At Innovative Educators, we recognize that it has been a challenging year for our friends in higher education, and we are inspired and amazed at all the hard work you’ve done to prepare for a fall semester that promises to be unlike any other!  We also believe in celebrating milestones and your accomplishments.  To that end, we would love to see your first day of school pictures of you, our colleagues and friends in higher education.  Please email your picture (at work, at home, in your shield or your mask) to Meg (meg@ieinfo.org).  One back-to-school pic entry will win a $250 scholarship for students at your institution!

The first week of classes for many schools began with a Zoom glitch serious enough to halt learning across the U.S.: not an auspicious beginning to fall 2020.  The week also brought more shifts to fall learning plans with institutions including Towson University, the University of Oregon, and Virginia State University moving all learning online.  COVID cases continued to rise at colleges and universities prompting officials in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to close bars and restaurants for two weeks.  Other schools cracked down on students’ behavior. At Ohio State University, 228 students received interim suspensions for violating new coronavirus-related safety guidelines. Central Michigan suspended all Greek-life activities in an effort to curb students socializing in large groups. But is it fair to blame students for COVID outbreaks?

The Chronicle of Higher Education examined institutions’ responses this week to growing COVID cases on their campuses. While schools like Purdue and Syracuse University enforced student-conduct codes, the message being sent to students: “their behavior was jeopardizing universities’ painstaking plans to offer a safe, in-person semester.”  Critics question whether it is fair to blame college students, who have been away from friends for months, for engaging in their “normal” social college experience.  What blame should college administrators shoulder having students return to campus during a pandemic while expecting vast changes in student behavior?

“Dear administrators who are scolding students for messing up your ill-conceived plans: instead of blaming the students, perhaps we should analyze why you put them in that position in the first place.” - Michael Sorrell, President of Paul Quinn College

Education Dive reports this week on the U.S. Department of Education’s new regulations governing distance learning.  While the definition of a credit hour remains the same, new regulations include criteria for evaluating faculty interaction with students and an allowance for the use of instructional teams versus individual instructors for classes.  While the regulations go into effect in July 2021, institutions are encouraged to begin implementing them now.

At Innovative Educators, we recognize that it has been a challenging year for our friends in higher education, and we are inspired and amazed at all the hard work you’ve done to prepare for a fall semester that promises to be unlike any other!  We also believe in celebrating milestones and your accomplishments.  To that end, we would love to see your first day of school pictures of you, our colleagues and friends in higher education.  Please email your picture (at work, at home, in your shield or your mask) to Meg (meg@ieinfo.org).  One back-to-school pic entry will win a $250 scholarship for students at your institution!

This week saw more students move in to their college residences across the nation.  After UNC-Chapel Hill reported 4 COVID clusters in residence halls and a fraternity house, it announced on Monday a shift to online learning for the fall.  Notre Dame also announced mid-week it would move classes online for two weeks as cases climbed.  The University of Oklahoma quarantined an entire sorority when 23 cases emerged.  Columbia and Barnard changed their reopening plans, shifting their fall semester online.  With the ever-changing nature of the semester, residential students might want to consider unpacking only the necessities.

Education Dive this week examines the changes to Title IX which went into effect on August 14.  The new ruling “is most known for the new quasi-judicial process it sets up, which is far more intensive than a typical conduct hearing.” Advocates are concerned that new processes are vague and will bog down Title IX claims to the point that students reporting sexual assault will not want to pursue formal investigations. Adapting to the new rules has also proved challenging during the pandemic.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education reported this week on increased enrollments at HBCU’s. Cheyney University, the nation’s oldest historically Black university, saw a 46% increase in first-year students who paid deposits over last year.  Some HBCUs saw an increase this summer in student enrollment numbers which administrators attribute in part to the Black Lives Matter protests.  Other HBCUs like Winston-Salem State University and Claflin University are also reporting increasing enrollment for the fall 2020 semester.

"Current undergraduate admissions tests fail to meet basic standards of being fair, accurate and useful." - Bob Schaeffer, FairTest's interim executive director

We hope you will join us on August 21 for our next Friday 5 Live!  Denise Swett will help us look at what to expect for the fall semester, predict the future of this term, and provide insights into student needs and resources.  We look forward to our discussion on August 21!

This week saw students begin to move into residence halls and prepare for the fall semester.   Institutions like Pace are requiring students to self quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.  At Colgate University, students won’t do this alone.  Colgate’s president, Brian W. Casey, will quarantine in a residence hall room eating the same food that is delivered to students and abiding by the same rules as an act of solidarity with Colgate’s students.  His mother has promised to send him cookies during his time in self quarantine.

“Unlike professional sports, college sports cannot operate in a bubble. Our athletic programs are a part of broader campuses in communities where in many cases the prevalence of Covid-19 is significant.”  - Larry Scott, the PAC-12 conference’s commissioner

The PAC-12 and Big 10 Conferences announced this week that they would not participate in NCAA sports this fall, including football.  The Power 5 conferences also met to discuss fall football.  The NCAA has issued new guidance for the fall semester which includes that student athletes who opt not to play due to health concerns cannot be penalized for that decision. As of late last week, 11 of 23 Division II conferences have announced they will not play fall sports; Division III did not report the number of conferences that have suspended fall play. The NCAA called off fall championships for Division II and III sports.

Students returning to campus are finding major differences in their dining hall experiences as a result of COVID. At institutions like St. Norbert and Cornell, large dining hall capacity has been cut in half.  Rather than all you can eat buffets, students can expect to have set times to collect to-go meals and alternative eating locations like outdoor tents.  Students will be asked to eat quickly to allow for sanitizing between dining sessions.  Many institutions have also adopted OpenTable for students to use to make reservations for food pick up or to space out dining-in options.  Overall, students should expect to see menus that cater to grab-and-go options or take and reheat and constant reminders to stay distanced from fellow students.

We hope you were able to join us for our Friday 5 Live today.  We were grateful to have Andrea G. Harris, Senior Director, Student Administrative Service at Pepperdine University, join us again! We continued our discussion about well-being as we work from home, and we talked through how to handle virtual fatigue which will be critical for all of us for this fall.  Please join us on August 21 as we ask Denise Swett to look into the future of the fall semester!

This week we saw continued changes to academic plans for the fall semester.  Smith College announced that it will shift all classes online for the fall.  The University of Virginia pushed back its fall move-in date and shifted classes online; local residents have been critical of the university bringing students back to campus.  In contrast, Ames, Iowa residents are eager for students to return to Iowa State and support the town’s economy.  As some institutions push forward with full residence halls, there is increased speculation of Private-Public Partnerships between universities and companies, like Corvias.  The concern is that institutions are being forced to fill residence halls or make up the difference financially to the companies managing them.  We continue to watch the constantly shifting environment of higher education as we edge closer and closer to the start of the fall semester.

“The coronavirus has put a spotlight on a lot of the injustices in college athletics” - Valentino Daltoso, an offensive lineman at the University of California Berkeley

Hundreds of PAC-12 Conference football players announced this week that they would not participate in training camps or games this fall unless the conference met certain demands including health and safety procedures, created protections for other sports and addressed racial injustice. The athletes spent more than a month organizing, and their hope is that the threat of a boycott will lead to a formal negotiation process.  “There is a significant overlap between college sports and issues of racial justice, especially in football programs” report Vox.  College football is disproportionately fueled by Black athletes: half of all Division 1 football players are Black.

Multiple publications this week highlighted the growing anxiety regarding  institutions’ financial health. The Hechinger Report examined financial decisions made pre-COVID-19 that have negatively impacted institutions while Education Dive reported on the continuation of layoffs and furloughs.  An interactive tool shared by Inside Higher Ed gives campus communities a snapshot of their institution’s financial situation.  The bottom line: the financial future of many colleges and universities is very bleak.

We hope you were able to join us for our Friday 5 Live.   We were grateful to have Andrea G. Harris, Senior Director, Student Administrative Service at Pepperdine University, join us! We discussed how to make work from home “work” including maintaining boundaries and improving overall well-being.  Please join us on August 7 for a discussion about how to battle virtual fatigue as we prepare students, staff and faculty for the fall semester.

With COVID cases continuing to rise nationally, institutions differ widely this week on their responses to fall reopening plans.  Spelman College initially announced a limited return to campus, but will now be online for the fall. Two other prominent HBCUs, Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, also announced online for the fall.  Taking plans in a different direction, the University of North Carolina system will have full residence halls with double occupancy, reports Inside Higher Education.  We continue to watch closely as fall plans evolve at campuses nationwide.

According to a report released on Tuesday by the Education Trust, Black students have less access now to selective public colleges than they did 20 years ago.  Since 2000, the percentage of Black students has dropped at nearly 60 percent of the 101 institutions cited in the report.  Colleges in states with large Black populations were the least accessible.  The authors caution that colleges will have to make major changes to become more inclusive campuses. Both Chronicle of Higher Education and The Hechinger Report provided coverage of this research this week.

NPR reports this week on how COVID continues to impact institutions’ fall opening plans. In June and early July, schools were more optimistic about their ability to acquire tests and supplies; however, now that start days are weeks away, they're realizing that "there's just no way." More colleges are rolling back initial plans of in-person or hybrid fall and developing, instead, plans to rely heavily on virtual options. Students are complaining about how institutions are communicating changing plans. The NPR piece cited an Emory student who was asked to re-enroll in classes, saw that all options were virtual, but did not receive an official notice that the fall would be online until after the re-enrollment process.

"It's going to be an experiment this fall. It's going to be a test to see which solution worked better than the others," - Jessica Figenholtz, the higher education practice leader at Perkins and Will's Chicago office