So, last week I suggested that the Fall term was likely both to start and finish online because of practical difficulties in pivoting halfway though in most institutions.  There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that most pivot scenarios assume that students who will start off learning at home are able to drop everything and find local accommodations with very short notice, and not all students are in a position to do that.  This would leave institutions either saying “tough cookies” to the insufficiently nimble/mobile, or doing twice the work to keep online going for one group of students while returning to face-to-face for the other group.

However, I have been thinking further about this and it occurs to me there are a number of ways that institutions could try to make a mid-term pivot back to face-to-face.  Basically, you have to think about the institution as serving four different student groups:

1. domestic students whose primary residence is within commuting distance from campus.
2. domestic students whose primary residence is outside commuting distance.
3. current international students.
4. incoming first-year international students.

The first group, evidently, are the ones who will be most eager for institutions to pivot back to face-to-face and the easiest to cater for. 

The second group has one major barrier to being able to pivot back to face-to-face; namely, that they may not be able to quickly secure reasonable accommodation near-campus.  Some may, of course – in some cities it’s common to sign lease deals for the following year in February and March and so many do have places to stay (though I suspect many of them will have tried to break leases in the last few weeks).   In a few places, it may be reasonably easy to get students back on short notice; for instance, in places where a high proportion of students are in residence, or where there is a glut of student housing (Kitchener-Waterloo for instance).  But where those conditions don’t exist, institutions seeking to pivot are going to have to make plans on their own.  They need to get a sense of how many of the students might fall into this category and be prepared to help them.  That could mean making deals in advance with local landlords, it could mean putting students up in temporary accommodations – say, some local hotels/motels – for up to six weeks while they attend school and look for new digs.   Anything to let them move quickly.

Current international students may be the trickiest group because of the three groups of “out-of-towners” they are probably the largest.  Some of them – I’ve heard estimates of 50% at some schools – are still here in Canada, so they count as locals for this exercise.  The rest of them, though abroad, have the right to return at any time, provided they are here for legitimate (i.e. non-touristic) purposes, which I think they could meet as long as school was in session (that is, even if it were online).  The issue is how to persuade them to come back to Canada before a pivot, so that they are on-site when a pivot becomes possible.

First of all, they need to be specially transported here, because there just aren’t a lot of international flights moving right now.  So: lay on some charter planes.  Sound impossible?  Well, if it were just one university, yes.  But working together, it might be do-able.  Call it Air Universities & Colleges Canada, sending dozens of flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Hyderabad, wherever: pick them up, bring them back.  Organize their quarantine: they’re going to need to stay 14 days in isolation and if they don’t have dwellings to go to, this is going to need to be done centrally (for political reasons it may need to be done centrally anyway).  Then treat them like the second group – help house them however you can. Pay for all or part of it: the more of them who can stay at your institutions and stay in step with their peers, the better you will be.

(Note: your housing office just got a lot more important, since they are the ones who are going to have to manage the re-entry of all those students in groups two and three.  Don’t wait a minute to get started on this.)

The final group – first-year international students – is pretty simple to deal with, though I imagine many will find the solution here unpalatable.  I think it will be difficult for a lot of new students to get here for September, even if we can figure out travel and quarantine.  It’s not just that the only international students allowed into the country right now are those with visas dated before March.  It’s not just that the processing of new visas is at a crawl.  It’s that the whole train of events leading to the visa process is down, too.  In many countries, the exam process (both local matriculations and English language testing) has been cancelled or delayed.  The process of getting passport photos and biometrics are expended.  Institutions which can provide copies of official documents are closed.  It’s a mess. 

There will be those who will say “come whenever you can come”, but that’s about the worst way to welcome students into a community.  Besides, as my colleague Mike Gow points out, as far as the Chinese government is concerned, a degree even partially delivered online might not be recognized (plus: its not entirely clear how much online material will make it past the Great Firewall).  So, you probably have to move to the other alternative which is to not bring in any international students in September.  Defer the whole incoming class until January.  Run a separate Fall term for international students in January, a Winter term in April, and then have them back in parallel with domestic second year students in Fall 2021. 

Is this messy?  Yes.  Expensive, too.  If you’re after simplicity then go for a full term online, with new international students brought back in January. But if you’re dead set on attempting to pivot back to face-to-face as soon as possible, these are the kinds of measures to contemplate.  Because the one thing we cannot do, under any circumstances, is to say that only some students are able to make the pivot.  As campuses, we either get through this together, or we don’t get through it at all.

Stay safe, everyone.

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