(05-27-2020 12:34 PM)Dukester Wrote: So Longhorn - what do you expect once classes are supposed to start in August for JMU. Talking just academics, not athletics?
What % do you give to live classes resuming on time?
What changes do you expect academically? Smaller class sizes, adding more classes based on smaller class sizes? etc.
a) Your speculation
b) Anything already discussed with the staff
All excellent questions, but I can only offer my guesses...I honestly can’t answer any of your questions with any sense of certainty.
JMU’s Senior Leadership is meeting almost constantly, and the planning process (at least on paper) is for a regular, on-time, on-campus opening for the Fall semester. Work on various contingencies for identifying and segregating students who show signs of the virus are in the works, as are ideas about how more online instruction can be supported. All this is still very fluid...online instruction is not what JMU is known for, and the unknowns make me extremely nervous. How the heck do you teach lab sciences online? How do you teach any discipline where “hands on” access to highly specialized equipment is fundamental to the learning process? The challenges are immense.
Good news. The number of incoming students who accepted their offer of admission, and who have paid their Fall reservation fees is high, and ahead of the numbers of past years. This is encouraging news, and projects well for the Fall enrollment to meet planned budget targets. That said, pre-paid reservations doesn’t mean the students will show up, and VT admissions is still up to no good impacting other state schools.
Every program (academic or otherwise) is presently on lockdown with respect to expenditures. It’s a real $$$ pinch, and how the hit from the last qtr. of this past FY impacts next year’s budget (starting July 1) is still up in the air.
I can say this: Class sizes are not likely to be smaller because the academic budget for hiring adjunct or part-time faculty has been zeroed out. It would be a good bet that class-sizes will actually increase, to the maximum the full-time faculty can support. There is going to be a belt-tightening all across the university, from previously planned construction projects, faculty and staff compensation, and other initiatives...they are all on hold.
Again, JMU is better positioned to weather this pandemic than almost any other institution I can think of, but like Bette Davis once said “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”