No uni return til Aug/Sept

[Newgirls]

So Edin and St A have said no f2f teaching til next academic year (apart from med and some post-grad) and students should not be there unless v specific needs. Very sad that this cohort are going through this. I assume English unis will follow?

Ah depending on who you ask, there might not be any f2f teaching 2021-22.....so this isnt just about this academic year but the next

"lots of my students are commuter students, so the 1:1 tutorials work better online as these often take place on a non teaching day."

Ah I see, yes I can see for them it does make sense. I suppose the universities could give students a choice - some may find it easier to talk in person, others as you suggest may actually prefer to do zoom for 1-1s (equivalent to many people finding wfh more convenient I suppose!).

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

"lots of my students are commuter students, so the 1:1 tutorials work better online as these often take place on a non teaching day."

Ah I see, yes I can see for them it does make sense. I suppose the universities could give students a choice - some may find it easier to talk in person, others as you suggest may actually prefer to do zoom for 1-1s (equivalent to many people finding wfh more convenient I suppose!).

Exactly. Most academics I know already offered this flexibility anyway. I certainly did.

"Ah depending on who you ask, there might not be any f2f teaching 2021-22.....so this isnt just about this academic year but the next"

Gosh, very depressing. Who says that when askedd, btw?

So that would mean - as a pp said upthread - a student currently in second year doing a 3 year course would have no 'normal' university experience at all, apart from the 6 months to March 2020 (which itself was disrupted by strikes at many places!) A current first year will have two years of no opportunity to work in person with other students. And no reason to go and live at the university so no normal social life for two years - after which you basically have about 6 months left.

Totally off the original point of the thread (sorry op!) but I do wonder, if no ftf teaching next year as well, if this will lead to quite a rethink about plans amongst current yr 12s and below.

I say yr 12s and below because they have time to think about alternatives. The prospect of paying £9k for no ftf teaching and no associated social life is not appealing. For vocational courses, and courses associated with very high future earnings, the dc will almost certainly still think it is worth it; for others, maybe not. (I know corona may be gone by autumn 2022, but you only need another health crisis for precisely the same thing to happen - article in one of the papers today about how we may come to treat flu as a lock downable illness in bad years!)
Sorry to be glum - maybe time to focus on the fact that academics want, as a pp said earlier, to get back to ftf!

Well, I will certainly be continuing with online tutorials at least, as the university, in its infinite wisdom, is moving us into a new building that has impressively huge atriums and vast circulation spaces, but lacks individual offices for academic staff. So, as well as having to get rid of all my books, I won’t be able to meet my students f2f anyway. Apparently his new building is all about “the student experience” though 🤦‍♀️

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

"We also had exam boycotts in March. The students refused to enter the building!"

Again, very interesting! I suppose the atmosphere by the middle of last March was pretty high-anxiety in most places. My impression is that it is less so now - but we will see soon I suppose!

I had students refuse to come in for a face to face session 3 weeks ago. 🤷‍♀️ They said they didn’t feel safe. I wanted to do it and had permission to do it face to face.

Wow at unis not offering zoom/google meets even, that is disgusting and I would absolutely be complaining.

My uni has to be fair done all that it can. Currently on a foundation year and we have had between 4 and 6 hours live online teaching, f2f until December for 45 mins a week tho we could chose not to attend with no attendance penalties if we chose.

I'm a (very) mature student so been OK so far with the social side, made some friends online etc but I feel so sorry for the younger students, it's heartbreaking for them.

I was up in the strand wandering around kcl and LSE on Tuesday as my daughter is trying to decide between them so we went to have a look. We looked at the large empty grand buildings and we looked through the locked gates and at the closed student cafeteria’s and at the dark and empty halls where no one seemed to live and the gyms and closed library building, and the empty buses driving past and it really was utterly depressing. We saw a couple of lonely looking students sitting on a bench looking cold and fed up eating their takeaway lunch. It was the most uninspiring day out and we both came away thinking if that is university life atm, 2022 might be a better option.

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead well SM are already thinking about it and have been drip dripping the info to the staff. We are getting ready for staying online for next year. There are lots of discussions in committees as to whether or not we should keep all lectures online and maybe, maybe do a few f2f activities like we tried to last autumn (it was shit but thats another thing).

So am assuming it will be the same as last time - unis might be desperatly prepping online while telling students they will get f2f. It will be a farce. Plus I hate online. It's crap if you love teaching.

@sashagabadon - LSE everytime!!!!!! They are not in the same league - advice from an academic who studied/worked in both and now works next door.

It is very interesting that the university sector is not litigating or fighting to allow the students back, refusing to accept gujidelines, getting opinions of QCs, instructing Bindmans and other solicitors to send letters before action etc etc; saying you can all come back if you feel you feel better back (which is allowed of course - mental health, no wifi at home etc) so that they effectively get 100% of students back in halls at least and then letting the groups of 10 do all the things you can do under the law with your bubble, pushing the frontiers of the legislation, encouraging people only to take say a 1 or 2 weeks university easter holiday too being ready to press the button on Monday when things ease on field trips and all kinds of things that may be allowed suddenly. Eg if gold courses open in early March put on university golf days for students, just masses of outside things day after day young people can do as the laws open up.

I wonder if there is really any incentive for them to do that though Xenia - unless there were a real risk of drop outs/or non arrivals in sept 21, which at the moment does not seem to be the case (but may if people really start to think it may be online only in 21/22 as well).

Warwick were effectively canvassing students to return after the first rent waiver expired on the 16th Feb, not sure how many have gone back... Dd and her friends were more interested in saving the £174.00 per week rent for as long as possible so signed up for the second waiver. No incentive to go back when they have to study in a tiny room and social activities are restricted. She's interacting with friends and course mates online and having the occasional online shopping spree.

Good that your dd is interacting with course mates and friends, frazzled - I think the second years are lucky in that respect at least, in that they have had a reasonable period in which to make some friends (mind you, not sure which year your dd is in - maybe I am making assumptions!). I don't know how that would happen for next year's first years, if it's online only/live at home from the start, for the whole year?

University then becomes a completely different experience - different calculation about whether it is worth £27k fees. May depend much more on whether it's significantly future-earnings enhancing, I would have thought (which for many courses it still will be, obviously. I realise there's an added twist that not everyone repays the £27k anyway - though that is partly because the interest rate is set at the level it is!)

There's an editorial in the Times today, interestingly - and an article yesterday - about students' position.

Universities might be planning for blended learning in the autumn, but that will be precautionary. Few institutions will continue that as a active choice. It's being reported that over 40s will have their first vaccination by the end of March, which is great news as it suggests that all adults will be vaccinated by the autumn. Of course, with universities there is also the issue of how other countries' vaccination programmes are faring and how travel opens up in the coming months.

Good point GC, though I suppose you could address that with 2 weeks quarantine on arrival for overseas students. (Whether paid for by student or university would be something to be addressed of course.) It might also mean overseas students had to start arriving in the UK earlier in the summer rather than all at once.

I wonder to what extent quarantine would influence overseas students' choices about which country to go to. As a one-off it might not be too significant, but if you're thinking ahead, and hoping to go home between terms the country's quarantine policy starts to become more important.

@jabbathebutt

I am a vulnerable HE employee and I dread being asked to go into the office but that's me personally. However, I haven't seen enough information on how they are making the campus covid secure. I'm not too convinced.

I hope those vulnerable will have a vaccine soon so hopefully this will be less worrying?

A lot of overseas students don't return home during the academic year, so I think having to self-isolate on campus initially will not put them off (and many had to do that this academic year and were well-supported with food shopping etc. by the university). I am actually dealing with a larger than usual number of overseas applications for a postgraduate course. Most of them are from countries which would only trigger self-isolation rather than the hotel quarantine, though. Chinese students see hotel quarantine as normal anyway, as this is what they have in their country.

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

"And before anyone says we should just teach without social distancing and masks, the Students Union has been very clear that students don’t want that. Before the March lockdown last year, we were down to 15% attendance as students were too scared to come in."

That is really interesting. Will be interesting to see if that changes now - maybe not, as the young will be last to be vaccinated.

If the plan is to vaccinate all adults by sept - which would include students - surely this will be better for all.

The US plan to vaccinate all adults by June I believe so surely the uk will be able to meet the target

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

"lots of my students are commuter students, so the 1:1 tutorials work better online as these often take place on a non teaching day."

Ah I see, yes I can see for them it does make sense. I suppose the universities could give students a choice - some may find it easier to talk in person, others as you suggest may actually prefer to do zoom for 1-1s (equivalent to many people finding wfh more convenient I suppose!).

First years will feel very dif from post grads etc - perhaps some priority can be given to them (and second years this sept)

Yes, I do agree about September onwards Newgirls. I was wondering more about Feb-June and what prospect of a return to something approaching normal university experience this academic year there might be. It seems early to 'write-off' the rest of this year, even if that would be simpler.

But interesting to know that students themselves are very wary - not something I'd picked up on!

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

Totally off the original point of the thread (sorry op!) but I do wonder, if no ftf teaching next year as well, if this will lead to quite a rethink about plans amongst current yr 12s and below.

I say yr 12s and below because they have time to think about alternatives. The prospect of paying £9k for no ftf teaching and no associated social life is not appealing. For vocational courses, and courses associated with very high future earnings, the dc will almost certainly still think it is worth it; for others, maybe not. (I know corona may be gone by autumn 2022, but you only need another health crisis for precisely the same thing to happen - article in one of the papers today about how we may come to treat flu as a lock downable illness in bad years!)
Sorry to be glum - maybe time to focus on the fact that academics want, as a pp said earlier, to get back to ftf!

I think very relevant. I think it will depend on how fast education alternatives pop up. International students may look at the US as that is more ‘open’ already.

Unis themselves might look to buy ‘lecture series’ from more prestigious institutions. Prob won’t happen for this year but I think very soon. It’s like all jobs really - IMO uni staff should be fighting for vaccines, testing etc to get back to protect jobs. Furlough for things like hall catering staff, facilities etc won’t last beyond this May. Not being ‘open’ is risky all round. We already know some lower ranked unis are facing financial hardship sometimes due to loss of rental/accom fees.

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

Yes, I do agree about September onwards Newgirls. I was wondering more about Feb-June and what prospect of a return to something approaching normal university experience this academic year there might be. It seems early to 'write-off' the rest of this year, even if that would be simpler. But interesting to know that students themselves are very wary - not something I'd picked up on!

I think this academic year won’t see f2f as some have already said this, some are waiting for BJ announcement, some move into exam season etc. Others might keep their accom open tho for income.

I would like to hear uni leaders on the airwaves lobbying for students / staff to get vaccinated by August. It might happen anyway so an easy win for them and if not, it starts the public debate on why it is important and throws light on how students are missing out. Quite honestly listening to my daughter and her friends they all plan to defer to 2022 if all they will be offered is sitting in a poky room with on line lessons. I also have a niece who is a current first year, back in her family home and having a pretty crap time. She is thinking of deferring her second year and spending the year earning money instead in her supermarket job as it will be more productive and she has no real incentive to start her second year come September as she has not enjoyed her course or made any proper friends. I don’t blame her!

Agree again newgirl! I would expect that most postgraduates are much less there for the social experience than first years are. Although there is an educational aspect to interaction with peers as well - the coffee chats about the academic work - it's not just a question of wanting to make friends (though that is also a perfectly legitimate aim!).

I wonder if long-term we will move towards a different type of HE - students no longer so interested in leaving home (because why take the risk of another lockdown/wasted rentals)? More like France, Germany etc, where it is much more common to stay local. The 'live away from home' experience does not live up to expectations for everyone anyway, and is a very expensive way of providing HE - will be interesting to see if there is a shift in aspirations.
(architects at the ready for conversion of all the student accommodation into - flats?)