Brown University Now Sending Students Home Due to Coronavirus
“People are definitely very upset. The atmosphere has been crazy”
This is now happening all over the place. In years of covering higher ed news, I’ve never seen so many schools sending students home over a disease.
WJAR News reports:
Brown University to begin remote learning; Students must move off campus
Students carrying boxes was a common sight on the campus of Brown University Thursday as they prepare to move out two months early.
“We have to go back to our dorms and pack up everything in like a day. I’m leaving tomorrow,” said freshman Sophia Saker.
Brown is now among most universities and colleges in the area to suspend in-person classes on campus, and switch to online learning, as a Coronavirus precaution.
Johnson & Wales and Salve Regina announced Thursday they hope to resume classes on campus in mid-April.
The decision at Brown and Rhode Island School of Design is for the remainder of the spring semester.
Brown is canceling classes next week and closing its dorms next weekend for the rest of the school year.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is prepare for the potential for COVID-19 to be more widespread than it is right now,” Brown University spokesman Brian Clark told NBC 10.
The Ivy League institution will move to online classes later in the month, after spring break.
“People are definitely very upset. The atmosphere has been crazy,” said Brown student Atessa Savitt.
“We get it, but no one wants to have their year cut short,” she told NBC 10.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
If schools decide that distance learning is good enough, then perhaps they don’t need all those costly campuses? And without campuses, surely they could do without much of the administrative apparat? And begin offering courses that are both excellent quality and reasonably priced?
Now, if we could just pry their hands off their lock on accreditation, perhaps seat-time (aka credit-hours) could mostly be replaced with comprehensive exams as the primary requirement for awarding that all-important credential, the (preferably brand-name) college degree?
Are you suggesting that a rushed panic-based action might have long term unintended consequences? When has that ever NOT happened. The headline should run as “Colleges commit suicide over fear of the sniffles.”