As the week has unfolded, we see the continued impact of Covid-19 on institutions of higher education as schools look to shift online for summer and potentially fall semesters, and consider the financial ramifications.  WCET has an updated website which includes relevant policy changes.  Education Dive is continuing to update its resources on Covid-19’s impact on our field. The Chronicle continues its extensive reporting this week as well as Inside Higher Ed who is providing up-to-date reporting.

This week Education Dive examines the abrupt impact of Covid-19 on state funding of higher education.  At the beginning of March, experts anticipated modest increases to budgets and potentially new efforts to make tuition free for more students.  However, as the nation shifts towards a potential recession and state tax revenues decline, states will have fewer dollars to fund higher education programming.  Experts caution that it is too soon to fully understand the impact to college budgets.

Faculty and students are reporting cases of Zoombombing: live classes being held in the web conferencing platform Zoom being hacked.  Classes are being disrupted by disturbing images or crude submissions to the chat. The "bombs" typically “take the form of racist vitriol or pornographic content shared with the group by an unwelcome user.”  Insider Higher Ed reports this week on this disturbing trend. Teaching or hosting student meetings in Zoom? Refer to these helpful directions to better secure your Zoom sessions.

8.4 million: Total number of Zoom-meeting minutes the University of Texas at Austin hosted on March 31. 252,720: Number of unique participants. (Source: Chronicle of Higher Education)