Open vs Not
17 Aug 2020 15:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nwhikerUNC Chapel Hill opened a week ago. Today they announced they're closing, effective Wednesday.
Duh, people. WTF did you expect? No parties? No drinking? No sex? No masks... oh wait. That at least was expected.
Seriously, there is no way this was going to work.
I read that school housing contracts were written with a if you bail, you lose clause, but the uni is going to backtrack on that so families won't be out too much. Kids who were off campus? Well, too bad so sad, you'll need to pay all the rent which doesn't leave all kids the ability to bail and go home.
Two problems with that: 1. kids who are isolated... are not going to remain isolated. They're going to seek out friends etc. Home, which Not Fun, will tend to have the moderating effect of parents and maybe siblings. Of course there are kids who can stay in their apartments and maintain social distancing for months. They're not the problem. 2. Mental health. College can already be isolating for some kids, and online only classes disrupts social opportunities, may send roommates/SO/friends away etc, leaving kids isolated. Partying is one outlet. Depression is the other, both as it often engenders social isolation, and can be deepened by it. 3. The least important, I guess, is the impact on learning. Kids stuck in their apartments, with online learning. Some of it will be synchronous, forcing them to interact at a given time of day with other people. Some will be asynch, allowing them to set their own schedule, which isn't a bit thing in itself, but can have negative results: total lack of structure isn't always a good thing.
A lot of this could have been prevented if the universities had listened to the experts who said 'yeah, this not going to work' and planned to make fall remote in advance.
For parents, it's more headaches. Having a kid come home from a campus with as high a positivity rate as this one is a crapshoot too.
If this pandemic has taught me anything it is how critical having competent leadership is.
Duh, people. WTF did you expect? No parties? No drinking? No sex? No masks... oh wait. That at least was expected.
Seriously, there is no way this was going to work.
I read that school housing contracts were written with a if you bail, you lose clause, but the uni is going to backtrack on that so families won't be out too much. Kids who were off campus? Well, too bad so sad, you'll need to pay all the rent which doesn't leave all kids the ability to bail and go home.
Two problems with that: 1. kids who are isolated... are not going to remain isolated. They're going to seek out friends etc. Home, which Not Fun, will tend to have the moderating effect of parents and maybe siblings. Of course there are kids who can stay in their apartments and maintain social distancing for months. They're not the problem. 2. Mental health. College can already be isolating for some kids, and online only classes disrupts social opportunities, may send roommates/SO/friends away etc, leaving kids isolated. Partying is one outlet. Depression is the other, both as it often engenders social isolation, and can be deepened by it. 3. The least important, I guess, is the impact on learning. Kids stuck in their apartments, with online learning. Some of it will be synchronous, forcing them to interact at a given time of day with other people. Some will be asynch, allowing them to set their own schedule, which isn't a bit thing in itself, but can have negative results: total lack of structure isn't always a good thing.
A lot of this could have been prevented if the universities had listened to the experts who said 'yeah, this not going to work' and planned to make fall remote in advance.
For parents, it's more headaches. Having a kid come home from a campus with as high a positivity rate as this one is a crapshoot too.
If this pandemic has taught me anything it is how critical having competent leadership is.
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