Source: Published articles
Article note: Is this in-person reopening plan actually supposed to be viable, or is it just theater to get students to commit before an inevitable outbreak and shutdown?
I was doing prep work on campus earlier this week, and most of the visible efforts seem to be more performative than effective. Lots of disingenuous blame-shifting signs like "Please physically distance by 6ft on this busy 4ft wide path" and "Elevator occupancy 2; go heavy-breathe on each other in the crowded stairwell." Similarly, the "test every student (but not staff or faculty) once sometime vaguely around their arrival" plan seems like an effort to check the testing box rather than accomplish any practical goal.
Likewise, the food services in the student center looks like they can handle about 25% capacity while sending customers out to fend for themselves for a safe place to unmask and eat, which was frankly not that easy even with the tiny fraction of people already back. As someone else [pointed out a few days ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversityofKentucky/comments/i3xc0h/a_vent_re_the_absurdity_of_in_person_classes/), allowed room occupancy vs. enrollment is tilted such that many in person courses will be "in person" in name only even in a best-case scenario. Enough at-risk students are already getting in touch about remote options that it seems most courses will need to provide all-remote options even _before_ the quarantine and illness absences start to stack up and/or we go full remote following a probable outbreak, so effort for in-person instruction is feeling increasingly futile.
As an instructor trying to do right by my students, while I appreciate that there are difficult decisions being considered at the every level, I'm increasingly frustrated by the lack of credible planning coming down from above, and the decisions it is forcing me to make for the upcoming semester. Realistic, honest planning for an all-remote semester with early resource commitment would have offered a better experience than wasting time and resources planning for an infeasible in-person scenario, then having another hasty "unplanned" shutdown with students who were promised something else.
I suspect my comment will get deleted, posting here:
