4 ms·

I am a Georgia Tech faculty member. I've been reading this thread and considering how to respond, and decided I should be transparent. There are a lot of things

by avs733 6y ago

I am a Georgia Tech faculty member. I've been reading this thread and considering how to respond, and decided I should be transparent. There are a lot of things being discussed here and I don't think I have the bandwidth to respond to all of them but I'm happy to try and answer some questions. No clue how to verify this but happy to do so non-publicly.

avs733 6y ago
to answer a few questions I've seen in the thread -no, faculty are not unionized -nominally the concept of self governance and faculty roles in governance still exists at GT. However, when this began I'll be honest and saw a minimum amount (or role) of faculty governance involvement...which at the time didn't strike me as bad, until I saw how utterly unprepared the nominally professional management was to deal with things. - We have gotten very mixed communication on fall instructional planning. By mixed I specifically mean what we have been told has changed AND is insufficient to make decisions about research, classes, or other things. - We are also expected to support online only courses for international students and students with ADA accommodations who cannot attend classes in person.
avs733 6y ago
I'll add a couple other notes... It's interesting to see GT's experience here get picked up specifically and I think partially its just randomness, partially the other issues in Georgia, partially the particular failures of GT/the university system of Georgia. Basically, GT is in the same boat as many other places...working on the assumption that students will pick the university with in person or take a gap year before doing online. So everyone, to some extent, is bluffing each other. Now it's a race to see who admits they were wrong first. You are starting to see it (or have already seen it) from private universities mostly because they have total control over their financial state and (in some cases) an immutable reputation that won't be damaged (think: MIT, Harvard, etc.) by being conservative. For everyone else, it's a crap shoot.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > It's interesting to see GT's experience here get picked up specifically and I think partially its just randomness, partially the other issues in Georgia, partially the particular failures of GT/the university system of Georgia. It's a tech school, and this is a tech blog, plus GA (as a proxy for the south in general) has a lot of the COVID and has not done a fantastic job managing outbreaks. Makes sense it's a source of scrutiny.
  - avs733 6y ago
    When I say picked up I mean by the general media. Yes HN is tech focused....but the GT specific story has been reported by a number of news outlets while similar stories at other universities have not. It started with a story in the local press, and has ballooned. There are other campuses in Georgia where faculty are doing similar things with no/little coverage. Obviously GT is more well known...but there is an element of commenting on all of Academia via proxy.
Balgair 6y ago
I'm of the mind that everyone shows up to campus. About two weeks go by, covid spreading like wildfire the entire time, and then the admins are forced to send everyone back home as case counts skyrocket. Thoughts?
- avs733 6y ago
  yup! that is my guess honestly. Not an epidemiologist but surrounded by them. Everything is about added probabilities...every student that travels interacts with an increased number of people, their probability goes up. there are thousands of students in the same general area, their probabilities go up. The staff (e.g., dining staff) and faculty come from the local areas, probabilities go up. If one student brings it, they are then in unavoidably tight spaces with other students and faculty...probability of transmission goes up. If I were asked, I would model transmission at a university closer to an aircraft carrier than a city.

by avs733 6y ago

avs733 6y ago

to answer a few questions I've seen in the thread -no, faculty are not unionized -nominally the concept of self governance and faculty roles in governance still exists at GT. However, when this began I'll be honest and saw a minimum amount (or role) of faculty governance involvement...which at the time didn't strike me as bad, until I saw how utterly unprepared the nominally professional management was to deal with things. - We have gotten very mixed communication on fall instructional planning. By mixed I specifically mean what we have been told has changed AND is insufficient to make decisions about research, classes, or other things. - We are also expected to support online only courses for international students and students with ADA accommodations who cannot attend classes in person.

avs733 6y ago

I'll add a couple other notes... It's interesting to see GT's experience here get picked up specifically and I think partially its just randomness, partially the other issues in Georgia, partially the particular failures of GT/the university system of Georgia. Basically, GT is in the same boat as many other places...working on the assumption that students will pick the university with in person or take a gap year before doing online. So everyone, to some extent, is bluffing each other. Now it's a race to see who admits they were wrong first. You are starting to see it (or have already seen it) from private universities mostly because they have total control over their financial state and (in some cases) an immutable reputation that won't be damaged (think: MIT, Harvard, etc.) by being conservative. For everyone else, it's a crap shoot.

blaser-waffle 6y ago
> It's interesting to see GT's experience here get picked up specifically and I think partially its just randomness, partially the other issues in Georgia, partially the particular failures of GT/the university system of Georgia. It's a tech school, and this is a tech blog, plus GA (as a proxy for the south in general) has a lot of the COVID and has not done a fantastic job managing outbreaks. Makes sense it's a source of scrutiny.
- avs733 6y ago
  When I say picked up I mean by the general media. Yes HN is tech focused....but the GT specific story has been reported by a number of news outlets while similar stories at other universities have not. It started with a story in the local press, and has ballooned. There are other campuses in Georgia where faculty are doing similar things with no/little coverage. Obviously GT is more well known...but there is an element of commenting on all of Academia via proxy.

Balgair 6y ago

I'm of the mind that everyone shows up to campus. About two weeks go by, covid spreading like wildfire the entire time, and then the admins are forced to send everyone back home as case counts skyrocket. Thoughts?

avs733 6y ago
yup! that is my guess honestly. Not an epidemiologist but surrounded by them. Everything is about added probabilities...every student that travels interacts with an increased number of people, their probability goes up. there are thousands of students in the same general area, their probabilities go up. The staff (e.g., dining staff) and faculty come from the local areas, probabilities go up. If one student brings it, they are then in unavoidably tight spaces with other students and faculty...probability of transmission goes up. If I were asked, I would model transmission at a university closer to an aircraft carrier than a city.