“Amid COVID Outbreak, UMass Amherst Prohibits Students From Leaving Dorms for Walks” (NBC):
For the foreseeable future, all UMass Amherst classes will take place remotely, and students in dormitories and off-campus housing are instructed not to leave their residences except for meals, COVID testing twice per week and medical appointments.
The university says students can use trips for food and twice-weekly COVID testing at the Mullins Center as opportunities to take walks to support their health. Another option is virtual fitness classes.
Students living in the same residence hall are not allowed to hang out in each others’ rooms, and no guests are allowed in residence halls until further notice. Students are also not allowed to gather in any spaces during this time, UMass Amherst says.
All athletic practices and competitions have been canceled.
Students who violate campus restrictions or fail to comply with directives will face disciplinary action, according to the university’s website. Punishment may include removal from residence halls and/or suspension.
And on the other coast… “UC Berkeley bans campus residents from outdoor exercise as part of clampdown after COVID surge” (Mercury News):
The lockdown, imposed on Feb. 1 and expected to be lifted on Feb. 8 before being extended that day, even bans students from getting outside exercise. And to enforce it, the university is increasing its security presence.
The new restrictions will affect about 2,000 students, a “significant number” of whom are in quarantine, according to the university.
Under the restrictions, students can only leave their rooms for medical care, in case of emergency, to comply with testing requirements, to use the bathroom on their floor and to get food from a nearby outdoor kiosk, according to an email sent to students from the UC’s medical director and other campus officials.
Additional campus security officers will be patrolling outside the residence halls and students may be required to show their campus IDs more frequently. All students must be tested twice a week.
“Be aware that students are subject to serious residential conduct sanctions for not complying with campus directives including being disqualified from housing and suspended from the University,” the email stated. “We don’t wish for residents to be alarmed by this increased UCPD presence, but we must ensure the health of our community.”
If back in April 2020, a few weeks into coronapanic, someone had said that Americans would one day pay $50,000+/year for this experience (surveillance, regular medical testing for an infection that is typically irrelevant to the young, periodic absolute lockdowns), would we have believed him/her/zir/them?
Related:
- COVID-19 and the MIT community: “I hope that Ms. Meredith is never sentenced to prison here in the Land of Freedom (TM), but if she does become part of the world’s largest imprisoned population, it sounds as though she has the right attitude for life in the Big House.”
LOL, school to jail pipeline
^ ROFL. That’s good.
The venerable fortune program has unexpectedly become way of glimpsing a lost world:
“Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.”
“Be different: conform.”
I wonder how easy it would be to explain to today’s students, cowering in obedience to their overseers, how it was that those fortunes were once considered humorous?
So nice of higher ed to commit suicide before the bubble bursts.
The students humiliation is not complete, soon the twice weekly covid test is going to be the anal swab version.
I’m wondering if the colleges have rewritten all of their recruitment materials? All the stuff they use to promise, including the tacit wink wink of parties and sex, are no longer available.
so Peloton instructor Jenn Sherman, https://njmonthly.com/articles/jersey-living/sports/peloton-jenn-sherman/, mentioned in today’s “live” ride that her son Evan has gotten COVID for the second time. Jenn is a proud Badger mom, and Evan was a Division I athletic recruit at UWisconsin-Madison. Jenn didn’t seem freaked out by this second bout for her Gen Z son — surveillance testing last week revealed Evan was positive, and he is currently experiencing mild symptoms in quarantine accommodations provided by UWisc. Mom Jenn expects her son to recover, just as he did last spring. Both times, I believe the college kid was living with his posse in off-campus housing, but has been included in campus-wide surveillance testing once or perhaps twice per month. Not as extreme as Harvard University, which had only freshmen and juniors there fall 2020, and spring term 2021 has only sophomores and seniors on campus. Plus surveillance testing several times/week, with quarantine accommodations following a positive test. My own 18 yo’s school isn’t spending quite that much money, so surveillance testing is less frequent, but they are using some hotels to supplement a designated dorm for the 7-10-14 day quarantine. I believe some students opted to go virtual altogether, and remain at home with the rents, although the vast majority are on campus. The professors who mostly live 5 miles away in the nearby mountains in most cases have not been on campus since March 2020, although they are doing a good job with virtual instruction. There are a few in-person classes, and my son reports those professors tend to be younger, including at least one Millennial computer science professor.
Driving to a doctor’s appointment the other day, a big billboard for U. Mass Amherst:
“Be Revolutionary”
It’s now the official motto of U. Mass Amherst, so I guess you’re Being Revolutionary if you’re doing exactly what you’re told, never leaving your room except to get tested for an airborne respiratory virus, and otherwise doing what the Revolutionaries at Commie State U tell you to do, or else.
https://www.umass.edu/gateway/feature/be-revolutionary