Student Union
Universities Try to Keep Students Apart but Together
Frank Strong, chancellor of the University of Kansas, made a simple, but official, statement proclaiming the university closed.
“By authority and direction of the state board of health, there will be no classes in the university beginning at noon today, October 8,” he wrote in the university’s paper. “The university will reopen Tuesday, October 15, unless notice is given to the contrary.”
But it wasn’t just one week of closure; it turned out to be five. Strong was dealing with the influenza outbreak of 1918, first discovered in the United States in Haskell County, Kansas, “an isolated and sparsely populated county in the southwest corner of the state.”
More than 100 years later, colleges and universities are dealing with the same health crisis: a flu pandemic that stopped higher education almost overnight. The difference this time is, instead of hundreds of students attending school together, institutions are grappling with how to accommodate hundreds of thousands. That includes more than 1 million students from outside the U.S.
Carlo Ciotoli, M.D., New York University’s associate vice president for student health and executive director of the Student Health Center, is walking in Strong’s shoes. After notifying the NYU community in January 2020 about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, people continued to crowd into bars and restaurants, and masks were limited to health care, not streetwear. New York was a hot spot. Students still traveled by plane and mass transit around the planet. States in different parts of the country opened up, then closed when flu rates rose.
Meanwhile, colleges and universities scrambled to respond. Some sent students home for a break, then required them to return to clean out their rooms. Study abroad students were unsure whether to stay or go. Educators, students and parents scrambled to adapt, finally shutting down to figure out how to respond for the fall semester.
So far, 61 percent of schools across the country have decided that students will return to campus.
The dilemma remains: How to keep students safe while not going bankrupt.
On-campus classes
Public and private schools including Harvard University and Boston University in Massachusetts, the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Elon University in North Carolina, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kenyon College and Ohio State University in Ohio, Pepperdine University in California, Tulane University in New Orleans, the University of Arizona, and Washington University in St. Louis, all plan on having students on campus, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, an education news site.
Some universities are starting late, like the University of Florida, while others, like the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, are beginning early, and completing final exams by Thanksgiving.
Other schools, like American University in Washington, D.C., will hold hybrid classes this fall, meaning that course instruction will be online and in person.
For AU, classes that are held in a lab will be given priority for in-person learning, while “more traditional lectures” will follow the hybrid model including a combination of some in-person classes, online work and live streams.
Yale University said it plans to reopen its campus this fall without sophomores, and return in the spring without freshmen, according to its website.
Harvard announced that it will “bring up to 40 percent of undergraduates to campus for the fall semester, including all first-year students,” according to the university’s website.
Princeton University stated that first-year students and juniors will be on campus for the fall, while sophomores and seniors will return in the spring. According to the university’s website, “most academic instruction will remain online.”
Some larger institutions are unable to follow these guidelines, but others, like the University of Colorado at Boulder, are finding unique solutions. CU Boulder plans for students to live and take courses as a group.
“In a regular semester, they may have 40 or 50 different students that they would be interacting with rather than just 10,” Philip DiStefano, the Boulder campus chancellor, told CNN. “And we believe that by reducing that population density, we’ll certainly help to mitigate some of the problems with the virus.”
How to house students apart
Students returning to school in the fall will face a reduced collegiate experience: Partying, sharing bathrooms and just sitting in a dining hall with friends are among the luxuries students will not be afforded when the semester begins. This fall, with proper social distancing guidelines put in place, students’ social lives are likely to be very different than ever before.
Many universities are offering campus housing to freshmen and some upperclassmen and asking other students to find housing off campus.
AU’s on-campus housing will only be provided for freshmen and “some” sophomores.
The University of Pennsylvania will provide on-campus housing for first year, second year, and transfer undergraduates, and lease additional space off campus for third- and fourth-year undergraduate students.
Juniors and seniors at Yale may choose to live on campus or not.
The American College Health Association has advised that universities should house “single resident per room and ideally per bathroom (if possible).”
But most colleges traditionally offer on-campus housing to two, three or four to a room with a communal toilet and bathroom used by an entire dorm floor.
Applications and admissions
The application process is changing, too. Colleges and universities are looking at student attributes differently.
More than 300 U.S. colleges and universities have endorsed Harvard’s Graduate School of Education statement that “seeks to clarify what we value in applicants during this time of COVID-19.”
Besides the usual academic work, service and contributions to others, family contributions and extracurricular activities, schools are asking about summer activities and “self-care.”
“We encourage students to communicate any factors specific to their circumstances that impeded their academic performance,” the statement recommended. “We encourage students to describe concretely how any of these circumstances have negatively affected their academic performance or ability to engage in activities that matter to them.”
See all News Updates of the Day
International students may be able to get jobs at school
International students studying in the United States may be able to work on campus.
Jobs can include working in libraries, labs, food service and dormitories – but students will have to research the rules before applying for jobs, according to U.S. News & World Report. (September 2024)
Report says college rankings have the potential to mislead
Each year, prominent lists of college and university rankings are compiled and released to the public, but a report conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago says those rankings have the potential to mislead.
Writing in Forbes, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier says changing methodologies can distort results, and profit motives can create doubt. He argues that rankings should be replaced by an objective rating system. (September 2024)
College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
- By VOA News
Bloomberg Philanthropies says investment in low-income students fell short
More than $140 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s charitable programs have been spent getting talented low-income students into top colleges, but an analysis of those programs found they fell short of goals.
The Wall Street Journal took a look at the programs, their objectives, and how they haven’t led to the results Bloomberg Philanthropies wanted to see. (September 2024)
- By VOA News
Music students find community through 'international chat' program
State University of New York at Fredonia is trying a new method to help international music students feel at home.
A professor at the school hosts informal chats -- known as "international chat" -- several times a semester. The goal, the school says in an article, is to function "as a study group session for international students facing challenges that are unique to international students."
Read the full story here. (October 2024)
