First Day of College ft. covid [Elliot Choy]

College-Town Economies Brace for Covid Blow [WSJ]

"We're shocked," said Kyle Garcia, a 17-year-old freshman at Notre Dame.

College students prepare to head back home a week into classes as coronavirus cases on campus climb

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/25/coronavirus-college-students-head-home-a-week-into-classes-as-campus-cases-rise.html

Reopened schools see coronavirus outbreaks as videos emerge of student gatherings [CBS This Morning]

Coronavirus Is Turning College Football Into Football Without College [WSJ]

The flava:
Mary Sue Coleman loves college football so much that the former president at Iowa and Michigan plans to spend each autumn of her retirement in Ann Arbor, Mich. But as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the U.S., she sees a big problem for the roughly 70 schools still trying to play a 2020 season.

It’s increasingly unlikely that any university will be able to hold in-person classes, Coleman said. And that conflicts with the NCAA’s longtime view that being a college athlete means being fully integrated into the student body.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Well, we can use the model of [some pro sports] and put them in a bubble,’” said Coleman, who is also a member of the NCAA’s board of governors. “You can’t put them in a bubble, because they’re students and they have to go to class. I mean, if they’re on campus and they’re not going to class, they’re not learning anything, then it isn’t any longer the academic environment. It flies in the face of what the NCAA means.”

The NCAA seemed unequivocal about this a few months ago. “All of the Division I commissioners and every president that I’ve talked to is in clear agreement: If you don’t have students on campus, you don’t have student-athletes on campus,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in May.

The article:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-is-turning-college-football-into-football-without-college-11598012279

one week

Moriarty from Midland emails a comment

Online learning can be good.

Kahn Academy was a good innovation for motivated children.

A few years ago, I lay in a chair at my dentist's office with a dental technician sitting beside me while she watched a teeth-cleaning procedure on her mobile phone. She had her hands in my mouth while she was watching YouTube! She was motivated and wanted to learn and get things right; she wasn't being graded!

But my department is designing online processes to accommodate students that aren't motivated and will fail to learn. I predict that no one will receive failing grades in December.  In North Texas, we used to call this "social promotion."

I feel like I'm living in Teddy Perkins land. See "Atlanta" for that allusion. I don't know what this world is doing. Reality used to be a friend of mine.

--Moriarty from Midland

As Colleges Move Classes Online, Families Rebel Against the Cost [NYTimes]

The flava:
After Southern California’s soaring coronavirus caseload forced Chapman University this month to abruptly abandon plans to reopen its campus and shift to an autumn of all-remote instruction, the school promised that students would still get a “robust Chapman experience.”

“What about a robust refund?” retorted Christopher Moore, a spring graduate, on Facebook.

A parent chimed in. “We are paying a lot of money for tuition, and our students are not getting what we paid for,” wrote Shannon Carducci, whose youngest child, Ally, is a sophomore at Chapman, in Orange County, where the cost of attendance averages $65,000 a year. Back when they believed Ally would be attending classes in person, her parents leased her a $1,200-a-month apartment. Now, Ms. Carducci said, she plans to ask for a tuition discount.

The article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/covid-college-tuition.html

Lincoln University students sent COVID-19 liability waiver [News Tribune]

The flava:
Lincoln University has sent a COVID-19 liability waiver to students, but a spokeswoman said students will not face a consequence for not signing the waiver.

"The use of liability waivers is common on university campuses this fall," LU spokeswoman Misty Young said. "While Lincoln University is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of the entire university community as students return to campus, we believe it is important to make students aware that ultimately their personal safety relies on their own behaviors."

The waiver states the person reading it assumes "full responsibility for any and all risks of illness or injury associated with exposure to COVID-19, as well as from use of any protective equipment, including face masks, that the university may voluntarily provide."

The article:
https://www.newstribune.com/news/local/story/2020/aug/15/lincoln-university-students-sent-covid-19-liability-waiver/837711/

Feds say Yale discriminates against Asian, white applicants [Associated Press]

The flava:
A Justice Department investigation has found Yale University is illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants, in violation of federal civil rights law, officials said Thursday.

Yale denied the allegation, calling it “meritless” and “hasty.”

The findings detailed in a letter to the college’s attorneys Thursday mark the latest action by the Trump administration aimed at rooting out discrimination in the college application process, following complaints from students about the application process at some Ivy League colleges. The Justice Department had previously filed court papers siding with Asian American groups who had levied similar allegations against Harvard University.

The article:
https://apnews.com/e97f08eb935989840bda430bb7a32e15

Former student sues Shippensburg Univ, claims female supervisor pressed for 'threesome' [CBS21]

The flava:
A former Shippensburg University student filed a federal lawsuit against the school, claiming the administration did nothing to assist her when she told them she was being sexually harassed by her female supervisor, an assistant dean who continually pressured the student to join her in group sex.

The student says her repeated refusal to engage in the sexual activity, led to her termination from her graduate studies program, according the lawsuit.

The student claims in January of 2019 the assistant dean approached her asking if she would engage in a ménage à trois with her and a man. The student denied the request and soon after took her concerns to the Dean of OPCDE. The lawsuit states that "before she could cite any details, the dean told her that she did not want to hear about it."

The article:
https://local21news.com/news/local/former-student-sues-shippensburg-university-claims-sexual-harassment-by-female-supervisor

We Are Bison! [Gallaudet]

https://www.gallaudet.edu/residence-life-and-housing/covid-19-housing-fall-2020

From a World Away: Being an International Student During a Pandemic [The Daily Texan]

Jerry Falwell Jr. addresses deleted unzipped pants Instagram photo with WLNI [WSLS 10]

Dartmouth student ends hunger strike after school names investigator to probe sexual harassment allegations [Boston.com]

The flava:
A graduate student at Dartmouth College is ending a weeks-long hunger strike after the institution announced Friday an external investigator will probe the allegations of sexual harassment she brought forward earlier this year.

Maha Hasan Alshawi began her hunger strike in July to protest the school’s handling of her case.

The article:
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/08/07/dartmouth-student-hunger-strike-sexual-harassment-allegations

The Princeton Faculty’s Anti-Free-Speech Demands [The Atlantic]

The flava:
Princeton university is consumed from top to bottom with what seems to be the question of the moment: How should it reorder itself to fight racism?

The school’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, ordered 23 of the institution’s most senior academic and administrative leaders to focus on how to marshal Princeton’s teaching, research, operations, and partnerships in service of “eliminating racism” on and off campus. By August 21, they are to report on what specifically can be done “to identify, understand, and combat” it. The university is also giving $1,500 grants to students who want to fight racism, and has made available new funding for faculty to run scholarly projects or expand course offerings related to racism.

These efforts, though, don’t come close to satisfying the calls for change coming from within the Princeton community. Groups of students have variously described the composition of Princeton’s faculty and its “institutional culture” as “pillars of its oppressive past,” declared that their education failed to prepare them to vanquish racism, and urged a “comprehensive transformation” of curriculum, programming, and faculty.

The article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/what-princeton-professors-really-think-about-defining-racism/614911/

International students pressure universities to lower marking standards [Sky News Australia]

College Fails [NPR Planet Money]