Tales From America's Covid Campuses
 

One of my daughters sent me this and I'm horrified. This sounds like some dystopian novel. If my sons' campuses start this sh**, they will be returning home.

https://jordanschachtel.substack.com...V4tNyAsNUM93fk

Yikes! I wonder how everyone keeps forgetting about mental health and well being right now...

My nephew is a commuter student, but if he lived in campus at an out of state school, I’d tell him to not even go back. This is ridiculous. He’s also a science major, and his experience is being diluted because of all of this. He is into sustainability and they have an ecological center/farm the kids would go to several days a week. Things like that are just no longer and option...yet tuition remains the same.

I have a background in public health, but I think this is going way too far.

Last March, everyone had to leave my younger sons' campus. The dorm students got refunds. The apartment students did not, so they had to pay rent all spring and summer despite losing their on-campus jobs.

Furthermore, many, many professors had or have no idea how to teach online. They are crafting together some crappy patchwork courses that these kids are having to take because no one knows what to do and the universities need the money. Parents and students are paying the regular tuition rate and the students are pretty much teaching themselves. :mad::mad:

If I were one of those Purdue students in the article, I would be suing my apartment complex.

It’s just nuts. He’s a science major, and he’s always been a straight A student. He struggled with Chem II last semester- I suspect the problems were related to the forced online format. I, as a person with a STEM degree, just wonder if he will be competitive in the job market versus someone like me that went to school entirely in person. So much stuff is hands on in science.

The other argument I have against all this online is that a large part of what you learn in college (or any school setting for that matter), you don’t learn intellectually. These kids are supposed to be learning how to be adults, but they can’t leave their rooms without helicopters circling above? What are we doing to this generation? Being social in those first few weeks at college is a HUGE part of the experience. I remember being so overwhelmed- I just wanted to go everywhere and do everything. I couldn’t imagine having someone take that away. Personal development is also important.

The IDS just published an excellent article about how things have - and haven’t - changed at IU this year.

This is beyond psychotic!! Withdraw and get $$ back...or if the school balks, get together with others and file a fraud lawsuit. This IS fraud, pandemic or not. Spend the semester reading the Great Books and call it a day.

Yep. My senior at U of Oregon will do classes online at home. At least he can continue to work his summer job and see local friends. The mental health implications for this age group will be much worse than the Covid implications.

Well, folks it didn’t have to be this bad. Most other countries took decisive action early and have far fewer cases and their lives are much more back to normal.

Is any of this surprising? Universities don’t want to get sued. College kids are notoriously strong-willed.

And yes, as Iota said....it didn’t have to be this way.

Yeah, we should have definitely done this.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vic...-wearing-masks

(In case there are any complete idiots reading this I’m being sarcastic.)

I have a friend who took their daughter (a freshman) to college a few weeks ago, completely optimistic, with good faith that everyone would take all precautions seriously and things would work out okay. The school has already changed course and sent everyone home for virtual learning for the rest of the semester. Unfortunately, their daughter tested positive for Covid, so she has been sent to some sort of quarantine apartment (not her original dorm room) where she has to stay until it gets over it, then she can return home.

It sounds like colleges are desperate to:

a) Mitigate their financial losses by attempting to offer "some kind" of classes this fall

while also

b) Lowering their liability in case any students catch COVID19 and become severely ill

It's as if the colleges want to have their cake and eat it too. I expect that enrollment numbers will drop significantly for the spring semester once students and their families realize that this format of higher education isn't working for them and that they aren't getting the experience they wanted for the full price they are paying.

I don't have children; but, if I had a child going into college this year, I'd seriously discuss the benefits of taking the online classes from home with him or her. I can't see the benefit in paying full price for my kid to be isolated, without friends, in a dorm room to do Zoom calls when they could have more freedom and less expenses at home.

Our boys planned to do study abroad next summer in Spain and Japan, respectively. If I thought that that would be available this spring, I would want them to go then.

Honestly, if I had a kid, I think I’d just suggest going active duty in the military for a few years and just doing college when they’re done. My friend’s daughter was going back and forth about doing AD before college, or joining the Reserves, and she’s pretty much committed to AD since this has all happened.

There’s no way the current college “experience” is worth full tuition...

I see no way to manage a pandemic with dorms and greek housing in play. Community bathrooms and close living quarters, even on campuses where all kids are in singles are petri dishes. My friend's son has been back at LSU for less than 2 weeks and he has tested positive for COVID along with 12 other guys in his fraternity house. He cannot travel home. He has an inhaler and steroids and she's worried sick about him. She didn't want him to go back but he did.

There are several campuses where whole fraternity and sorority houses are on quarantine because of multiple positive cases in the houses. I don't know what the right answer is. How many house associations/corps can pay the mortgage without the students paying rent? Not many, I'm guessing. The response has been mucked up from the beginning and we are far past the possibility of containment.

As for the military being an option- my son's buddy in the Marines is quarantined on their base because there are so many positive cases. There is also no way for them to social distance, so that's not a great answer either.

I'm relieved my kids are grown and working in jobs they can work from home.

All of this. And it's just going to keep happening. And then students are potentially missing a week+ of classes. My mom had COVID (and fortunately made a full recovery!), and her whole company was working from home, but she had numerous days where she'd log in, start working, and very quickly realize she felt too miserable to even sit up in bed and type.

And then professors are having to figure out how to have students make up the work. Imagine having to miss two weeks of class when you have a lab, for example. I started my college career in engineering, and I had to take Chemistry, which had both a lecture and lab component. The lab was once a week for three hours. I missed one lab because I was sick, and arranging to make up that class was a pain in the a**! Imagine missing two to three weeks and then having to work with the poor professors who have to help everyone figure all this out.

I also understand it's difficult to teach a class such as that when it's virtual, and it becomes observational rather than hands-on, but isn't that better than dealing with the chaos?

But again, the US could have handled this so much better, and we didn't. And half this country believes in social distancing and wearing masks, and the others don't. So... this is where we're at.

Exactly. The military isn't necessarily a better option. I wonder what their recruitment practices look like right now? My brother joined the Army years ago, and I went to his basic training graduation and saw the barracks, and let me tell you... it's not any better than college dorms. In fact, they're worse. At least in the dorms there are only two people to a room. Do a Google search on "Fort Jackson barracks" (or any military base, really), and you'll see that this shouldn't be a recommended course of action for avoiding COVID.

If I was 18 and was looking to start college this year, I'd probably put it off entirely if it was possible. Or attend a community college with online courses, save some money, and start my on-campus college career later. The thing is, everyone is in the same boat and struggling in the same ways right now, so the "fear of missing out" isn't really as strong as it would be under normal circumstances. And I wouldn't want my freshman year to be all about sitting in my dorm all the time, wearing masks, not being able to socialize, and taking most of my classes online.

I actually went to Basic at Ft Jackson.

I didn’t say it’s safer (obviously since people are still getting deployed), but to me, it would be better than sitting in my hometown working a minimum wage job and taking substandard classes.

But maybe I think that way because I always wish I’d have gone on active duty?

I just feel so bad for this generation.

I was in my schools discussions around reopening, and honestly, no matter which way you went, there are no winners. We announced intentions to remain virtual very early on, as soon as we got state approval, and then our tech team worked with each faculty member to develop their programs for online delivery (as opposed to zoom teaching that was the spring). We got a lot of appreciation from our student body for that "at least we know", and our tuition points and enrollment numbers remained really strong, but we took a major revenue hit - in the tune of multi-millions of dollars - in housing. We've had furloughs, massive budget cuts, and I expect that more is coming.
Truth be told, not every school can sustain that kind of loss.

Then you had the schools that were determined to open no matter what and then realized that they couldn't pull it off, pissing off parents and student who in some cases were literally en route to school, or in other cases, had the plug pulled the day or a few days after tuition, room and board were due in full (yes, that was calculated, don't be fooled).

Then you had the schools who opened no matter what, and their biggest fault was not being transparent ENOUGH. I GUARANTEE YOU, every single higher ed professional KNEW dorms are the problem. They knew that within in a matter of weeks, if not days, they were going to be at this point. They knew the measures that would be taken when an outbreak happened and while yes, those measures were communicated, it wasin a slew of welcome back messaging, that had people 1) excited about the return and 2) felt really positive about the safety measures on campus. It was always "if" there was an outbreak, not "when." It was "infected students will be isolated" not "entire dorms may be isolated" making it seems like case-by-case. It was "isolated students will be taken care of" not "isolated students will be cared for and should be prepared to see health staff in extensive PPE to mitigate spread," etc.

And then, I hate to say it, you have the ignorance of those who didn't think this would be an issue. We are in a global pandemic, how anybody couldn't see this coming on college campuses, I truly don't understand. I suppose I can be okay with the students not understanding. But I truly don't understand the older adults in this mess who are complaining about the student experience. To them, I say, what did you expect and how did you think it was going to happen that way? Because this was ALWAYS going to be it and everybody in higher ed knew it.

And the most frustrating thing about it? It didn't have to be this way.

It really didn't have to be!

My 20 y.o. daughter is off campus at South Carolina. She and her roommate stay in their bubble and don't socialize but all of the other kids she knows are partying like crazy and most have gotten COVID. I know I'm not in that age group anymore, but I'm a rule follower by nature. If I had gone to school and my President told me that, in order to have any kind of normal this school year, I needed to stay put and not socialize in large groups, I would have obeyed. As an adult, I have been socializing only on occasion, outdoors, in small, socially-distanced groups. It's fine. I just don't see why so many students NEED to party. And of course when alcohol in thrown in the mix, any distancing is completely out the window.

My oldest looked into this and discovered he isn't able to serve in the military. In fact none of my three can serve based on the current disqualifiers.

Found out that Pref at Ole Miss will be virtual. The COVID-19 numbers are low, so I guess they want to keep it that way. Sisterhood Round is Tues., Wed., and Thurs. Friday was supposed to be a rest day, but Pref will be Friday and Saturday. Bid Day is Sunday.

This. All of this.

As of today, the campus is slightly less than 50% virtual. We don’t have the testing capacity that I’ve heard about at other schools, so they are only testing those with symptoms, which doesn’t necessarily help the cause. They are trying to be transparent with weekly videos and updates, but the news isn’t going to make everyone happy. Alas, week two is almost complete.

Meanwhile, there are videos on Snapchat from students at my alma mater who are advertising parties or who have videos of parties which are in real time. I have family and other loved ones who work there and I worry about their safety, as their numbers slowly creep up.

I miss interacting directly with my students, doing programming and having impromptu group conversations in the office. They bring me a lot of joy and it’s been a rough past two years. I asked to work from home because I can’t afford to be in a high traffic area and put my parents (the only other humans I’ve visited since March) at risk.

I feel bad for everyone in the equation, especially students. This isn’t the optimum experience, but honestly I don’t think there is one during a global pandemic. It’s well above my pay grade anyway. Colleges and universities have been exposed in many ways. But, if people want to get through this, precautions have to be followed. Parties have to be missed. Masks should cover mouths and noses. Interactions should be limited. It’s not fun. Everyone’s not happy. Inconveniences and disappointments are aplenty. This could’ve been avoided, but we are here and it has to be a commitment.

I don’t think college kids getting COVID is the worst thing in the world. If the alternative is to stay in some form of lock down status for 2 or 3 years, I’ll take my chances. And these kids who have virtually 0 chance of needing to be hospitalized shouldn’t be asked to shoulder any of the burden.

I guess all the cafeteria workers and dorm housekeeping staff should just suck it up and not worry about catching the virus (and bringing it it back home to their household) because as long as all the 18-22 year-old students are going to recover quickly and move on, that's the important part.

They are free to quarantine themselves. Are you ok doing this for another year? How about two? Do you worry about the mental health of these kids? I don’t think what we’re doing is sustainable.

.

HANG ONTO YOUR HATS....

IU just recommended that ALL 40 Greek houses close—they are apparently all full of COVID-19...but then it’s not due to big parties either...just the situation I guess.
So now SEVERAL THOUSAND students are going to be hunting for housing in Bloomington, IN...which I think will spread it even quicker into the general community.

This “IU Daily Student” has this on the front page. This is going to leave EVERY housing corporation cash-strapped and scrambling to help their undergraduate brothers and sisters. I expect that IU may have a few rooms open....but nothing like what’s needed.

Whew, thank goodness IT'S ONLY RECOMMENDED, NOT MANDATORY.

PGD-GRAD, you beat me to it. Here’s the story from the IDS. And here’s the IU website with information on COVID-19 in communal living environments. (Mostly Greek houses, but also includes Evans Scholars and Christian Student Foundation. This does not include any of the unhoused chapters.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if IU goes all virtual sooner rather than later.

IU initially said they would offer quarantine housing for all students in the residence halls AND Greek housing. Then, about two weeks before the kids returned they walked that back saying students in Greek housing would not be permitted to quarantine on campus. So, I would not expect the dorms to take in any of these kids.

Now that they have told the Greek houses to completely close, they are telling the students to go to their home towns, not stay in Bloomington. There are about 2600 students residing in Greek houses. Some may go home but for others, there certainly isn't enough sublets or empty housing to accommodate them.

It is really a mess on so many levels. If the houses refund the payments they have received for the semester, it's unlikely they have the reserves to recover. If this continues into the spring semester those losses will be compounded by small or no new member classes, upperclassmen who drop because they don't perceive a benefit with no activities and an inevitable number of students who transfer or drop out of school altogether.

The impact will be felt for a very long time!

There is debate about that. It sounds like the County Health Dept is doing more than just "recommending" this.

It would be ridiculous to turn these students who have now all been exposed out to the community to infect others. And if they think the same thing isn’t going to happen in dorms, they are really kidding themselves.

I just spoke to a member of the IU Fiji chapter Housing Corporation. He said things are unfolding so quickly...they have called an emergency House Corp meeting at 5. He said they ALL feel that going virtual with classes...at least till Thanksgiving...and leaving everybody to sequester in their own houses makes the most sense. But now that the Monroe Co. Board of Health is involved...who knows? He’s not overly fond of the IU President right now....

The whole situation should be in Urban Dictionary as the definition for SHIT SHOW!

Our Asian exchange students are shocked because their countries masked and did all the right things and they're still having high rates of Covid. Like here, the harshness of it seems to have abated somewhat, but they're still having lots of new cases daily.

Exactly. Barn door, horse, yadda yadda yadda.

^ exactly

IFC released a statement this afternoon criticizing IU's decision for being short sighted and not really thinking through the impact of these Greek students having to find off campus housing risking further contamination or being sent home to family members who may be a high risk.

Isn’t housing hard to come by in Bloomington?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for all these houses to just quarantine maybe followed by testing to make sure they are all clear. That way it does not spread further in the community.

Yes. Even more so since IU has contracted with at least one apartment complex (and some hotels) to house students who otherwise would have been in dorms this year. (Most dorm rooms only have 1 person living in them this year, so there was a lot less dorm space.)