Higher Ed Check In?

[circa1978]

Mar 23, 2020 9:18:53 GMT -5 bex1973 said:

Mar 22, 2020 20:21:13 GMT -5 spearmintleaf said:

My job does not work well online but they’re gracious enough to keep paying me, so that’s good. I am “working” a few hours per day.

Anyone concerned about enrollment for the fall based on all this? My initial thought is no, the loans will be there and students will still come because what are they supposed to do, get a job? In this economy? But idk. Still worried.

Yes. I think we'd be foolish to not expect some impact.  But I think prospective students & their families are looking at how we handle this & it's going to weigh in on their enrollment decisions.  Likewise, some schools may see transfer number go up based on students wanting to be closer to home or from dissatisfaction from how their school handled things.

I'm 100 percent here. We are focusing on caring outreach. I do think study abroad programs and schools with international presences are going to see a potential hit. But I will say that actually our parents with students returning from Italy and Spain have been pretty level headed all told. I'm actually really proud of our parents all around. Normally, parents be parenting but with this, we've found they have been patient, level-headed, appreciative of resources - they've even listened quietly during FB live events. I guess they are all really scared and looking for direction but it's such a relief. 

[rupertpenny]

Mar 22, 2020 20:21:13 GMT -5 spearmintleaf said:

My job does not work well online but they’re gracious enough to keep paying me, so that’s good. I am “working” a few hours per day.

Anyone concerned about enrollment for the fall based on all this? My initial thought is no, the loans will be there and students will still come because what are they supposed to do, get a job? In this economy? But idk. Still worried.

I am. We don't have a large endowment and largely rely on tuition to fund everything. And we have A LOT of international students, mostly from China, and I wouldn't be surprised if international enrollment drops. 

Honestly I've been worried about what will happen when Chinese students stop coming to the US for a while. I didn't ever imagine that a global pandemic might be the reason it happens though. 

[jennysmitten]

I work in Student Affairs at a mid-size public university in the Midwest. I also am one half of the Parent Association. Today we moved all instruction online and we are moving students out of the residence halls in scheduled blocks. We are unsure of how long moving students will take as several states have shelter in place currently and we are going under a stay at home order tomorrow. However, our university move outs have been exempted. I think everyone who could moved to work at home last week. Right now we are just trying to keep up with the changes that are taking place every hour and trying to stay one step ahead of whats next.

[marvine]

Mar 22, 2020 12:21:44 GMT -5 jennybee1018 said:

I'm on the administrative end of things, but the faculty have been online teaching since March 12. They finally decided that the staff should work remotely about a week later....

Working at home for me has been going well. I actually find I'm a bit more productive - less interruptions, so I can move through projects a bit faster.

We've been communicating through Zoom and that seems to be working well so far....had two meetings earlier today and didn't have any technical issues ;-P

While the building has technically been open for access, they've decided that after Tuesday, employees will no longer be allowed in the building, so I ran in today to get my monitor - which will help when I'm doing spreadsheets.

So far, so good - just taking everything one day at a time. Our home campus in Pittsburgh is actually a week behind us on moving to remote work, so they've been coming to us for advice/suggestions on what has worked well!


I think we work for the same university!  I  work at the Pittsburgh campus!  

[BeagleMama]

I work in marketing for a private college in the Midwest. On March 12, we extended spring break through March 31 and moved to distance learning. Then on March 19, they called it for the semester. All admissions visit events canceled through early May, all virtual visits online now. They still haven't canceled graduation and they finally approved a telecommuting policy for staff today. Slow and behind the times, per usual.

[bex1973]

And governor just issued the Stay Home Order.

But the good news is that I'm going to be able to pay my student staff some based on average hours worked.

[litskispeciality]

I'm at a Community College and today is my first day of WFH. We went in twice (some people more than twice) last week. Our students were on spring break last week, and we also faced the issue of moving to online since we have students who don't have access to laptops, wi-fi, don't want to take online etc. As of Friday three people in my office have to go in twice a week to process the mail and paper apps we still get, but now the Gov has issued a stay at home/shelter whatever, so we're waiting to see how that changes things.

Once I get my focus going I'm sure I'll be a lot more productive, however there's talk of creating a phone call center instead of returning voicemails. I worry about the students who get effected by fin aid if they drop or withdraw given the move to online, however I've heard some professors are trying to also do phone, Google hangouts etc. so meet people in the middle.

[sunshine608]

I work in Student Affairs (student conduct) at a small regional university.

Our students have until Wednesday be off campus, but we will have about 100 or so remaining. They will have daily food pickup for all their meals from 10-2 each day. They will go online and request their meals weekly. They will pick up lunch, dinner and breakfast for the next day.

All classes go online Monday, so that will be the test of the bandwith. Currenlty we use Blackboard and Microsoft Teams.

AS far as staff, we are adjusting. We were on spring break two weeks ago, and last week there were so many moving party and changes that this probably the first week where we can actually get up and running. I stopped in the office last Thursday to grab some things. The VP's and admin in my suite will rotate days in the office to check mail, fax and be present on campus.

I have a few conduct meetings and hearings scheduled here and there. The students on campus are still breaking the rules- hosting guests and smoking so I will have to address those. I am offering "an out" for low level non academic violations.
I hope faculty have some grace with academic violations. We were already struggling with the cheating in online courses and a big part of the problem is that faculty are not clear in directions. I expect that to get worse.

[jennybee1018]

Mar 23, 2020 10:19:46 GMT -5 marvine said:

Mar 22, 2020 12:21:44 GMT -5 jennybee1018 said:

I'm on the administrative end of things, but the faculty have been online teaching since March 12. They finally decided that the staff should work remotely about a week later....

Working at home for me has been going well. I actually find I'm a bit more productive - less interruptions, so I can move through projects a bit faster.

We've been communicating through Zoom and that seems to be working well so far....had two meetings earlier today and didn't have any technical issues ;-P

While the building has technically been open for access, they've decided that after Tuesday, employees will no longer be allowed in the building, so I ran in today to get my monitor - which will help when I'm doing spreadsheets.

So far, so good - just taking everything one day at a time. Our home campus in Pittsburgh is actually a week behind us on moving to remote work, so they've been coming to us for advice/suggestions on what has worked well!


I think we work for the same university!  I  work at the Pittsburgh campus!  

Oh fun! I sent you a PM :-)

[just]

Well Zoom didn't crash today, so ... small mercies.
We did manage to use 20% of our cloud storage in 1 week so that bodes badly, also we're now trying to pull back all the recordings from the zoom cloud that violate FERPA and get them into Panopto.

I also manage the helpdesk and media services and since we just went SIP (or the Mass kinda equivalent) I spent all day trying to make sure our student workers could continue to answer phones from home.

And I then smuggled my monitor out to my car at the end of the day.

And I got an email saying they want to be fully online for summer too. Which I get because we have to make money some how.

I work with amazing people and my faculty are awesome but I'm so tired and the next two months are horribly long. All I want to do is rent a house on the cape and walk on the beach and listen to audio books.

[just]

Also what are y'all doing for commencement?

Going Second Life like Bryant and Stratton? youtu.be/KajvOYgRx14

[zarapipe]

I am staff in academic affairs at a mid size public university in NC. I am working half time from home and using paid administrative leave for the rest. I have three kids and no daycare and that is one reason I’m allowed paid leave. I zoom with my boss (dean) as needed. This is only week two and last week we zoomed 3x. I do a l lot of event planning and everything has been cancelled. Classes are all online. Today the gov announced public schools are closed until May 15 so I’m not sure what my working situation will be in the future. We can used paid leave until March 31 and then we will see. I am so impressed with my boss and the provost and chancellor for the leadership in making everting work so far. Everyone is really working hard and putting students first.

[sarahsays]

just, right now commencement is postponed. I think we're most likely to have winter be a combined ceremony.


A peer institution just announced salary cuts of between 3-5% for faculty and staff.

[Roc A Bee]

I’m an exec. assistant in academic affairs for a small, rural community college in CA. I’ve been working from home since Friday. All of our classes have moved online. Most meetings and all events are canceled, evaluations are in a holding pattern, so most of my job is quiet. Right now we are acting like we will go back after Spring Break in 3 weeks, but that won’t happen.

[jennybee1018]

Mar 23, 2020 16:31:52 GMT -5 jennybee1018 said:

Mar 23, 2020 10:19:46 GMT -5 marvine said:

Oh fun! I sent you a PM :-)

Did you get the message? I think Proboards may have eaten it...let me know & I’ll resend!

[eddy]

I work at a state university in professional level healthcare education.

The last two weeks have been bananas. I manage the pre-clinical curriculum. It is very hands on, of course. So to flip the switch has been a nightmare. But now after two weeks of anguish I have it in a good place for now.

One thing I am doing is emailing 10 students a day to check in on them. Our class is close to 200 so it will take awhile. For lack of a better word I sort of serve as a mom type to many of them. I am a problem solver and a person who they can talk through issues with.  Since our curriculum is so hands on our students are used to a heavy sense of community. Yesterday about half of the students were very candid with their emails back. I hope just some reaching out helps.

[marvine]

Mar 23, 2020 23:05:39 GMT -5 jennybee1018 said:

Mar 23, 2020 16:31:52 GMT -5 jennybee1018 said:

Oh fun! I sent you a PM :-)

Did you get the message? I think Proboards may have eaten it...let me know & I’ll resend!

I got it this morning and replied!

[lilypad1126]

Mar 23, 2020 22:14:09 GMT -5 sarahsays said:

A peer institution just announced salary cuts of between 3-5% for faculty and staff.

Yikes! I just got off a conference call where we discussed the budget crisis this is causing our university. I hope this isn't what's coming for us, but I'm sure it's a possibility. We were already having to tighten up the budget, and the mess this is causing money-wise isn't helping.

Having said all of that, I'd take a salary cut to keep my job. But I can't imagine that would go over well with most of our employees.

[just]

I'm so tired. I keep trying to remind myself that this isn't a sprint, it's an iron man so to pace myself. But woah. It's been 16 hour days for the last 4 weeks with no end in sight, and we're already looking at the mess that will be summer and fall.

And the thoughts of layoffs/paycuts/shitty enrollments/closures is so looming.

I am heartened by the faculty's dedication to their students, the fact that most of my faculty aren't getting ridiculous with the rigor/cheating/snowflake routine I hear elsewhere, and the appreciation we hear.

and the fact that zoom servers are still up and running.

[sarahsays]

We officially got a salary cut of between 3%-9% and no more employer retirement contributions until at least the end of the fiscal year.

I'm more annoyed by the retirement contributions than the actual salary cut!

[rupertpenny]

No salary cuts here so far, but we just got an email that all non-faculty hiring is suspended, no term employees (adjuncts, etc) will be reappointed as of now, and basically all non-personnel spending is frozen.

[bex1973]

Are any of you seeing a bunch of spring/summer courses cancelled versus moving online? Not just lab classes

[just]

Mar 31, 2020 9:54:59 GMT -5 bex1973 said:

Are any of you seeing a bunch of spring/summer courses cancelled versus moving online? Not just lab classes

All 80 of our courses scheduled for summer are moving online. We're not cancelling any because we need the revenue.

[Patsy Baloney]

My institution has now extended the credit/no-credit grading designation to all courses.

Tempted to change my capstone to “credit” 😂

I also got an email for the university’s financial managers. We’ve formed new accounts to deal with COVID expenses.

[litskispeciality]

We haven't changed summer classes yet, however we haven't released fall or opened fall registration. I'm curious how that will work with new students?

Thankfully we haven't had salary cuts or layoffs, but now it feels like we're under a microscope. We use a CRM so we have to document every email, phone call etc., then at the end of the week someone will check how much we've done. I'm trying to take the high road that it's to show we're working hard to upper management, but I don't like that people who aren't my boss have access to see how much work I'm doing, and I don't. I think I'm more frustrated that I just need better direction, how many emails, phone calls etc. do you want to see a week so I know I'm doing enough?

[sarahsays]

Mar 31, 2020 9:54:59 GMT -5 bex1973 said:

Are any of you seeing a bunch of spring/summer courses cancelled versus moving online? Not just lab classes

We always had our summer courses online with exception to labs or other experiential learning courses. We are trying to drive summer enrollment up to help with the lost revenue due to room and board reimbursement, so not only are we not canceling, we are adding courses.

[bex1973]

Mar 31, 2020 12:07:53 GMT -5 sarahsays said:

Mar 31, 2020 9:54:59 GMT -5 bex1973 said:

Are any of you seeing a bunch of spring/summer courses cancelled versus moving online? Not just lab classes

We always had our summer courses online with exception to labs or other experiential learning courses. We are trying to drive summer enrollment up to help with the lost revenue due to room and board reimbursement, so not only are we not canceling, we are adding courses.

See I thought we would add too but they haven't been.

[bex1973]

Mar 31, 2020 10:20:11 GMT -5 litskispeciality said:

We haven't changed summer classes yet, however we haven't released fall or opened fall registration. I'm curious how that will work with new students?

Thankfully we haven't had salary cuts or layoffs, but now it feels like we're under a microscope. We use a CRM so we have to document every email, phone call etc., then at the end of the week someone will check how much we've done. I'm trying to take the high road that it's to show we're working hard to upper management, but I don't like that people who aren't my boss have access to see how much work I'm doing, and I don't. I think I'm more frustrated that I just need better direction, how many emails, phone calls etc. do you want to see a week so I know I'm doing enough?

I'm in a holding pattern with new student orientations. Our online program is decent but not an ideal replacement for on campus. Especially for first year students!

[lilypad1126]

My school isn't big into the online teaching model, mostly because we have accreditation issues with distance learning, so it's been an adjustment for everyone. Anyway, our faculty have figured it out for the most part, and now there's a call out to them to please teach a class this summer because we need the money. And, if our students internships don't go as planned, or move to remote WFH, then more students will want to take classes. I'm hoping that we have a good set of summer classes and that our students actually sign up for them.

I had a zoom meeting this morning where we were told all hiring has been put on hold, with the exception of student workers, though we're being encouraged to delay that as much as possible. Anyway, one lady in my meeting was all "but i'm DESPERATE for help, so how do I get an exception to this policy?!" First, she's only worked here since December. Second, this isn't really the meeting to discuss this. Third, while I get that we are all super busy, I'm pretty sure my department (admissions) and the MarCom department are the only 2 that should really be asking for exceptions and even we aren't. Admissions and MarCom depts have each lost employees over the past year and we've been struggling for awhile (long before COVID stuff) to make it work and neither of our depts are even thinking about hiring, so please, lady who works in the least busy dept and doesn't have any actual student interaction, please tell me how we should make an exception for you.

I have to say, though, I'm enjoying all of my zoom meetings where either kids or spouses or pets are making cameos, LOL.

[litskispeciality]

Yeah our accepted students day is in about a month and now we assume it'll have to move to virtual something. We offer Nursing licensure programs, automotive, dental etc. so it's been really hard to move to online even just until May or whenever this ends. I kind of hope we can keep a mix of on campus and online summer classes, in hopes we get students taking classes to transfer back to their home institution (online), but don't lose anymore of our students who don't do online and have dropped or withdrawn until this is over.

Lilypad that lady would drive me crazy. We hear our student workers are still getting paid right now, but we're in the same boat that our funding was low to begin with. Because we still do so much paper too our staff have to go in more to process mail and make packets that would normally be a student's job. Please stop complaining you need help if it's not generating more business!