US unis increasingly moving to online teaching for the coming semester
It is interesting to compare the reports from the USA versus those in the UK about students’ return to campus.
Forbes reports a “daily drumbeat” of universities in the USA delaying the start of teaching or moving teaching online.
Early last week, several major universities, including Duke, Miami University, West Virginia, Washington State, and George Washington, announced they were pulling back from their original reopening plans. By week’s end, several more institutions revealed they were also revising their approach.
Forbes separately reports of incidents of faculty writing publicly to encourage students to study from home, students suing over lasts semester’s curtailed teaching, launching petitions and threatening lawsuits demanding tuition discounts for the coming year, and parents getting into the mix.
There are key differences. In the USA the university teaching year starts four to six weeks earlier (mid-August) than in the UK, meaning institutions, students and parents are doing the health calculus sooner. Coronavirus infections and deaths are high and growing. Universities in the USA still have tenure, giving tenured faculty a stronger voice against university management.
What is clear is the tensions seen in debates around coronavirus mitigation are present in debates around the return to campus. The looser regulatory environment, higher fees at the most expensive universities and litigious nature of society create a more tense dynamic.
However, much of this could come to the UK in early- to mid-September, especially if coronavirus infection and Covid-19 deaths increase.
In order to assure universities’ finances, vice chancellors in many universities in England have locked themselves into an on campus and blended promise that they will find it hard to reverse.
Yes, the market-based regulatory environment is largely to blame, but vice chancellors and their lobby group (Universities UK) have failed to deliver a compelling argument for greater government support.
Students and their parents have something of a whip hand. They could easily demand that all teaching goes online if the health prognosis looks poor. In addition to their market power, the the Office for Students (OfS) and consumer protection law creates a regulatory framework and Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) provides an enforcement mechanism.
Staff on the other hand, will be victims of their bosses pandering to the market and desperation to please the government by treating the pandemic as over. Their only protection is health and safety legislation, where institutions are largely covered if they follow government advice. Advice that gave the diminutive UK the third worst Covid-19 death toll, until topped by Mexico this week (with double the population).