It’s been a rocky start of the fail semester for various colleges that have already resumed in-person instruction.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill previous only one week before changing to online teach, due to a spike in COVID-1 9 cases on campus. Since then, several other colleges have spawned similar swivels, and others are seeing rising infection rates that have officials concerned.

One expert tracking how colleges are responding to the pandemic is Robert Kelchen, an associate professor of higher education at Seton Hall University. We invited him to share his perspective and answer audience questions during our latest EdSurge Live online discussion forum this week.

Listen to the conversation, or read a partial transcript below, thinly revised for clarity.

EdSurge: Is there any specific advice or gratuities that colleges can learn from its own experience of others that started world-class early?

Kelchen: Mostly attending has been on trying to get students not to go to large-scale parties–especially indoor parties. And some colleges ought to have warning students with expulsion or postponement. I feel Syracuse suspended a number of students, and I’ve seen at least 10 or 15 colleges that have suspended and kicked students off campus for partying. And some colleges are thinking about trying to fine students for bad action. I predict in my own campus newspaper that my university’s going to fine people who are violating the government requirements–up to $1,000.

Some colleges had some students come back early and quarantine in dorms for two weeks. One of those was Syracuse University. Has that approach been working for colleges?

That works the best when you’re in an area with relatively low transmission of the virus and you have most of your students living either on campus or close by. Syracuse has to do quarantining because they’re in a state that requires that–New York. And then there are a few other states–Connecticut, New Jersey, and I guess Massachusetts–that are recommending a quarantine, but I don’t think they’re all involving it. And some colleges in New York have accommodated residence, while others aren’t providing dwelling and they’re originating students pay for it themselves on or near campus. Or they can go somewhere within one of the so-called “safe states” for two weeks and then go to Syracuse.

Some colleges are offering discounted intuition–of about 10 percent–when schooling has moved online. Is that what you are seeing?

It’s still a small percentage of colleges that can do that — principally wealthier colleges. There’ve been a few public universities that have done it in a few cases historically pitch-black colleges, but generally it’s colleges with huge endowments that can afford the losses.

Basically, there are plenty of places trying to convince kinfolks that[ the online education] it’s worth full tuition, or that they just have to do it that way. And more the experience is going to be–well , not what anybody … dreams of when you[ think about campus life ].

[ Audience question] Is there a explanation of happens where a college that[ has several occurrences] has only been recently influences through? That they just need to ride out the first part of this?

Yeah, I think some colleges is certainly do that. There’s an contention to be made that it’s absolutely the wrong thing to close campus and send parties back to wherever they came from during the middle of an epidemic–that then you’re really spreading it everywhere else. And you are eligible to realize the lawsuit that as long as the regional hospices and the healthcare method can manage specimen, then you can make a health-based argument that it’s okay.

You’ll likewise have colleges that either can’t afford to send beings residence or are too stubborn about missing campuses open for various reasons. Athletics may be a reason why some of these colleges try to push through, as well as really the politics of it. In some of these red-state public universities, or even private colleges where the members of the commission craves them to stay open, would they be able to close? And if they close their campuses, would they too placed the chairmen and provosts and other commanders at risk of being subjected to fuelled?

[ Audience question] How are sounding diminished students able to understand castigates when profs wear disguises?

That’s a real concern. I know there are some people who have developed clear face disguises or are using face shields. But in general, I’m very much concerned about where students can understand the lectures if they’re in person, masked or behind plexiglass or whatever there is. And then the students attending online–if it’s a[ composite] class–is the technology there for those students to understand and participating fully?

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