{"id":23608,"date":"2020-05-22T12:05:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T16:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=23608"},"modified":"2020-05-22T12:05:21","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T16:05:21","slug":"college-presidents-discuss-challenges-of-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2020\/05\/22\/college-presidents-discuss-challenges-of-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"College Presidents Discuss Challenges of Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/825890746&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>College Presidents Discuss Challenges of Pandemic<\/strong><br \/>\n<span>by Grace Ferguson<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The coronavirus pandemic has made planning for the fall semester a huge challenge for universities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Wednesday, at a panel hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the presidents of four Boston-area colleges discussed what they\u2019re doing to adapt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boston University President Robert Brown and Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun both reiterated their commitments to bringing students back to campus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cBut, in order to do that, it will not be business as usual,\u201d Aoun said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aoun said his university has acquired 2,000 extra beds in apartments and hotels to reduce the density of students in dorms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brown said students would have to segregate themselves into households, though he did not elaborate on what that meant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both Northeastern and BU plan to conduct their own COVID-19 testing and contact tracing. They are also planning to isolate students who test positive for the coronavirus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The two schools will be teaching in a hybrid model, where classes are taught both online and in-person. Brown said this was necessary because not everyone can make it back to campus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are going to have to be more flexible than we\u2019ve ever been,\u201d Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">International students facing visa issues, those with preexisting medical conditions, and students who have COVID-19 can still go to class in this hybrid model.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The University of Massachusetts is preparing for all scenarios, from fully online to hybrid to on-campus, said its president Marty Meehan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">President Pam Eddinger of Bunker Hill Community College said her school is planning to teach mostly online or in a hybrid model. She said some classes like labs could still be taught in-person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Online class might sound like a safe option from a health perspective, but it comes with its challenges. Not every student is equipped to learn online. Eddinger said that Bunker Hill had to buy between 800 and 1000 chromebooks, plus some wifi hotspots, for its students this spring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn the 25 [to] 30 years I\u2019ve been in education, I have never seen such stresses on students,\u201d Eddinger said. \u201cEverything from this huge switch online, which holds great opportunity for us into the future, was one of the worst things I\u2019ve ever experienced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brown said BU has a considerable population of students with Pell grants. He acknowledged that the shift to online learning was especially hard for those students, whose homes might not be the best learning environments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meehan of UMass pointed out that those inequities have major consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf we leave these folks behind, we\u2019re not gonna have economic prosperity in this country,\u201d Meehan said. \u201cThis is an essential part of getting the economy going again, in making sure these students get what they need.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Universities are already preparing to help students graduating into a deep recession. Brown said BU will be using as many resources as it can, from alumni relations to career centers, just as it did during the 2008 financial crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that still might not be enough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere could be a generational impact here that is much more profound than what we saw coming out of 2008,\u201d Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the panel ended, all four presidents were asked to share one thing keeping them up at night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEnrollment,\u201d Meehan said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe human factor,\u201d Aoun said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTesting,\u201d Brown said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCompassion,\u201d Eddinger said.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>College Presidents Discuss Challenges of Pandemic by Grace Ferguson The coronavirus pandemic has made planning for the fall semester a huge challenge for universities.\u00a0 On Wednesday, at a panel hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the presidents of four Boston-area colleges discussed what they\u2019re doing to adapt. Boston University President Robert Brown and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17683,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1597,1599,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23609,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23608\/revisions\/23609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}