Indiana State Enrollment Falls Nearly 25% Since 2019
Indiana State University’s spring enrollment has dropped to 8,541, which is down 11.6 percent from spring 2021, in large part due to COVID-19, the Associated Press reported.
The spring enrollment for 2019 was 11,382. The drop since then is 24.9 percent.
The university has attributed enrollment declines to the impact of the pandemic. Indiana State draws many first-generation and Pell Grant–eligible students, and nationally many of them are less likely to go to college.
Virginia’s Republican attorney general issued an advisory opinion Friday concluding that the state’s public universities cannot require vaccination against COVID-19 as a condition for enrollment or attendance. The advisory reverses an opinion from his Democratic predecessor that reached the opposite conclusion last year.
Campuses in the Bay Area of California are planning to reopen Monday, Jan. 31. The University of California, Berkeley; Santa Clara University; and California State University, East Bay, all announced plans in recent days, The Mercury News reported.
But Porterville College, a California community college, is extending online instruction by two weeks, to Feb. 14. A statement from Claudia Habib, the president, said, “Since my last message the positivity rate has significantly increased from 20.3 percent to 32.6 percent as reported today. In addition, the number of students and employees in quarantine has also increased significantly. In fact, it is double the number of individuals in quarantine at PC as compared to last semester’s high. The Omicron variant also continues to impact our community. While we are optimistic that this surge will peak soon, it will be a while before we experience relief.”
In a fresh upset to international students hoping to enter Japan, government officials said the country will let in only 87 overseas learners next month.
Most institutions stopped junior faculty members’ tenure clocks for a semester or two when COVID-19 first hit the U.S., to account for research delays and increased caregiving demands at home. Far fewer institutions have adopted additional policies aimed at alleviating the continued burden on faculty members since then. That’s despite the personal and professional disruptions posed by new virus variants, the fact that professors with children under 5 still can’t get them vaccinated, ongoing uncertainty about international research travel and more.
The University of Washington and Seattle University both have announced plans to resume in-person classes on Jan. 31, The Seattle Times reported.
“We cannot promise this will be the last time the coronavirus will cause disruptions to our university,” said a letter to UW students from Ana Mari Cauce, the president, and Mark A. Richards, the provost. “We understand how hard dealing with uncertainty is and the anxiety it causes. But what we can promise is that we are committed to in-person learning when the public health situation allows for it and that we will continue to be guided by the best science and our health experts, as we have been throughout the pandemic.”
Eduardo M. Peñalver, president at Seattle University, wrote, “As our experience of COVID enters a new phase, we are beginning to hear public health experts change their orientation from managing a ‘pandemic’ to living with an ‘endemic’ virus. As a campus community we have the know-how, the experience and the will to adapt to the virus in all its forms and phases. If we continue to chart our course with equal measures of scientific rigor and reasonable flexibility, we will be able to overcome whatever COVID (or any other public health challenge) may throw our way.”
The University of Florida no longer publishes data about COVID-19 case counts on campus. As of Jan. 1, the university stopped updating its COVID-19 dashboard and began directing requests for data to the Florida Department of Health.
Other major research universities have not followed suit. But Florida’s decision to discontinue its COVID-19 dashboard raises questions about whether and for how much longer other colleges will maintain public-facing websites with data about COVID on campus and what purposes those dashboards are serving at this point in the pandemic.
Two faculty groups have said the COVID-19 measures in place at Utah Valley University are inadequate, Fox13 reported.
The American Federation of Teachers and the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors condemned administrators “for countenancing unsafe and unhealthy conditions in work and learning spaces shared by students, staff and faculty.”
In a letter, the groups called university’s COVID-19 protocols “merely weak, unenforceable recommendations that seem tailored to accommodate non-masking and unvaccinated individuals.”
In the letter, the teachers and professors allege that they had no input into the development and implementation of the protocols and are now “scrutinized” for modifying courses due to the university’s deficiencies in testing and classroom monitoring. “Despite the administration’s persistently optimistic messaging, we cannot rely upon hope and resilience alone,” the groups said.
The university recommends but does not require masks on campus. Here are details on the university’s approach to COVID-19.
A university statement said: “At Utah Valley University, we work closely with health experts to rigorously protect the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff within the confines of state law. We consistently encourage all to follow COVID-prevention protocols, and like many other universities, mandated vaccinations for spring semester with personal, medical, and religious exemptions, as required by law. Free testing, vaccines, and booster shots are also available to students and employees on campus, and we are seeing record numbers of our UVU community being tested and vaccinated.”
Since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities have played a key role in providing testing and other health resources—not just on campuses but in their local communities. With cases spiking as the start of the third pandemic year approaches, many colleges are leveraging their resources and brainpower in innovative new ways to increase their support of local communities struggling to survive an ever-evolving disease.
One crucial component in the fight to contain COVID-19 has been testing, which has prompted numerous colleges to develop testing sites on campus or in the broader community, including historically underserved areas that often have populations of exposed essential workers.
Michigan State University is holding all classes online until Jan. 31 to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
But Fox News noted that basketball games during January all featured the same 100 percent attendance: 14,797 fans.
Blake Maday, a Michigan State student, said, “The fact that students can fill the [the arena] packed shoulder to shoulder for hours before the game, for the entirety of the game and be together for, you know, probably three hours at night with no social distancing, not even including all the outsiders being brought in to campus for the game, it's wildly hypocritical.”
Dan Olsen, the deputy spokesperson for Michigan State University, said, “Athletics events are optional events that students or the pubic [sic] can attend, unlike classes which are required for our students to progress toward their degree and graduate.”
Faculty members at Pasadena City College held a protest Thursday against returning to class in person on Monday, The Pasadena Star-News reported.
Professors noted that many colleges in Southern California are returning at later dates, such as Cerritos College on March 7, Whittier College on Feb. 21 and California State University, Northridge, on Feb. 14.
“We’re here to call for a safe return to work,” said Mary-Ellen Crook, vice president of the faculty union, the Pasadena City College Faculty Association. “We’re ready to go back, but we are ready to go back when it is safe for the faculty, for the students and, really, for the whole community.”
In addition, she noted that many students rely on public transportation to come to campus.
College officials noted that they have taken many steps to promote safety from COVID-19. For instance, the college is limiting the number of students per class and courses offered. “For the spring 2022 semester, which started Jan. 10, roughly 58 percent of courses are offered face-to-face; the remainder are hybrid or online-only classes,” said a press release.
Gone are the days when students who test positive for COVID-19 moved to designated isolation housing on college campuses.
As colleges prepare for projected surges in cases fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, many are adjusting their isolation procedures to allow students to isolate in their dorm rooms, even if they have roommates.
The U.S. Education Department announced new grants under the American Rescue Plan and also provided new guidance on how colleges can use American Rescue Act funds to meet students’ basic needs.
The grants are $198 million to support colleges and universities with the greatest unmet needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In awarding funds, the department will prioritize community colleges and rural institutions of higher education that serve a high percentage of low-income students and have experienced enrollment declines since the start of the pandemic. Applications will be available next week. Funds will be awarded in late spring. The department is encouraging applications in:
- Evidence-based practices to monitor and suppress coronavirus.
- Strategies for addressing students’ basic needs.
- Support for students’ continued enrollment and re-enrollment.
- Forgiveness of institutional debts.
- The expansion of programs that lead to in-demand jobs.
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