Higher Ed Check In

[sarahsays]

How's it going everyone?

We are still planning to reopen in 3 weeks, although in the last week SO many faculty have asked me if it's "really going to happen," that I'm concerned none of them have prepared.

I got a COVID test this morning and worked in my office all day today. I'm the only one in my building and it feels really strange to be here. I've come in to pick up a few things, but it was really like walking into a time capsule of March when I came in.

[eddy]

When we declared we were returning with a hybrid model I felt really optimistic.

Our students start next week and I am pretty sure all of this effort is going to be worth very little in the end. If we can hold out a month without going back to online it will be a miracle.

[livinitup]

Our local university has been #1 on the Biggest Party School list two times in the past six years. So, there is quite a bit of worry about what social behavior will be.

I am also in New York State, so returning students are required to quarantine for 2 weeks. The school is charging $1000 for a room and 3 meals a day. They are also trying to find hotels willing to cut rates for other students. According to reports released by the school more than two thirds of the students (2,000+) are coming from states on the need-to-quarantine list of states. That's a lot of possible infection coming our way with really shitty, expensive planning. Call me cynical, but those kids are not going to keep themselves locked-up for two weeks.

[wildrice]

We are still planning to reopen, too. We have employees going back to campus next week (or sooner in some cases), though it's a low percentage - probably 30% or less. The rest of us are working from home indefinitely. We haven't done any planning beyond the fall semester, but I will be shocked if those of us who WFH will be back before the end of the academic year.

Our system decided last week that they are going to require a negative COVID test to set foot on campus. So we should at least start out without any infections. At this point, there are no plans to test after that unless someone is symptomatic or believes they have been exposed, so I'm doubtful that we won't end up with some level of infection once people are back and interacting with others. We do have a lot of safety procedures in place and plans for staying home/isolating if exposed or infected, so I hope we can keep it contained. I'm skeptical but I do think that if anyone can do this right, we've got a shot. I might feel differently if I wasn't on some of the planning committees and having multiple weekly meetings with the head of HR, but I feel reassured by everything I've heard from leadership and all the plans I've seen.

That said, of course I feel good - I'm not going to be there so I'm totally safe anyway. I am, of course, not a monster so I care about what happens to others, even if it doesn't affect me. But I do wonder how I'd feel if I were going to be on campus.

[Roc A Bee]

My school is about 95% online for the fall. Just a handful of lab courses will be face to face in a hybrid schedule. This seems like a solid plan. There’s PPE, temp checks, and other protocols in place. .

Staff has been back since early July with faculty working from home. That is causing a morale issue and tension.

They are allowing accommodations to work from home for health conditions and childcare. Since all the schools in my area are doing E-learning through October -at least- there are lots of folks still working from home. When k-12 school starts in 1-2 weeks, and we are back to working from home and teaching our kids? That will be another challenge. It honestly doesn’t feel like we’ve made much headway since March.

[lilypad1126]

We pushed back our start date for undergrads and some grad programs by a week. How that’s going to solve any problems is beyond me, but here we are. I work for a professional program and we are starting on the original schedule because accreditation requires a certain number of classroom minutes that we can’t make if we push our start since we still need/want to end by thanksgiving.

Staff are starting to go back, though at least in my unit, it’s pretty loosey-goosey on when you have to go back. I’m classified as “hybrid” now, which means I’m supposed to be splitting my time between home and office. In reality, I won’t be working with any regularity in the office. I don’t support current student learning and all my meetings are going to have to be virtual/zoom for the foreseeable future, so why take up space in the suite, when that could cause density issues.

Recruiting will be different this fall and I’ll miss being able to travel like usual. But as of today, my program hit its recruitment targets, so in theory, that means virtual recruiting didn’t hurt us any. Not all programs can say that, and if the undergrad doesn’t hit their targets I think pay cuts will be in our future.

There is no way we’ll be on campus for the entire fall semester. I have no doubt that students/faculty/staff will be sent home at some point to finish the semester online. There’s no way students won’t go out to bars/restaurants/whatever other indoor places are open. Maybe I’ll be surprised, but I just don’t see college students being the responsible citizens we need them to be to keep face to face classes going.

[penelope]

The university two hours away is starting next week and ending fall semester at Thanksgiving so there isn’t back and forth travel. The private university local to me is closing its dorms on Thanksgiving and completing the semester online to avoid back and forth travel. I believe the university 5 hours from here is doing the same. The one I work at is starting two days early to give a longer mid semester break. Classes are a hybrid model of online and rotating face to face instruction to allow for 6 foot social distancing. Students are pissed, they raised tuition 6% and could, realistically, be expected to pay room and board to meet face to face once or twice a week. We already went through budget cuts and layoffs under new administration in January. Then again with Covid in March. And again in May, before the new fiscal year started. And pay cuts for anyone earning $60k or more. I am sure more will be coming in September.

[circa1978]

Someone asked me how I was doing in one of my eight Zoom meetings today and I answered "Is it ok if I use this time to cry softly?" And that was seen as a totally normal and rational response. So..

[pooh8402]

Well, I'm an online graduate student anyway, so my classes have been KOKO this whole time. We did finally figure out captioning of the Zoom meetings yay! I know my university is limiting in person classes to 50% capacity, and on campus students are to take half of their classes virtually. We're starting the fall semester early (2 weeks from tomorrow) and classes are to end Thanksgiving weekend. I take my exams virtually but I'm not sure how on-campus students are doing exams.

I'm still attending my clinicals, using the same precautions that the medical staff within the clinics are using. I am not directly seeing covid+ or PUI patients.

[litskispeciality]

We've been scheduled for about 90% online for a while, but scheduling and registration is a s-show. We don't start until after labor day, so I assume the little we have in person will be completely online by semesters end (we end late Dec). My boss was happy with enrollments yesterday, however most are single classes or non-degree, so we assume the bottom will fall out once they return to their home institutions.

It was eerily calm yesterday for the first week of Aug. Like I'm not complaining because I have a LOT of catching up to do, but it's the waiting for the even bigger rush that worries me. We still don't even know if we can have 2 in person very small Saturday registration events (starting next week), which would also mean in person during the week too as our Pres says if it's good on Sat it's good during the week. I would also have to change my in office day every other week if that happens, so overall so much fun still to come!

[glw]

We made the final call last week; we'll be 100% online/remote. The classes that would have been in-person will be taught live online with no students in the room. We put cameras and big screens in classrooms so professors can teach from there and use the whiteboard, lab, etc. All staff remain home until further notice (we're thinking January at the earliest). It's nice to just know the plan, finally.

ETA: We laid off 15% of our employees last month so that was...not great. I'm grateful and a bit surprised that I made the cut as I just started in October. 

[Cappy]

Today was my first in-person day. Campus is still a ghost town. I'm just doing T/Th in the office and M/W/F at home. Students start in-person on August 24th. It was so strange to be back in my desk again and then layer on the masks, floor markings, changes in dining, etc. I felt like I'd landed on Mars.

Our plan is to trust students to quarantine for 14 days before they arrive, distance outside of class, no Covid testing, and then isolate students as symptomatic cases are found. Res Halls are still 2 to a room unless they request for and pay for a single. As you can imagine, I don't have much faith in this plan. We are slated to change to online at Thanksgiving and they've removed breaks. I'm guessing we will need to pivot in late September.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

Gosh, we are totally backwards from most of you. Classes start a week from today, 80% in person. Students started moving in last weekend, the rest move in this weekend. No fall break, no Labor Day, ending in-person before Thanksgiving and doing finals remotely. Staff have been phasing back since July 1. At least in my division we are being very loose about who has to come to campus and how frequently. To work 100% from home you had to have HR approval, but everyone else can really flex their schedules as needed. I'm doing 3-4 days a week in the office but hope to do less once classes start. I think we've put every precaution in place except, ya know, not reopening. It's inevitable that we'll shut down, it's just a matter of when. That's the part that's really fucking with me. We're on a speeding train toward the broken bridge, we just don't know when we'll reach it.

[sunshine608]

Move-in started Monday! 470 Freshman have officially moved into our residence hall. 4 people per suite. Upper-class men move in starting today-Friday. All our housing spots are full.

My office and most others are on an A/B schedule to minimize people on campus. I work alternating weeks T/TH or M/W/F in the office. I am curious as to what Monday the first day of classes will look like.

I feel like I'm watching a trainwreck and I'm on it and know I need to jump off.

[allez]

Face to face classes start next week. I can't imagine we'll be back for long before shutting down, but we have no choice in the matter at this time. Hoping that the larger institutions in the state can pull some influence to get some changes made. I have heard that mask compliance has been an issue with students that have been on campus.

[circa1978]

Aug 5, 2020 11:44:04 GMT -5 sunshine608 said:

I feel like I'm watching a trainwreck and I'm on it and know I need to jump off.

Yes exactly. My version of this is that we've all been in line for a roller coaster for hours and are finally in the car and the amusement park guy just pushed down the safety bar. And now it's like, wait...fuck, is this really a good idea? But there is no turning back.  

[toepick]

We are still planning on opening in 2 weeks. I have no idea how this is going to work! My guess is that the campus will be closed by mid-October but I would love to be proven wrong.

The library reopened yesterday but I'm still working remotely, most likely through the fall semester and beyond.

[badgerwrangler]

I am the manager of a small (18 student) professional bridging program. We started back on campus yesterday and will be able to wrap up our clinical labs by August 28th. Then they wait and go on their external clinical rotations.

I told my students that we are hopefully able to get in and out before the shit hits the fan!

The university as a whole is online, except for some labs, clinical experiences that cannot be accomplished online. Our faculty had to apply for an exception to do a hybrid model. The default is definitely fully online.

[just]

Aug 5, 2020 18:14:02 GMT -5 spearmintleaf said:

My university just pulled the plug and changed to 100% virtual after saying all summer we’d be having students in dorms and having classes partially in person. I feel so sorry for the students, and I am very worried about the status of my university, financially. Layoffs are coming. My job should be safe because it’s a federally mandated position, but I’m worried for my more vulnerable coworkers.

I wonder if I know where you are.

We're a small liberal arts university in MA and said all along we were opening. Our classes are 1/3 online, 1/3 hybrid, 1/3 face-to-face. We're doing pre-testing, arrival testing and three-times a week surveillance testing.

My colleagues are currently running bets on when we'll pull the plug now that another major university in the state announced today, and I think more will follow. I think they should do it sooner rather than later, but they'll need board approval and there's nothing scheduled yet ... I'm placing bets on Monday after an emergency meeting.

[lucybrown]

For those of you in advising, what are you using for remote walk-in appointments? Or same-day appointments? Our online scheduler requires 24 hours notice to make an appointment. We typically hold walk-in advising hours during the first week of classes and my unit is having a hard time figuring out how to do this remotely. We use Teams almost exclusively. Does it have a function where we can create a lobby/waiting room like Zoom does? Other ideas? I'm cringing at the idea of managing same-day appointments while meeting with students non-stop. I can handle a lot via email, but would like a video chat option too.

My office is not technologically progressive. They're having a hard time seeing beyond walk-in advising where students visit our office and sign in on a piece of paper. Any suggestions/ideas are helpful. TIA!

[just]

Aug 7, 2020 16:33:32 GMT -5 lucybrown said:

For those of you in advising, what are you using for remote walk-in appointments? Or same-day appointments? Our online scheduler requires 24 hours notice to make an appointment. We typically hold walk-in advising hours during the first week of classes and my unit is having a hard time figuring out how to do this remotely. We use Teams almost exclusively. Does it have a function where we can create a lobby/waiting room like Zoom does? Other ideas? I'm cringing at the idea of managing same-day appointments while meeting with students non-stop. I can handle a lot via email, but would like a video chat option too.

My office is not technologically progressive. They're having a hard time seeing beyond walk-in advising where students visit our office and sign in on a piece of paper. Any suggestions/ideas are helpful. TIA!

I'm not in advising but we do take bookings for our services. We use Microsoft Bookings which is part of our Campus Microsoft licensing. It allows you to customize the minimum lead time down to 1 hour. 

You can use Teams to have a long meeting with a waiting room - You can sit in a room all day and just get notifications when people request to join.

[eddy]

I am at a state university. Our stu gov just came out with a letter requesting we switch to online. I am very suprised. Our first year students move in next week. I think the train has already left the station for the semester.

[scsarah]

Aug 7, 2020 16:33:32 GMT -5 lucybrown said:

For those of you in advising, what are you using for remote walk-in appointments? Or same-day appointments? Our online scheduler requires 24 hours notice to make an appointment. We typically hold walk-in advising hours during the first week of classes and my unit is having a hard time figuring out how to do this remotely. We use Teams almost exclusively. Does it have a function where we can create a lobby/waiting room like Zoom does? Other ideas? I'm cringing at the idea of managing same-day appointments while meeting with students non-stop. I can handle a lot via email, but would like a video chat option too.

My office is not technologically progressive. They're having a hard time seeing beyond walk-in advising where students visit our office and sign in on a piece of paper. Any suggestions/ideas are helpful. TIA!

We have access to the Google Suite, so I built a really simple Form (name, ID, email, what advisor do you want to see), and then hooked it together with a Google Sheet, which auto updates with any Form submissions.  The advisors watch the Sheets for students who want to see them (or see first available), and then email the student the link to the zoom they're in.  It took me about half an hour to figure out and set up - so PM me if you want some help.  

We had to do this because our university IT admins have set our Zooms up with no waiting room if you are logged into your school account.  While it's great for a 500+ person class, so the faculty doesn't have to admit all the students one by one, it's a killer for us, because it means that any student could jump in your room and hear/see other student information. NOT GREAT.

As for us...we start on the 17th, and announced on Wednesday that we were going 100% remote. We'd been 80% for most of July, so it wasn't a surprise. Plus, we've gotten no approval from the state/city on reopening. It was supposed to come out this morning, but I haven't seen/heard anything yet.  Move-in was supposed to happen next week, but the county won't let us move anyone in, even those who are facing housing insecurity/homelessness/abusive situations.  So who knows what that will look like.

I'm writing our office Fall business continuity plan but even though we're 100% online for coursework, they haven't specifically said that staff are going to be online for the fall as well.  Which I don't understand, as we're student facing, and if there aren't students, why should we be on campus?

[just]

JHU last night, Princeton today ... I wonder if my bet of Monday will win it for me.

[circa1978]

This day. I swear my hair turned gray. Fuck this shit.

[lucybrown]

Aug 7, 2020 17:00:48 GMT -5 just said:

Aug 7, 2020 16:33:32 GMT -5 lucybrown said:

For those of you in advising, what are you using for remote walk-in appointments? Or same-day appointments? Our online scheduler requires 24 hours notice to make an appointment. We typically hold walk-in advising hours during the first week of classes and my unit is having a hard time figuring out how to do this remotely. We use Teams almost exclusively. Does it have a function where we can create a lobby/waiting room like Zoom does? Other ideas? I'm cringing at the idea of managing same-day appointments while meeting with students non-stop. I can handle a lot via email, but would like a video chat option too.

My office is not technologically progressive. They're having a hard time seeing beyond walk-in advising where students visit our office and sign in on a piece of paper. Any suggestions/ideas are helpful. TIA!

I'm not in advising but we do take bookings for our services. We use Microsoft Bookings which is part of our Campus Microsoft licensing. It allows you to customize the minimum lead time down to 1 hour. 

You can use Teams to have a long meeting with a waiting room - You can sit in a room all day and just get notifications when people request to join.

The Teams long meeting thing may actually work. I started looking st this and got sidetracked. I think I just have to change settings so that only I can allow participants in. I could sit there all day, which is what we do F2F.

[wildrice]

Aug 7, 2020 17:53:33 GMT -5 just said:

JHU last night, Princeton today ... I wonder if my bet of Monday will win it for me.

JHU is local to me, and at least 3 other smaller private schools locally decided within the last week to go all remote.

I work for a state university, and I'm very curious if we are going to end up doing the same.

[just]

Also this gif sums up my whole summer.

<---- I liked it so much I made it my profile pic.

[statgirl]

I teach at a small public commuter school. We are F2F but have permission to hyflex/hybrid as long as we accommodate the students. I am asking them to Zoom in except on test days unless they must be in the classroom. I plan to remote my office hours. I am required to be on-campus starting in about a week.

I am more comfortable with my plan than I was when we were F2F no options, but our positivity is sky-high (20%). I have KN95’s and duplicate stuff at home and school, so no need to carry things back and forth. My elementary son started crying tonight because he doesn’t want me to go back. He is going to be virtual (at our family’s choice—K12 is going back F2F too and I think that is insanity when I saw the plans). He is nervous about the virus (he has not been in a store since March and I have been in one in June. We have done the doctor/dentist), but I think most of it is because I have been home with him and his brother the whole time so he is losing one of his playmates.

I’ve worked hard to get to where I am in my career and I am so close to leaving it because I don’t know if it is worth it for the stress. I never said it out loud but if we hadn’t gotten the flexibility to at least where we are now, I was seriously thinking of plans to resign. I’m hoping going back will help ease all of our nerves, but I think it will just stress us differently (DH and I are flexing our schedules this semester. He has been able to work full-time since I have been off all summer and took on most of the Spring chaos since we were kicked off campus).

[RitzyHeifer]

Aug 7, 2020 16:33:32 GMT -5 lucybrown said:

For those of you in advising, what are you using for remote walk-in appointments? Or same-day appointments? Our online scheduler requires 24 hours notice to make an appointment. We typically hold walk-in advising hours during the first week of classes and my unit is having a hard time figuring out how to do this remotely. We use Teams almost exclusively. Does it have a function where we can create a lobby/waiting room like Zoom does? Other ideas? I'm cringing at the idea of managing same-day appointments while meeting with students non-stop. I can handle a lot via email, but would like a video chat option too.

My office is not technologically progressive. They're having a hard time seeing beyond walk-in advising where students visit our office and sign in on a piece of paper. Any suggestions/ideas are helpful. TIA!

We just don’t do same-day appointments, lol. Our scheduling system requires 15 hours notice and that’s our only mechanism.

For online “walk-ins” I’ve been using WebEx which is what our campus has a license for. You can set up a waiting room like in Zoom and students just wait until I let them in. I just have to be mindful that the chat carries over so to not put anything private in there (the typed chat box, I mean - often I’ll copy & paste a link Or something into it ).