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I posted a thread on July 1 about how July was going to be a brutal month for American higher education. Let's take a look back at the month and what is coming up in August. https://twitter.com/rkelchen/status/1278313049485688834 (1/)
In the last two weeks, a growing number of colleges have done the inevitable pivot to having most classes online. Given high numbers of COVID cases in much of the country, that's no shock. Here are some announcements from the last week. (2/) https://twitter.com/rkelchen/status/1289571228299063308
But I frankly expected more colleges to announce primarily online fall semesters during July. There are a heck of a lot of TBDs or primarily in-person fall semesters still planned, with classes starting 2-6 weeks from now across the country. https://collegecrisis.shinyapps.io/dashboard/ (3/)
The dam was starting to break earlier in July...and then it got ICEd by the federal government's restriction on international students taking fully online classes. That put a pause on announcements for nearly two weeks. (4/)
The game of chicken--both between colleges competing for the same group of students and between colleges and state governors--is fierce. Nobody wants to take the blame for going online, as I wrote earlier in the month. https://robertkelchen.com/2020/07/26/who-takes-the-blame-for-an-online-fall/ (5/)
In the last ten days or so, a growing number of colleges (with Clemson being the first one I saw to do it) announced plans to start the semester online but go in person after a few weeks. It threads the needle among stakeholders pretty well. (6/)
To be honest, I didn't see this approach coming in the beginning of July given the logistical nightmare of such an approach and the expectation that cases rise during the fall. But it gives colleges time to kick the can down the road. (7/)
And it also keeps state legislators and governors happy, which is key for red-state public universities. Go online too soon and they could lose funding. (8/)
After thinking on this a while, colleges in the toughest financial situations will try to take the wait-and-see approach (going online a few weeks at a time) instead of going fully online to start. Faculty, have fun prepping courses! (9/)
I talked about substantial layoffs and college closures in my thread last month. Layoffs and retrenchment are starting to come, with regional public universities in Pennsylvania (many of which have gone online) being the canary in the coal mine. https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/millersville-university-to-consider-cutting-faculty-amid-pandemic-joining-9-other-passhe-schools/article_79444c2c-d36e-11ea-8034-7f42c01c4b6c.html (10/)
By waiting so long to make decisions about fall, there hasn't been a rush of closures yet. But this runs the risk of closures during the semester, with two potential triggers:
(1) When it's clear students can't come back in person.
(2) Students are evacuated mid-semester. (11/)
(1) When it's clear students can't come back in person.
(2) Students are evacuated mid-semester. (11/)
I hope that these colleges will be able to teach their students out to the end of the fall semester, but I fear that some may simply run out of money that they were hoping to get. (12/)
Don't count on college athletics this fall. If my beloved St. Louis Cardinals can't make it through a week of the regular season, how can Ball State, Louisville, or Lamar make it through several months? (13/)
I'm no more optimistic today about the upcoming academic year than I was a month ago, even though some of the pain that I expected to see in July got pushed back a few weeks. Tough decisions still have to be made, even if many colleges waited as long as possible. (14/)
But I'm still optimistic about the future of American higher education. These next few years will be difficult, but most colleges will pull through after tough times. College will still have value and the in-person experience will have value after being sorely missed. (15/)
So, to close, let's try to take care of ourselves and each other as some really tough decisions that have been put off as long as possible will be made over the next few weeks. (16/16)
