MSU To Return To Class In Fall
Ending fall semester at Thanksgiving. Lots of other tidbits in article.
Seems like a pretty ideal time for UM and MSU to be lead by two smart infectious degree docs.
Didn't realize the governor allowed preschool to open!
/I'll show myself out
Makes sense. There are things more dangerous than COVID to the MSU student body. Like Keith Appling and Adreian Payne, or a group of football players in a dorm hall.
Wearing ski masks.
....but masks are being encouraged. I guess they were ahead of their times.
Or Max Bullough at bar in Colorado
Stringer Bell FROM THE PARKING LOT.
The "end class at Thanksgiving" thing is going to be popular. It looks like my university is going to do that as well.
My alma mater Ohio U did this when I attended.
We were on the quarters system then. The break from Thanksgiving til after new years was epic.
The only downside was finals week fell over the week of The Game and at least once I missed part of the game due to a Saturday final
Honestly, I’m looking forward to it. Teaching students after they come back from thanksgiving totally sucks.
Not official yet, but it looks like my institution will likely do the same. I also have always hated the way Thanksgiving falls in a semester. Students are not all that focused after break, and everyone goes home, returns, and then goes home again in like 2 weeks. I've always thought we as a country should just change Thanksgiving to October (like in Canada), but perhaps that's a little drastic simply to make the college school schedule better.
Athens, Ohio? Oh man... I spent a week there one night.
Honestly - that's the sort of thing that I see going LONG-term. Even beyond this year.
It always felt a bit silly going back for 3 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas (me at my alma mater, PSU). Schools may need to see the fall semester start earlier (say, early-to-mid-August) to make this work, but late summer isn't a bad time to be on a college campus anyway.
My LSU daughter begs to differ about late summer being a good time, have you felt the humidity in Baton Rouge in August?
September is no better in Baton Rouge. For this reason, I highly doubt we'll ever see a home and home with LSU, unless they visit us in late November.
agreed..:) That's why they have so many night games.
LOL. Anecdote from last summer - I live in Denver now and last August I flew to New Orleans. Now, I've lived in places like Detroit and Cincinnati, so I'm not un-used to August humidity, even though the Midwest isn't quite at Louisiana levels.
But living in Denver does make one forget about humidity at ANY level.
So when I stepped off the plane in New Orleans, I felt I was going to immediately suffocate! It is intense down there.
Yea, New Orleans probably had a lot more humidity, but on a positive note, more oxygen too!
I understand the thinking, but I wonder if it makes more sense to skip winter break. Once the students are on campus, they are contained in a mini-environment. I’m not sure sending them home to mommy and daddy (a more vulnerable population) for a month during flu season is the right thing to do.
The idea is to minimize movement back and forth. Keep people in "the bubble" as long as possible.
I don’t know what anyone else is doing, but we’re talking about students not being on campus from mid nov to late feb and then gone again for summer.
Does this mean no spring/summer semesters in 2021?
It’s too far to tell, but they’re saying a fall that ends early, a spring that starts late, and then summer tbd.
I feel like most of our summer students are international, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t allow them in. The university is going to end up spending a fortune on testing.
How many people (outside of Ebenezer Scrooge's parents) want to leave their kid on campus over the holidays? That's bleak.
Points to you good sir for working in a Dickens’ reference.
A lot of kids don't go home during spring break anyway. They go party in Mexico or Jamaica or wherever.
My guess is they'll just stick around on campus on campus this year. Remember, just because you don't have class doesn't mean you have to go home to mom and dad. Can't imagine mom and dad will want those kids home for the 2021 spring break. Still have to give the kids a short break after finals. And then it's up to them what to do.
But very smart just keeping them home between t-giving and christmas.
I hope they all [don't] get it.
The fall semester after thanksgiving is terrible anyways. No football, weather sucks, exams.
Yeah, but Crisler will be half empty for our non-conference games. Would kinda suck to host an ACC team in the Challenge in front of 9,000 non-enthused fans.
And that’s different from now?
Can we end our season before Thanksgiving? No particular reason....
What? Turkey, beer, and football all day on Thursday, a vacation day on Friday, and then wake up ready for The Game on Saturday. It's a beautiful three day stretch, don't take that away from me!
That's just me though..
I greatly preferred playing the Game before Thanksgiving. Students are screwed over by the current setup, especially if they're out of state.
Man I was all on board to get everyone back to campus but now for some reason it seems like a terrible idea
What's that reason?
It's great to plan this, but idk how anyone can say this with any form of certainty right now. Lansing's region isn't opened up more than groups of 10 people, and that has only been in place for 5 days or so, when there's been a 2-4 week delay in effects based on the numbers we saw heading into lockdown.
It's smarter to wait and see what happens when the higher population areas are opened up more and more, imo.
I think they need a plan now for a lot of reasons, including student housing, course prep, logistics in bringing students back. They need to draw this line in the sand, begin planning like mad to ensure a successful reintroduction of thousands of people into the campus, and then have a contingency plan B based on a set of criteria that assesses the risk of Plan A when more relevant and timely data is available later in the summer.
This. I work in higher ed administration and it’s 100% this. You need a timeline with a long runway to make things happen and it’s always easier to make changes to delay later. The amount of planning that goes into these decisions is mind boggling. You plan for it to happen and then adjust, if necessary.
Sparty is gonna be glad. I can drive up and see her.
MSU can't "return" to class because they never had class to begin with.
I may be misreading, but they don’t actually appear to be ending the semester at Thanksgiving. They will do remote learning for the three weeks they would have had on campus between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
From the article:
“An MSU reopening taskforce is still considering options and recommendations to keep students safe, but a number of precautions have already been adopted, including ending all in-person instruction by Thanksgiving and having students finish the last three weeks of the semester remotely, limiting large gatherings and wearing facemasks.‘“
MSU faculty member here, and you are correct.
We have been instructed to end in-person instruction at the Thanksgiving break and finishing the last 3 weeks of the semester and exams online. Students will have the choice of returning home and staying there or staying on campus. No choice to go home and then return.
Also been told that this is “Plan A” and will depend heavily on what happens in the next 3 months.
Are they doing testing when the students get back to campus? We’re doing repeated testing all semester - supposedly.
The last I heard for my institution was testing everyone when we return to campus (students, faculty, staff) and then testing some people--maybe a random sample?--throughout the semester.
Haven’t heard anything specifically about testing from the high level admin other than there will be “testing and contact tracing efforts”...
I don’t have a great read on campus as a whole, but some faculty in my department have already said they will teach online only unless a routine testing plan is in place.
If they test them on Algebra, I think most will fail.
Do most students live in on-campus housing? If not, how do they plan to prevent kids from returning to East Lansing after Thanksgiving?
Staying consistent it's early and this appears to be a plan. If Covid hangs on filling hospitals and killing thousands per day they won't resume in the fall. If the curve flattens and they feel it's possible the plan is set, read and react as needed. What will be a new dynamic is sending kids home early to learn remotely...some will pull that trigger early to avoid any spread. That could change a lot.
I expect we'll do the same. Maybe large lectures will be conducted online, but discussions and labs that require frequent communication between student and instructor will need to be conducted in person if you want them to have the same value.
Other than labs with special tools, there is absolutely no reason to meet in person. Online classes were so much nicer than meeting in person everyday.
As a teacher and (obviously) former student, online classes are absolute garbage. Students will learn half of what they would in Class where real discussions happen.