Universities?

[coffeelover3]

Do people think there is going to be a surge in cases when universities open next week. I work in one, and am going back next week. I'm actually really scared. 24000 students. Is this even wise... A lot of staff asked to continue to work from home, or to let the students have part online learning, but apparently the uni made a pledge to students that all teaching would be face to face. How bad would it have to get to go back to online learning would you say.

Schools are back in so why wouldn’t Universities ?

Yes.

I’m surprised to hear any uni has pledged to do all face to face? Really?

Are you a lecturer?

Moving young people all over the country into shared accommodation - what could go wrong? I'm very surprised at that. My dd goes back soon for a previously fairly practical course. All but 1 hour a week will now be online. She's dreading it as it's a city in severe lockdown so she won't be able to see any of her friends in person even outside and her housemates (she doesn't really know) don't share her views on sticking to rules so she won't feel comfortable coming home until next year when she's finished as I'm shielding.

My dd is at uni and won't be face to face until January at the earliest.

We need to get students back if we are to have productive courses, even if they are mostly taught online. Unfortunately the vast majority of those of university age don't have access to an appropriate workspace and expecting students to work from the family home would create a horrible system that rewards wealth rather than ability (as only the rich students would have access to a set up that allows them to work to their best of their ability).

I think it's pretty much guaranteed to lead to a surge isn't it? The age group where it's most prevalent currently is the group most likely to be going to uni. They'll all be mixing and socialising - of course it will spread. No idea how uni medical centres will cope.

I work for a university and looking forward to getting back. A huge amount of effort has been put into every aspect of uni life to keep people safe. Why are you worried? Do you think your university has missed something? Unless they are not near capacity I don't know how they could physically do all teaching in person, we've been told teaching rooms have about 15% usual capacity once you allow for social distancing so not physically possible to teach everything face to face, but everyone should get some f2f teaching, practical courses will get more.

My uni is doing all online teaching except for tutorial which is 2 hours one day a week.

I work in HE and we are expecting and preparing for a huge surge in positive cases by about the first week in October. Hopefully it will be managed well, otherwise it will be a shitshow of cases.

Lots of students are already back, because lettings run from September.

Most universities are delivering all lectures online, and making Covid safe arrangements for smaller group working and access to labs and other facilities

Which university is it that has pledged that it will be all F2F?

I'm a university lecturer. At ours there's going to be some face to face teaching but the majority will be online.

I'm a lecturer and I'm really looking forward to going back. My university has worked really hard to make campus Covid secure.
All courses are getting some face to face teaching which in reality means my timetable looks very similar to last years as my groups need to be smaller due to room capacity.

I'm worried that it won't take many cases to close entire universities though and we'll be forced back to online again.

Forgive my ignorance, but if you have 24000 students how will you be able to teach them face to face 100% of the time? Are they being left in big groups? That seems pretty unmanageable to me. Which uni are you at?

Positive cases does not necessarily mean lots of health issues.
If lecturers are allowed to socially distance
and students stay in Campus bubbles where possible
they are better off there
that in their parents' homes

Not all start next week. Some are already back. Some go later. Dd isn't going until October.

We are doing a mixture (I teach at a university). Each year group is in face to face one day a week. We, as staff, can be in 9am until 9pm 3 days a week and then work from home 2 days a week to limit numbers on campus. Many of our students going into 2nd and 3rd year have chosen to leave us and move to other universities who have committed to 100% face to face teaching, so there are some universities who are going entirely f2f and others entirely online.

I think our mix is probably the fairest and most realistic at this point. I think there is a high probability of stricter national measures being brought in towards the end of October/beginning of November which will mean teaching will all have to go online again anyway. I hope the universities who have committed to 100% in person delivery have also made a contingency plan. We have prepared plans for all three: in person, a mixture and online but due to the nature of the course practical work would be massively impacted upon. For this reason, we’ve also put plans in place to move more practical assessments and their prep to much later in 2021 than we usually would. In fact those assessments would usually be prepped in groups from November after Reading Week and would take place in late January. Now we are looking at prep in Easter, assessments in late May with a possibility of movement to June if necessary.

It’s been a massive amount of work to prepare 3 possible outcomes, with poor advice and virtually non existent support from the government. We’ve had a lot of hearsay passed on in virtual meetings from Patrick Vallance and members of SAGE but the government often chooses different paths to what is suggested by the medical experts.

Halls are opening and students moving in, in bubbles. It will be impossible to police though. Food outlets, libraries, sporting facilities etc are all going to be open with social distancing and contact tracing in place but will remain on reduced hours. Hourly cleaning of touch points on campus and a way of alerting cleaners as to which desks/computers/meeting rooms have been used are already in place.

I believe we are doing all we can in circumstances that make things extraordinarily difficult.