested to me that it can work well enough with motivated, grown-up students who have access to good internet connections and adequate computer resources.  With many/most traditional college-age students, I wouldn't think it would work so well.  And, judging from what I've seen here over the past few years, that generally seems to be the case.

[jerseyjay]

To get back to the original question, I still think the answer depends on how long and why.

Moving a class online for one session is not likely to cause a problem. Moving the enter semester online would at most places.

At my school, "a few weeks" (especially all at once) would probably not be acceptable if there is not a very good reason. One full-time colleague had to deal with his parents' illness in another state; another had Covid for several weeks. These were accepted (and cleared through the administration). In my state, state employees (including professors) are not allowed to use work as an excuse to get off jury duty, so I have known colleagues stuck in weeks' long trials.

Ironically, full-timers are probably under more scrutiny than part-timers, in the sense that they would probably be missed more if they didn't show up. I couldn't just move my course online for three weeks. If an adjunct at my school were to try this, and no student complained, it is quite likely nobody would know. However, if a student complained or the administration somehow found out, it could lead to problems.

[the_geneticist]

One other concern I might add would be that quite a few students might get used to not coming to class and want to turn the class into something of a hybrid course--whether you want to or not.

I lived through this nightmare during the "return the campus" in 2022(?)
We had a "remote start" to our Winter term that was originally 2 weeks remote with expectation that week 3 would be in person.  That was stretched to 4 weeks remote.  Students were given 3-days notice that classes would be fully in-person starting Monday of Week 5.
It was bad.
We had a combination of classes that stayed remote, classes that were fully in-person, and classes that were a crazy mix of both.

I had students that really, really wanted labs to be in-person.  And students that really, really wanted labs to be online.  And they all would have been happy to have the option to pick whatever they wanted for any given week.

There is only 1 of me, the class was listed as being in-person, so I was "allowed" to say that there was no remote/hybrid/online option. 

We had a non-tribal amount of students drop out since they had moved away/got jobs/could not longer come to campus.

Like I said, it was BAD.