The word in my circles is that the workaround may be to make sure such students have something to do in person, whether that’s TAing or research hours with you or similar. I wouldn’t tell him anything today. There should be more info soon.
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I have to imagine that the set up will be to have optional F2F sessions as a loophole to get around the full online-only ban for international students. The sessions will exist but nobody will ever go. No way are universities going to let that juicy international tuition walk away.
It’s the same approach my school took to opening so they could give students their final exams. There weren’t any seminars but the possibility of them happening existed and that was enough to open the school.
Will these shananigans work for the 10s of thousands of affected students? Perhaps at hybrid schools but it seems hard for a school like Harvard that is explicitly 100 percent online to have thousands of F2F fake courses.
Colleges have got away with way worse.
Anyway, they just have to include occasional F2F review sessions with optional attendance in with the online course. No new material is taught. It’s basically enough to shed the online-only label and make it a hybrid course. Either that or a shitload of students are going to be kicked out.
Or excessive of VPNs.
I hope you’re right.
My school just sent out an email saying that every international student must be enrolled in an in person class or leave the country. It’s happening.
Edit: just F-1 students, I think. But that’s most.
Holy shit
I’m focused on phd students right now, because that’s where my responsibility is. I have no idea how this applies to someone who’s in the research phase and thus not taking formal classes. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing if I were responsible for masters and undergraduate students.
This is mind-blowing. Like, our college is scrambling already just to get teaching in place. And I’m supposed to have a meeting tomorrow to determine what to do about admitted students who can’t get visas. But this is just blowing things up to a whole new level.
It’s all so completely unnecessary.
Yeah, I’m wondering how this works for people post candidacy. Maybe their advisor can sign the paperwork saying research hours or an independent study requires in person meetings? No clue.
Emails are flying right now. I just got a message saying that F1 students in the dissertation stage are not subject to this rule. Which is great. But frankly, I’m not sure where that certainty comes from.
It’s one thing to be neglectful and completely ineffective in dealing with a major pandemic. It’s another thing to affirmatively and intentionally impose this kind of decision on people. I am so fucking dispirited right now.
From yesterday’s roundtable, here’s Betsy DeVos lecturing on risk homeostasis:
“Education leaders really do need to examine real data and weigh risk,” DeVos said. “They already deal with risk on a daily basis. We know that risk is embedded in everything we do. Learning to ride a bike, to the risk of getting in a space capsule and getting shot off in a rocket into space.”
I wonder if she’s weighed the risk of getting in a space capsule and getting shot off in a rocket into space.
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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280853299600789505
Cool, cool. Obviously a well thought out plan. Much deliberation.
I’m a very laid back person and rarely do people get some emotion out of me but got damn I hate that woman.
Also- I was watching a talking head earlier and they made the statement that all universities should create a 1 credit class that only “has to meet once on campus” that all international students are automatically enrolled in where class participation is not counted and it’s on a pass/fail basis. I mean they already have these kinds of classes for athletes so why not just do that for students that bring actual value to your university.
It’s so fucking gross we even need to have to consider these options.
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I volunteer to press the launch button.
NYC schools not fully reopening in the fall
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that public schools would still not fully reopen in September, saying that classroom attendance would instead be limited to only one to three days a week in an effort to continue to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Your students who are not yet candidates are on the payroll as RA/TA though, right?
So there’s a pretty big question out there with regard to this recent ICE announcement: How many online classes is a student allowed to take?
The ICE announcement says the following:
Nonimmigrant F-1 students attending schools adopting a hybrid model—that is, a mixture of online and in person classes—will be allowed to take more than one class or three credit hours online.
Someone in my university is interpreting that statement to mean that students are ok as long as at least one class is not online. I think that’s likely a mistake, and I don’t think I’m being paranoid. The long-standing rule is that visa-holders can’t be in the country if they’re just taking online classes (think University of Phoenix), and all that’s happened is that the rule was suspended for Spring and Summer 2020. ICE is simply announcing that the rule is back in place. So what exactly does that rule say about how many online classes a student can take?
From the DHS website https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/tools-menu/frequently-asked-questions:
Only one online or distance learning class can count toward a full course of study for an F-1 student during each term or semester.
No online or distance learning classes may count toward an M-1 or ESL student’s full course of study requirement.
So I don’t think there’s a magic bullet where a university can provide a single in-person class for students and then allow visa holders to take the remaining classes online.
Edit: Upon reflection, I think the above is wrong. I think if the school provides a hybrid program (combination of in-person and online classes), visa holders are able to take more than one class online, as long as their schedule isn’t completely online. But this is still ambiguous about the classification of a hybrid class, which I think is going to be the majority of all non-online classes we offer. I am skeptical that taking a combination of hybrid and online classes satisfies the requirements.
They receive stipends for being an RA, yes. I’m probably missing your point, though, because that doesn’t change the fact they’d need to leave the country if their classes are offered online.
Couldn’t the department make the argument that it would be unduly burdened by the loss of employees who were hired months ago?