Dear Colleagues: As you can see, I have decided to host the “CETL Tip” biweekly email here, on Substack. I hope that this will allow us to have a conversation (using the comment functions) that email doesn’t facilitate as easily. It will also allow past notes to be more easily found. I will plan to continue with roughly an every-two-weeks post, and welcome any feedback on the format or content of the CETL Tips!
What fall will look like seems to be changing daily - hourly perhaps. All our assumptions now seem to be based on very little solid information and a lot of conjecture, and this isn’t a criticism. I believe that most of us - faculty, administration, local government - are trying to do the best with the little information we have.
In the spirit of sharing information, I have found several contrasting articles/blog posts that might be of interest (below, with selected excerpts). They all share different thoughts about what we should be thinking and talking about as we look ahead to the fall semester, from pedagogical implications to health and safety to financial/fiscal sustainability. I would encourage you to reach out with your thoughts and concerns - Dr. Kress has invited direct feedback, and the Campus Forum Council will compile feedback it receives into one memo for the president.
I would love to hear your feedback - either by email or by commenting below.
Decisions to close campuses or to move to an all-online model for the short term are being made without adequate faculty involvement in decision-making. The AAUP’s 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities makes clear that “the faculty has primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, . . . and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process.”
The Academic Freedom Right to Teach Remotely
Does academic freedom protect the right of an individual professor to teach remotely? Academic freedom gives faculty enormous autonomy over teaching decisions, and the decision to teach remotely would seem to be one of those choices…The freedom to teach is primarily based on pedagogical reasons. But safety is also a relevant consideration for faculty. If faculty believe that a particular mode of teaching poses any kind of threat to themselves or to their students, those faculty have a fundamental right under academic freedom to choose teaching methods that protect everyone while still permitting the teaching of their classes.
Should Courses be Online for Fall 2020?
It is perfectly reasonable, and very desirable, for universities to require professors to teach in classrooms rather than on-line. Universities should uphold teaching standards. Just as a professor should not be allowed to cancel half the class sessions during a semester, he should not be allowed to only do on-line lectures—unless the university thinks that actually is the best way to teach that particular course.
A Case for Virtual Fall Term 2020 (and Probably Spring 2021)
Classrooms and labs force very close contact between students, with no option of proper distancing. Take a look at this image from one of our math classrooms. There's maybe two feet between desks. Plus we pack in 35 students into this space. After you get a 6 or 7 people in there, you've used up "6 feet of distance" between people…Classes are used multiple times a day. A single seat or desk may see as many as 10 or 12 different people using it each day. It seems unrealistic that we will sanitize each desk completely during each period. We'd need to hire hundreds of staff to do this massive cleaning job. This is unlikely given budgets are expected to go down. Given that we won't expand staff, then we won't do the cleaning needed. Therefore, we will have a petri dish in each classroom.
This New York Times Opinion piece by Christina Paxson, Brown University President - College Campuses Must Reopen in the Fall. Here’s How We Do It. - has been much-discussed, and much-criticized.
As amazing as videoconferencing technology has become, students face financial, practical and psychological barriers as they try to learn remotely. This is especially true for lower-income students who may not have reliable internet access or private spaces in which to study. If they can’t come back to campus, some students may choose — or be forced by circumstances — to forgo starting college or delay completing their degrees.
Ryan Katz-Rosene – Twitter thread of campus considerations when reopening
Bryan Alexander – Twitter thread about concerns for Fall semester