Colleges scrapping spring break amid travel concerns during coronavirus pandemic

[groundloop]

Source: ABC News

An increasing number of colleges and universities are canceling spring break six months ahead of time amid concerns about travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

The University of Michigan became one of the latest schools to amend its calendar and scrap the traditional spring break. On Thursday, its Board of Regents approved updated academic calendars across its three campuses that eliminated the spring recess.

In a letter requesting changes to its academic calendar, University of Michigan, Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso said the move would "mitigate the possible risks associated with campus community members who may have traveled during the middle of the semester." Officials for the main campus in Ann Arbor and the Flint campus also noted their revisions were due to "challenges posed by COVID-19."

Michigan joins other Big Ten universities that have canceled spring break next semester, including University of Wisconsin, Madison; Purdue University; Ohio State University and University of Iowa.





Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/colleges-scrapping-spring-break-amid-travel-concerns-coronavirus/story?id=73108974&cid=clicksource_4380645_1_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed

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Other schools taking similar action are Tennessee, Florida, Baylor , Texas Christian University, Kansas State, Kentucky, Iowa State, Northern Iowa and Carnegie Mellon.

[sfstaxprep]

1. Fucking Idiots

They're only "concerned" with their bottom lines.

They don't care about the Students, Athletes, Teachers or the Communities surrounding the University. But suddenly they care about other communities being traveled to? LOL.

[FBaggins]

2. It isn't the other communities

It's the travel in large numbers away from campus - to all over the country - and then returning to campus.

Same thing going on at a bunch of schools this Fall. All breaks canceled so that the semester ends before Thanksgiving. Then everyone goes home and doesn't return to campus.

This is just wash/rinse/repeat for the Spring semester. It's a way of saying "we don't expect next year to be any better than this one"

[paleotn]

3. So the solution is?

Faculty, staff, etc. do have to eat, pay rent, stuff like that.

[a la izquierda]

4. Thank you...

This is all terribly difficult. Faculty are facing pay cuts (and as a humanities faculty member, I don’t make anywhere close to 6 figures)... but I’ll happily do it to save our staff, adjuncts, and grad students.

[paleotn]

7. You're welcome...

I get the OP's concerns. I do. I live near 2 college towns and am just as concerned when they started on campus again. But it's not as simple as just shutting the doors for the sake of surrounding communities. It's whole pile of tough calls on complex problems for admins at this institutions. And if by "bottom line" the OP means meeting some kind of payroll, paying the electric bills, etc. then yes, the bottom line is on their minds, along with about 5K other things.

[JI7]

5. So you oppose this ?

[sfstaxprep]

6. No, I Support This

I Oppose the whole idea that kids had to be rushed back to schools and classrooms while there is an out of control pandemic.