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In the coming weeks or days, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is expected to set off a firestorm of controversy by issuing a new rule to change how the nation’s colleges and universities deal with allegations of sexual assault and harassment on campuses.

Most controversially, DeVos is expected to require that the accused be able to cross-examine their accusers in a live hearing, a move opponents say would discourage victims from coming forward.

This would come after DeVos, on her own and without the consent of Congress, undid an Obama administration rule that made it easier for students to get their student debt forgiven if they were defrauded by a for-profit college. Using her administrative powers, DeVos also repealed Obama’s gainful-employment rule, which had threatened for-profits with the loss of federal funds if not enough of their graduates were able to pay off their student loans.

The pendulum could swing the other way if Democrats take the White House. Thus far, attention to Joe Biden's and Bernie Sanders’s differences on higher education policy has focused on their big-picture proposals that would require the approval of Congress, like to what extent the nation should make college free or cancel the more than $1.5 trillion in U.S. student loan debt.

(Sanders would make all public colleges and universities free and eliminate all student debt. Biden would only make public community colleges free and target debt relief to lower-paid borrowers.)

But as DeVos’s actions have shown, higher education policy experts say also significant is how the Education Department under a Biden or Sanders administration would wield power to enact policies on its own.

DeVos, like one of her counterparts during the Obama administration, Arne Duncan, illustrates the importance of the “ideology of the education secretary,” said Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents for-profits.

The question is particularly important “especially when Congress is in inaction,” said Wesley Whistle, senior education adviser for policy and strategy at the left-of-center think tank New America.

Return to Obama Policies

What Biden would do is clearer, education experts said. His higher education plan goes into far more detail than the one released by Sanders, about specific policies as well as how he’d use administrative power. Sanders’s plan, in fact, says nothing about how he’d deal with controversial issues involving for-profits.

Take, for example, the Obama administration’s borrower-defense rule and its approach to students who experience situations like the collapse of Corinthian Colleges. The for-profit college chain was found by the department to have inflated its job-placement rates to attract students -- even paying companies to hire students for a couple of days and subsequently reporting that those students found a job.

The Obama administration made it easier for defrauded students to have their federal loans forgiven. But DeVos replaced it with her own rule, adding more legal obstacles for the borrowers to get relief. Biden said in his plan that he'd bring back Obama's old rule.

“My sense is that a Biden administration would look very similar to the Obama administration in terms of the higher education regulatory agenda,” said Mark Huelsman, associate director of policy and research at Demos, a liberal think tank (and an occasional columnist for Inside Higher Ed).

Further, Biden has said he’d “require for-profits to first prove their value to the U.S. Department of Education before gaining eligibility for federal aid.”

The question is whether Biden would also require nonprofit institutions to also “prove their value,” Gunderson said. “That could be really good or really bad,” he said, depending on the details.

Gunderson’s group has said it does not oppose ineffective for-profits being held accountable, as long as other institutions are held to the same standard. He applauded, for example, DeVos’s repeal last July of Obama’s gainful-employment rule, which had mainly targeted for-profits.

But Whistle said Biden’s proposal is likely bad news for the for-profit sector. “It sounds like a hint at restoring gainful employment, or maybe he has a different idea,” he said.

Biden, in his higher education plan, appears to be ready to take aim at for-profits.

“These for-profit programs are often predatory -- devoted to high-pressure and misleading recruiting practices and charging higher costs for lower quality education that leaves graduates with mountains of debt and without good job opportunities,” he said in his plan, which also called for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be more aggressive in going after private lenders if they “mislead students about their options and do not provide an affordable payment plan when they’re facing financial hardship.”

“CFPB was pretty aggressive on student loans, but it’s been severely weakened during the Trump administration,” said Michael Dannenberg, director of strategic initiatives for policy at Education Reform Now!

Sanders’s Plan Less Clear

Sanders, on the other hand, has been criticized for not mentioning for-profits in his higher education plan.

“It’s just a big question mark,” Whistle said. “We just don’t know because he hasn’t made it a priority in his messaging. He might be thinking about it, but I think not including it in his plan is a mistake.”

But others like, Kyle Southern, director of higher education policy and advocacy for the Young Invincibles, an advocacy group, see the lack of detail as less of a big deal.

“All this points more to a matter of style,” he said. “Sanders’s rhetoric has been more macro level. Biden is more on the wonky and detail side.”

And despite for-profits escaping mention in Sanders's plan, the idea of a Sanders presidency still makes Gunderson nervous.

“Bernie Sanders pretty much believes the [for-profit] sector should not even exist,” he said.

But to Tamara Hiler, education policy director for the center-left think tank Third Way, the difference in approaches between Sanders and Biden is significant and suggests Biden's policies might be less likely to be tied up by legal challenges.

“Sanders’s plan is incredibly expensive and highly unrealistic in today’s Congress or the next. It’s going to be really hard for Republicans to engage in those conversations. Biden has a lot of bipartisan ideas. He has a more nuanced approach,” she said.

To Demos’s Huelsman, though, Sanders does have a plan to limit for-profits -- by funding their public competitors. Sanders’s plan calls for creating a $48 billion federal matching grant program to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs.

“Part of the theory of change around the Sanders plan is that by funding robust public institutions, unsavory for-profit colleges will have less room to operate,” Huelsman said.

Despite the lack of detail in his plan, Huelsman said Sanders likely would also support the restoration of Obama-era policies, like the gainful-employment rule. Huelsman noted that Sanders was among a group of six Democratic senators who wrote the Obama administration calling for the rule’s creation.

Sanders's campaign, for its part, wouldn’t detail in emails what administrative steps he’d take. Instead the campaign pointed to his record -- including the list of 104 written questions he gave DeVos during her January 2017 confirmation hearings, in which he expressed support for the gainful-employment and borrower-defense rules.

“For-profit colleges enroll only 10 percent of all students but account for nearly 30 percent of student loan borrowers, and 35 percent of all defaults,” he wrote in one question. “One of the protections put in place is the gainful employment rule … If confirmed, do you plan on keeping this regulation in place or rolling it back to enrich your billionaire friends?”

He also noted that Grand Rapids, Mich., where DeVos earned her bachelor’s degree at Calvin College, was home to a branch of the defunct Corinthian Colleges. “Do you believe that [Corinthian’s] former students should pay for what the industry admits were ‘mistakes?’”

Sanders also appears likely to want a more aggressive CFPB, signing a letter with 14 other Democratic senators in 2018 that blasted the bureau's then acting director, Mick Mulvaney. The letter came after the CFPB's student loan ombudsman resigned, saying in his resignation letter that under Mulvaney’s leadership, "the bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting."

"Sanders did support those things in the Senate," said Clare McCann, New America's deputy director for federal higher education policy. "It's just not things he's laid out clearly in his plan."

it's unclear if Sanders would follow Senator Elizabeth Warren, who said before dropping out of the Democratic presidential nomination race earlier this month that she’d cancel student debt administratively.

Warren had said she would have used the department’s discretion under the Higher Education Act to wipe away loans, even when borrowers don’t meet the eligibility requirements for specific forgiveness programs.

Sanders’s campaign wouldn’t say if it would take that approach, and Huelsman wasn’t sure.

“On one hand, Sanders is somewhat of a Senate institutionalist, and all signs point to him trying to push tuition-free college and debt cancellation legislatively,” he said. “But I absolutely could see him following Senator Warren’s lead and trying to accomplish debt cancellation through some sort of settlement and compromise authority.”

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National Federation of the Blind: Don’t Make Online Accessibility an Afterthought

March 16, 6:15 p.m. The National Federation of the Blind is urging schools and colleges not to forget their legal obligation to make learning content accessible to all students as they rush to move courses online in response to the spread of COVID-19.

In a blog post today, Stephanie Flynt, government affairs specialist at the National Federation of the BlindÔÇï, wrote that blind students “risk having their ongoing educational needs swept under the rug” as many institutions prepare to cease in-person instruction.

“Over the past two decades, we know the 21st century interactive classroom has dramatically evolved, but we also know the accessibility of instructional materials has continued to be viewed as an afterthought,” Flynt wrote. “The solutions exist, but must be prioritized.”

The National Federation of the Blind has compiled a series of accessibility resources for educators and is monitoring accessibility barriers through an education technology survey. Readers are invited to participate in an #AccessibleNOW Twitter chat on Friday, March 20, at 12 p.m. EST.

-- Lindsay McKenzie

Leader of Calif.'s Two-Year Colleges: Response to Virus to Last Through June

March 16, 5:00 p.m. Eloy Oakley, chancellor of California's community college system, said Monday that the system's response to the coronavirus outbreak likely will last through June, reported Mikhail Zinshteyn, a California-based education reporter.

Oakley was speaking at a hearing. He said the state's two-year colleges should "plan for a second peak of the virus sometime around August or September."

The governing board for the system gave Oakley emergency powers for 180 days. He now can override existing local and state rules governing California's community colleges.

The system, which enrolls roughly 2.1 million students at 115 colleges, last week announced a move to online instruction. Oakley also said the colleges should cancel, postpone or move online all commencement ceremonies that are scheduled for May and June.

-- Paul Fain

Northwestern to Reschedule Gathering of College Presidents From Around the World

March 16, 4:44 p.m. A summit of university presidents from around the globe that had been scheduled for early June has been postponed as COVID-19 spreads.

Dozens of presidents were expected to attend the U7+ Summit at Northwestern University. The gathering was intended to help university leaders “play a leading role in addressing critical global challenges” like climate, inequity, polarization, technological transformation and community engagement.

Postponing the gathering will allow leaders to focus on issues at home, according to a Northwestern news release. The event will be rescheduled, it said.

“We are deeply committed to working across institutional and geographic boundaries to address our greatest global challenges,” Northwestern’s president, Morton Schapiro, said in a statement. “However, the health and safety of our academic and global communities is of paramount importance at this time, necessitating a postponement of the U7+ Summit.”

In addition to Northwestern hosting the event, Columbia University, Georgetown University and the University of California, Berkeley, are listed as co-sponsors. Representatives from more than 50 universities were invited.

-- Rick Seltzer

Colleges Begin Canceling Commencement Ceremonies

March 16, 4:18 p.m. The University of Michigan on Friday became one of the first U.S. institutions to cancel spring commencement ceremonies.

Many other colleges and universities have said they will decide on commencement later. But that may be changing Wednesday, as several colleges have made the call to cancel the events.

Howard University, Kansas State University, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Kellogg Community College were among institutions to announce that commencement was canceled or postponed.

Kellogg, located in Michigan, cited federal guidelines recommending against larger gathering of people.

“We are in unprecedented times and we are taking unprecedented measures as an institution to prevent exposure to the coronavirus that is rapidly spreading in Michigan and around the world,” Adrien Bennings, president of KCC, said in a statement. “We are disappointed that we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our Bruins’ success by handing them a diploma as they walk across the stage to the applause of their family and friends, but we will find some other way to recognize their accomplishments.”

-- Paul Fain

In Reversal, LA Community College District Suspends All Classes

March 16, 2:15 p.m. The Los Angeles Community College District announced the suspension of all classes, both online and in-person, beginning today and going through March 29.

The governing board for the district, which enrolls roughly 230,000 students, made the decision after initially planning to move to online class delivery after canceling classes for the first two days of this week. The district had said the two-day pause would be used to train faculty members to access and teach in the online platform.

But after an emergency meeting over the weekend, the board instead opted to suspend all classes and in-person services at the colleges until the end of the month.

“There is nothing more important to me and to my board colleagues than the safety of our students, staff and faculty. This was a difficult decision to make, but it was the right one that provides protection and stability during these challenging times,” Andra Hoffman, the board's president, said in statement.

-- Paul Fain

Some International Applications Soaring to University of the People

March 16, 2:04 p.m. The online nonprofit University of the People reports a huge spike in global applications in response to the coronavirus.

“We are seeing an enormous jump in numbers of applications and interest from areas highly affected by the coronavirus, from students whose schools may have shut down or who may be in quarantine themselves,” Shai Reshef, president of the University of the People, said in an emailed statement.

“We are happy to accommodate these students affected by mounting health concerns,” he said.

The university, which is a tuition-free, accredited American university, received 300 applications from students in China during the winter term from October to December 2019. So far this term, which started Jan. 1, the number of applications from China has tripled.

Web traffic from Italy, Japan and South Korea -- all countries badly impacted by the pandemic -- has also doubled in recent months.

-- Lindsay McKenzie

College Board, ACT Reschedule Exams

March 16, 12:19 p.m. The College Board and ACT have rescheduled upcoming exams.

The SAT of May 2 has been canceled. Makeup exams for the March 14 SAT, scheduled for March 28, have also been canceled "in response to the rapidly evolving situation around the coronavirus (COVID-19)."

Students who had been registered to take the SAT on one of those days will receive refunds.

At this point, the next SAT that has not been called off is June 6.

ACT has rescheduled the April 4 exam, moving it to June 13 "in response to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19)." In the next few days, everyone who registered for the exam will receive information about the new date.

The College Board gave the SAT on Saturday, although many test sites were closed.

-- Scott JaschikÔÇï

Census Bureau Shares Information on Counting On-Campus Students Who've Been Sent Home

March 16, 12:12 p.m. The U.S. Census Bureau is addressing some operations that count college students.

College students who live on campus are counted through their colleges or universities as part of a census operation that counts students in university-owned housing and other group quarters like nursing homes, halfway houses and prisons. That could get a little more complicated with so many campuses sending students home.

A little more than half of student housing administrators had been planning to respond to the census in a method that provides the Census Bureau with directory information about students. Another 35 percent had been planning to allow students to self-respond with individual questionnaires.

The Census Bureau is contacting those institutions allowing self-responses to ask if they’d like to change those plans.

Generally, students in colleges that are temporarily closed because of the outbreak will still be counted under the same processes as before.

“Per the Census Bureau’s residence criteria, in most cases students living away from home at school should be counted at school, even if they are temporarily elsewhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said a Sunday afternoon news release from the Census Bureau.

In other words, even if students are home on the official census day, which is April 1, they should be counted based on where they live and sleep most of the time. The Census Bureau says it is asking institutions to contact students with reminders about responding.

-- Rick Seltzer

Guidance on International Students and Online Courses

March 15, 10:21 a.m. The Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) has published more detailed guidance on how it will offer flexibility in relation to rules that typically restrict international students from counting more than one online course toward the requirement that they maintain a full-time course of study.

The guidance, published Friday, addresses three scenarios: one in which a school closes temporarily without offering online learning instruction, one in which a college temporarily switches to online instruction and the international student remains in the U.S., and one in which a college temporarily switches to online instruction and the international student leaves the country.

In the first case -- in which a college closes -- the Homeland Security Department said institutions should keep international student records active in the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) so long as students intend to resume their course of studies when classes start up again, just as they would for regularly scheduled academic breaks.

For the other two cases, in which institutions switch to online instruction, SEVP said it will temporarily waive restrictions on international students engaging in online coursework. Students’ SEVIS records should stay in active status if they continue courses online whether they are inside or outside the U.S.

SEVP stressed that the measures are temporary and that guidance is subject to change. Colleges must notify SEVP of procedural changes they make to respond to the coronavirus within 10 days of making those changes.

-- Elizabeth Redden

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Some institutions are stretching the limits of their authority to stop students from gathering off campus.

Eight faculty members say the policies — both of which were enacted after they received tenure — have resulted in salary cuts and loss of laboratory space necessary to do their work.

A number of schools and higher education institutions across India have been forced to shut their campuses, suspend classes, cancel or postpone exams and events such as convocations, college festivals and exchange programs due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The University Grants Commission, the countryÔÇÖs apex higher education regulatory body, has directed all universities and their affiliated colleges to follow a set of guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“Human lives are more important than some delaysÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Universities and colleges have been advised to avoid large gatherings on campus. Any staff member or student with a recent travel history to any of the coronavirus-affected countries, or in contact with such persons in the last 28 days, should be monitored and home quarantined for 14 days,ÔÇØ explained the letter issued by the UGC to vice-chancellors of all universities.

They have also been asked to follow hand and respiratory hygiene measures, with campuses of all universities being sanitized and cleaned on a daily basis.

Hostel students at some institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi were asked to vacate the premises by March 15, while a lot of college hostels are also vacant with students refraining from returning till the end of the month.

Many state governments have also sprung into action and have directed that schools and/or colleges be closed until March 31. These include Punjab, Odisha, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Delhi.

Several exchange programs with foreign universities in COVID-19 affected countries and Indian universities will also be impacted.

With several cases that have been detected in India, the country has suspended all visas until April 15. The government has advised all Indians to avoid non-essential travel abroad.

Universities and institutions such as University of Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi have suspended classes till March 31.

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, one of the countryÔÇÖs top B-schools, has deferred its annual convocation ceremony which was to be held on March 21.

ÔÇ£The decision has been taken to preclude any health risks to students and their families and friends, faculty and employees of the institute,ÔÇØ said a spokesperson from the institute.

Every institute will follow the guidelines issued by the respective state governments and in case of Central institutions, also those issued by the Centre.

Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, said: ÔÇ£We are acting in accordance. As and when we get further instructions, we will implement them. We are also rigorously implementing the medical precautions suggested by the state health department.ÔÇØ

Officials said deferring and cancelling exams and classes will impact the academic calendar of institutions.

ÔÇ£This will delay the calendar by a few weeks and is necessary under the given circumstances to control the outbreak. After all, human lives are more important than some delays,ÔÇØ Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman, All-India Council for Technical Education, told The PIE News.

The AICTE is the statutory body and a national-level council for technical education, under the Department of Higher Education, ministry of human resource development, the government of India.

Cancellation of events may lead to financial and other losses too.

ÔÇ£If tickets booked are cancelled, there would be some losses financially to individuals and organisations. But this is a price worth paying at this time of an emergency,ÔÇØ said Sahasrabudhe, adding that it is tough to quantify financial losses at this stage.

Institutions are considering online classes to help students. ÔÇ£The teachers will make study material available online to students. Internal assessment will also be done online until the pandemic is contained,ÔÇØ said AP Siddiqui, registrar, Jamia Millia Islamia.

“Teachers will be available as per schedule online through e-resourcesÔÇØ

The University of Delhi, another top Central university, has also decided to offer online classes.

ÔÇ£To maintain continuity in the teaching-learning process in all undergraduate and postgraduate programs, the study material will be available weekly on the university website by teachers from all departments, faculties and centres of the university.

“Teachers will be available as per schedule online through e-resources,ÔÇØ said the University of Delhi registrar in a statement.

Many other universities and institutions are following suit and resorting to virtual teaching full-time, including private universities and institutes.

The post India: institutions opt for virtual classes appeared first on The PIE News.

With the suspension of traditional English proficiency tests in countries most affected by the coronavirus, a wave of US institutions are now accepting the results of the Duolingo English Test, either as stand-alone proof or as a supplement to other measures of English-language proficiency.

Unlike traditional tests, which require students to travel to proctored sites to take them, the DET can be taken anywhere in the world.

ÔÇ£We started looking at alternatives, and the DET ÔÇô with its ability to be taken at home ÔÇô rose to the top”

Considered by some to be a ÔÇ£disruptorÔÇØ to the traditional testing field, the jump in both test-users and institutions comes at the same time that the agencies offering the TOEFL and IELTS announced that they would suspend exams in the countries affected by the coronavirus through the end of March.

As of December 2019, more than 600 US colleges and universities were working with Duolingo. By late February, that number had surged to more than 1,000, Jennifer Dewar, head of Strategic Engagement for the DET, told The PIE News.

Meanwhile, the number of Chinese DET takers jumped by 180% in February alone, according to Dewar.

China sends the greatest number of international students to the US of any other country, and it was one of the first to be affected by English test suspensions as the coronavirus spread rapidly.

ÔÇ£We already had a decent amount of traction among institutions, but with the closure of traditional test centres there does seem to be a sense of urgency from universities to move to accept the Duolingo English Test,ÔÇØ Dewar said.

Ryan Griffin, director of the Office of International Admissions at the University of Missouri, said that his institution would provisionally accept the test after the suspension of the traditional tests prompted his institution to review how many students in the current application cycle were still planning to submit proof of English proficiency.

While many students had already submitted results, some had been planning to wait until February or March.

ÔÇ£We started looking at alternatives, and the Duolingo English Test ÔÇô with its ability to be taken at home ÔÇô rose to the top,ÔÇØ Griffin told The PIE.

ÔÇ£We didnÔÇÖt want to have that be a limiting factor for students who had already gone through the steps of applying and submitting the other documents required,ÔÇØ he added.

Another institution, Indiana University Bloomington,  had already decided to fully accept the test in the upcoming fall term but chose to make it available to prospective students a semester earlier due to the suspension of the traditional exams.

At IU Bloomington, the DET will now be accepted as stand-alone proof of English language proficiency at the undergraduate level.

Previously, the university had been using the DET as a supplementary tool while requiring students to meet one of a range of other English proficiency standards, such as three years of education at a US-based high school, certain English language curricula, or certain SAT or ACT thresholds, among other alternatives.

ÔÇ£For us, the decision was a little easier because we already were accepting the DET and already had been for two years as a supplemental evidentiary exam for English proficiency,ÔÇØ John Wilkerson, Assistant Vice President for International Services, told The PIE.

In past admissions cycles, the DET was particularly popular among students who hailed from countries with more limited access to traditional test centres, Wilkerson said.

Many early IU Bloomington DET test takers came from countries in Africa, Central America or Asian countries including Mongolia.

Wilkerson said that IU Bloomington was confident about adding the DET to its admissions repertoire.

ÔÇ£Very intentionally, we spent the last two years gathering our own institutional data to evaluate how our students were actually performing,ÔÇØ Wilkerson continued.

ÔÇ£We were seeing similar success rates for students who were taking the Duolingo English Test as we were from TOEFL and IELTS.ÔÇØ

While there has been a surge in institutions accepting the DET for now, given the complications that have arisen as a result of the coronavirus, whether this will spur ongoing use of the DET by some of the institutions now using it remains to be seen.

Griffin told The PIE that it is still too early to say whether the DET will remain a core part of the University of MissouriÔÇÖs admissions arsenal.

ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre still in the fog of COVID-19 and everything else that weÔÇÖre having to deal with,ÔÇØ he said.

ÔÇ£We were seeing similar success rates for students… as we were from TOEFL and IELTSÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Once weÔÇÖve moved past this particular moment, we will be able to look back and see.”

One promising sign for the DET, he added, is that the more institutions adopt it, the larger the data set will be to understand its effectiveness relative to other English language tests.

ÔÇ£For a new test coming online, thatÔÇÖs always one of the more difficult elements,ÔÇØ Griffin said.

“If you donÔÇÖt have the data and scholarly research behind it, itÔÇÖs difficult to present to the faculty council – or whoever may be the governing body on a school campus may be.”

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Formula 1 fans know about the pace car.  There is an accident on the track, pieces of a race car are littered all over the place, guys in white jumpsuits pop onto the road and frantically start cleaning up and the pace car comes on.

While the pace car is on the track the race cars must stay behind the pace car and can not overtake each other.  If you had a 5 second lead (an eternity in Formula 1) that lead has now diminished to nothing as your nearest competitor is just behind you.  Many pole positions have been won and lost because the impact of the dreaded pace car.

This has happened to the education sector to varying degrees because of COVID-19.

This latest coronavirus has halted student recruiting in many segments of the education sector.  For example, English language programs and other short courses which recruit on a weekly or monthly basis now have months of postponed students waiting to enrol and when COVID-19 fades as a threat (i.e., when the pace car comes off the road and the race begins again) this pent up demand will flood the market in one shot.

Market leaders have the most to lose as there are far more customers up for grabs at one point in time while, conversely, market followers have the most to gain as they have more “shots at goal” (to switch sports analogies) than ever before.

There are any number of tactics that would benefit market leaders and followers and their suitability needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

What is clear is that a “business as usual” approach when COVID-19 fades means missing a chance to overtake the car in front.

ÔÇó Karan Khemka is an occasional columnist for The PIE: He was partner and head of the international education practice at Parthenon-EY for 16 years and now serves on boards at global education companies.

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Data from Immigration New Zealand has revealed a 10% increase in study visa refusal rates for would-be Indian students between July 2019 and February 2020, with 26% of the 17,621 applications made being turned down.

Visa acceptance rates for Indian students increased from 62% in 2015/16 to 84% in 2018/19. The overall rate for all nationalities was 85% and 88.6% respectively.

“[Providers should] work in coordination with the government to understand the changes”

By contrast, Australian acceptance rates for Indian students have experienced less variation, having stayed between 74.7% and 82% since 2015/16.

Industry insiders have different interpretations of what these latest statistics show, but generally speaking, the increase in denials is attributed to the country’s International Education Strategy 2018-2030.

Keri Ramirez of Studymove told The PIE News that the results are likely a result of new measures to ensure students are “genuine entrants looking to gain a quality education”, which comes under one of the main pillars of the country’s strategy.

“My understanding is that the eight New Zealand universities worked closely with the government to understand the new measures and avoid disruptions in their recruitment efforts,” he said, adding that he encourages other sectors and private providers to “work in coordination with the government to understand the changes”.

Data also published by Immigration New Zealand on agents markets in India also shows just how significant the agent a student chooses to work with can be in terms of visa success rates.

Some 39 of the listed agencies had success rates of less than 50%. As a result of this, a student using an agent was less likely to get a visa than the overall average.

Meeting financial requirements can be a struggle for some students and immigration officers have noted applications using “crowd-funding”.

This entails students listing multiple sources of funds to support their studies – sometimes as many as sixty – which leads to questions as to whether this money is truly available to them.

ÔÇ£New ZealandÔÇÖs international education strategy focuses on delivering a high-quality education and great experience for students, truly sustainable growth for the sector and embedding the benefits of global citizenship for New Zealanders,” Grant McPherson, chief executive of Education New Zealand, told The PIE.

“We want incoming students to meet the financial, academic and language requirements they need to ensure their well-being and to help them succeed.”┬á

Earlier this year New Zealand reported a 9.8% growth in international students in 2018 compared to the previous year. However, the number of Indians issued student visas has declined from 21,871 in 2015/16 to 15,826 in 2018/19.

The post NZ: visa refusals for Indian students up 10% appeared first on The PIE News.

As the new coronavirus outbreak prompted college after university to start shifting classes online -- either for a few weeks or for the remainder of the spring semester -- education technology companies lined up to say they could help.

Tech vendors promoting various free services for colleges or their employees included, in no particular order, communications provider Avaya, chat and video messaging provider Pronto, learning platform Top Hat, game-based learning platform Kahoot!, messaging and notifications service Raftr, online program manager Bisk, and publishing giant Wiley. Another publisher, Macmillan, said it was giving its customers free use of its online learning platforms through the end of spring.

It was a good time for others to launch services. The for-profit Foundry College, which focuses on adult education, started offering its learning management software Thursday as a managed service for other institutions to use. Massive open online course platform FutureLearn launched a new product offering unlimited access to short courses online.

Other big players got in on the action. Blackboard launched a self-service portal intended to cut the time it would take institutions to go from purchasing to deploying digital teaching. Online learning platform Coursera announced it will provide universities around the world affected by the coronavirus outbreak with free access to a catalog of courses from different university and industry players. Its competitor, 2U, was planning a “skinny bundle” of products to be offered to customers on a non-revenue-share basis, said Chip Paucek, CEO of the education-technology company.

Clearly, vendors sense demand in the market. Those that have already built out their technology infrastructure likely see the prospect of offering some services for free -- or tweaking them to meet the demands of the moment -- as delivering large potential upside at little marginal cost.

And that upside could be important in an ed-tech space, where many players have been under pressure because the rate of growth in online enrollments had slowed.

But the sudden deluge of students rushing online in short order isn’t likely to lift all boats equally. The service providers that benefit from short-term demand aren’t necessarily the same ones that would be buoyed by any long-term boost to online learning.

For the next two or three weeks, many colleges and universities that don’t have extensive experience teaching online are going to be operating in emergency, all-hands-on-deck mode, experts said. For many, that will mean MacGyvering together solutions like classes held by video chat and assignments turned in via email.

“You’re seeing much more of Zoom and Microsoft Teams,” said Phil Hill, a partner at MindWires Consulting and publisher of the blog Phil on Ed Tech. “People are essentially saying, ‘I want to replicate my live lecture online. Let’s do it. Let’s just not think about it.’”

That’s probably appropriate in many cases, Hill said. He added a couple of caveats: disadvantaged groups may be served poorly by a mishmash of solutions that don’t take their needs into account. And local support units should be giving advice to faculty members on how to make the transition without significant errors.

In addition to email and online video offerings, many institutions moving online quickly already have learning management software that can help in the short term, said Brett Knoblauch, a senior research analyst who covers ed-tech companies at Berenberg Capital Markets. The company disclosed before Knoblauch was interviewed that it is making a market in 2U and Pluralsight.

“I think universities will be kind of able to get by off of that,” Knoblauch said. “I don’t think that’s a long-term solution.”

Over the long term, institutions are likely to need to have contingency plans that will benefit online program managers offering bundles of services, Knoblauch said. Even if they don’t decide to move more classes online, many are likely to make sure they’re able to do so quickly in the future -- which likely means more investment in more comprehensive technology.

A wide spectrum of activity is the most likely outcome, according to Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of the online learning platform Coursera. Some universities will likely go all in and move whole programs online. Others will put most but not all courses online. Of those that take advantage of Coursera's near-term offer, he said, some will adopt it on a major scale, but most will not. And some courses probably can’t be moved online -- providers don’t have an answer for every individual circumstance.

It’s possible that spectrum of outcomes still increases demand for ed-tech services. Whether online program managers are the vendors who rise to meet demand remains an open question.

“On the OPM side, it’s an opportunity, but it’s not a done deal,” Hill said. “Even though the OPM market has broadened out to include fee-for-service and other offerings, the core of it -- the heart of that market -- has been marketing and advertising, recruitment, to find different student groups for fully online programs.”

Operational support to move institutions online has been largely a secondary offering for OPMs, Hill said.

Those with strategic insight and a willingness to invest might be able to redefine the market, he added. But vendors seen as not addressing current needs could be in for some pain.

Meanwhile, another fraught question looms: How does the short-term mass migration of students online affect public perception of ed-tech vendors and online learning more generally?

Many vendors genuinely want to help in a time of need when they offer services for free or try to roll out new solutions to meet the current challenge, experts agreed. The rush to pitch in during a time of need could help in Washington, as Congress has been turning up the heat on OPMs.

“It builds enormous goodwill,” said Trace Urdan, managing director at Tyton Partners. “It’s going to help enormously in the upcoming fights in the Senate over whether OPMs are good or bad.”

The fact remains, though, that the companies also stand to benefit themselves. It can be risky to appear too eager to help, Hill said. And if any vendors offer free or cheap services that have strings attached, they could be risking their reputations.

Generally, however, being available in a time of need “softens the ground” for vendors trying to break in with new customers, Urdan said.

Simply put, tremendous value exists in making inroads in a U.S. higher education sector where suspicion of for-profit companies runs rampant. The more that institutions and those who work for them are comfortable with vendors, the less likely they are to be hostile to the idea of signing a long-term deal and offering more online educational offerings.

“Anything -- everything -- that makes schools more comfortable with doing this is great PR and marketing,” Urdan said. “The only question is the technical aspect.”

The technical aspect may be the biggest question about how much this online migration will be opportunity for vendors and how much it will be risk.

Concern runs high in some corners that institutions rushing online won’t do it well.

“As with all things, circumstances matter,” wrote Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, in a recent post for Education Next. “At least for now, I’m not betting on this being the moment where online learning triumphs in a decisive or lasting way.”

Some hold out hope students and faculty members will grade on a curve. Even if solutions aren’t ideal for the next few weeks, they might be seen as adequate given the circumstances.

“I think you start with being real that this is not going to be perfect right out of the gate,” said John Baker, CEO of learning management software company D2L. “There are things we’re going to have to just do manually until things are perfectly integrated and set up and configured.”

Urdan put the question of public perception in stark terms.

“Is it going to build credibility for online?” he said. “Or are you just going to stamp an entire generation of students with the idea that online classes are crap?”

Over time, Urdan expects colleges and universities will find more sophisticated options to be increasingly attractive in the wake of the coronavirus-induced move online. That would be bundles of integrated services that have been tailored to take into account what does and does not work in online learning -- and not YouTube recordings combined with message boards.

But with such a wide range of offerings available in the market, he acknowledges uncertainty.

“From the vendors’ standpoint, it will be really interesting,” he said. “I guess we’re going to have to see how it plays out.”

-- Lindsay McKenzie and Doug Lederman contributed to this article.

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What weeks ago seemed unthinkable is now a reality for many professors: take all your courses online, suddenly and indefinitely, due to COVID-19. And while technical and other practical challenges abound for instructors in all fields, those in the humanities face some particular ones: creating virtual classroom environments that foster the deep and often intimate discussions that promote trust and learning.

Humanists and instructional design experts don’t underestimate this task, as research suggests that training and having time to plan are crucial to leading successful online humanities courses. Time to plan is, of course, off the table in sudden coronavirus-related campus closures. Most humanities professors likely do not have ideal training: according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ most recent survey of humanities departments, 70 percent were not offering a single online course as of 2017. Technical and instructional design support will be helpful but may be limited during this time due to a variety of factors, including demand.

Despite these daunting conditions, but with their choices being few, professors are, by many accounts, forging ahead -- step by step.

No Widespread Panic

“Our members, and language and literature faculty members in general, seem to be buckling down and figuring it out -- I have not seen panic,” said Paula Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association, which has made teaching resources available online here.

Noting that professors are sharing their own resources and experiences among themselves on social media and elsewhere, Krebs added, “They are working really hard to create the best learning conditions for their students.”

Jenna Sheffield, assistant provost for curriculum innovation and director of the Writing Across the Curriculum program at the University of New Haven, would “not say that faculty are panicking.” Instead, she said, they’re “concerned about being able to reach the learning outcomes they want students to achieve when this quick move to teaching online will clearly require more of a time investment, extended deadlines and so forth.”

Sheffield said she imagined many professors are also trying to learn new technologies. She remained optimistic about their success.

“I definitely think that it is possible to teach the humanities effectively online.”

James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said, “Our members are doing the best they can to be good teachers in a challenging situation.”

The AHA has heard “only what you would expect,” continued Grossman, namely, “professors who want to teach well, are concerned about whether this can work, and yet even more concerned about the health and welfare of their students.” (Beyond COVID-19, instructors are worried about students’ access to technology, Grossman explained, as some are working high-end equipment and others have cellphones only.)

Remote vs. Online

Grossman said the AHA plans to publish a set of short essays by historians with experience in online instruction this week. In any case, he said it’s imperative to recognize the difference between “remote” and “online" instruction.

“What you're seeing across the country is remote instruction,” not online, he said. “Faculty are taking courses designed for in-person learning into a digital environment. That's different from teaching a course designed for digital interaction.”

Why does that matter? Expectation management. Kevin Gannon, professor of history and director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching at Grand View University in Iowa, participated in the Council for Independent Colleges’ Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction and said the big takeaway from that experiment is doing online education “well takes a great deal of time and skill.”

That’s “not what we have now,” however, he said, “so I think it's worth thinking about what we're doing as remote instruction, so as to distinguish what we're doing now from the practices that make up good online teaching and learning.”

More to the point, Gannon advised both professors and students “that this is going to be a bumpy ride, and that's OK.”

“Use tools you either know already or for which you have institutional support, communicate regularly and clearly with students,” he said, “and be willing to change and adapt as needed.” Now is not the time for rigidity, rigor in the “weaponized” versus “positive, encouraging” sense “or anger. A little grace and patience go a long way, because we'll need those ourselves, too.”

Similarly, Rebecca Barrett-Fox, an American studies scholar and instructor of sociology with online teaching experience at Arkansas State University, recently posted an essay to her website only somewhat facetiously called “Please Do a Bad Job of Putting Your Courses Online.”

“For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put some or all of the remainder of their semester online, now is a time to do a poor job of it,” wrote Barrett-Fox. “You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most importantly, your class is NOT the highest priority of their OR your life right now. Release yourself from high expectations right now, because that’s the best way to help your students learn.”

Even so, Barrett-Fox’s essay is full of practical advice about what to prioritize, how to approach lectures, setting deadlines, creating assignments and assessments and keeping sane.

Good Questions, Presence and More

Barrett-Fox said last week that the key to leading productive online humanities conversations is to ask good questions -- just like in a face-to-face classroom.

“Though discussion board conversations are probably the hardest part of online teaching,” she said, “I actually think that humanities professors have some advantage here because their content so often opens itself for debate in a way that, for example, the natural sciences and math do not.”

The best questions “really invite the particular students in our class to bring their particular lives, understandings and experiences to the classroom,” Barrett-Fox added. “‘How is Moby Dick a story of 19th-century globalization?’ isn’t going to lead the class there.”

Asking students to “find an object in their house that has been shaped by 19th-century globalization” -- and it “doesn't have to be scrimshaw -- and discuss it with photos in the context of Moby Dick is.”

If asking good questions is similar online demands the same skills set as asking them face-to-face, then perhaps the biggest challenge for humanities professors in this brave new world is staying present.

What is presence? Steven J. Hoffman, professor of history and anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University and editor of Teaching the Humanities Online: A Practical Guide to the Virtual Classroom (History, Humanities, and New Technology), said it’s crucial and defined it like this: “In a face-to-face class, students have some sense that they know the professor,” and “that’s harder to accomplish online, because there isn’t the face-to-face interaction.” But by using a variety of methods to “insert yourself and become present in the online course, learners are able to feel a greater connection to the instructor and tend to report better learning outcomes.”

Penny MacCormack, chief academic officer at the Association of College and University Educators, which specializes in pedagogical training and is offering online instruction resources, said that instructor presence has indeed been determined “to be one of the most important components connected to students staying engaged with and completing online courses.”

Good news: there are many ways to be present while teaching online, Hoffman said. The easiest way might be to send “periodic emails to the class about upcoming assignments and reminders.” Responding to emails quickly is another way, he said, while some professors record a “welcome video” for a class so students can see them. Others use Zoom and similar services to hold synchronous office hours. (This different from synchronous instruction, however, which Barrett-Fox and others recommend against.)

Among MacCormack’s suggestions: sending a welcome video to “share who you are and why you think the topic of the course is compelling,” making regular “announcements,” offering virtual office hours, making micro-lecture videos and being online and available -- especially before major due dates and exams. Instructors may be concerned that they need to be available all day, every day, she added, but the literature supports “making it clear to students when you will be available, and what they should expect regarding turnaround time for an assignment or question -- and then sticking to those commitments.”

Hoffman said presence is really “any technique that continues to insert the presence of the instructor in the course.” Otherwise, online courses can feel “very disconnected, akin to the old-fashioned correspondence courses” or being on “autopilot.”

Gannon, of Grand View University, agreed that instructor presence is “definitely the most important factor” here. “Social and cognitive presence means things like regular communication and using audio or video,” he added, “instead of having things mediated solely through text.”

Above all, “Make the learning space as human as possible, given the constraints.”

Hoffman edited his book prior to COVID-19. In general, however, he said, teaching the humanities online is challenging in that “many of us tend to think of ourselves and our subjects as not being technology-oriented, and we really enjoy the personal interaction and the tactile nature of working with hard copies of our materials.”

So while the digital environment “seems sterile and distant,” in some ways, Hoffman said, the humanities-heavy skills of reading and visual analysis are “such vital tools for preparing our students, those kinds of sources really lend themselves to being digitally available.”

Lessons From a Consortium

Richard Ekman, the Council of Independent Colleges' president, said he agreed that online humanities teaching can be done well, based on the sometimes surprising findings of the consortium experiment in which Gannon participated.

“One of the main surprises was that faculty felt students who had taken courses online had learned as much as they would have learned in a traditional academic setting,” Ekman said. “And believe me, the faculty didn’t go into it with that view.”

Students also didn’t seem to miss “the collegiality of the live classroom as much as they thought they would -- but the faculty did,” he added.

The CIC’s consortium includes 42 institutions that collaborated to offer online, upper-division humanities courses, starting in 2014. Lessons included in a recent report on the consortium are based on quantitative findings from four years of surveys, interviews with participants and other feedback. Major, perhaps relevant findings to the present COVID-19 scenario were that a large majority of students met or exceeded the expectations defined by their instructors’ specified learning outcomes, and students’ grades were consistently high.

Students who do not work well independently, or who are “not disciplined,” can fall behind and must “be encouraged to log into course sites regularly,” the CIC’s report also says. As for student satisfaction, 80 percent of students in one consortium phase said their online courses motivated them to “explore questions raised by the course.” This, of course, is the goal of any humanities course: to get students to think about the big questions, even after the class has ended.

Students also appreciated the flexibility surrounding some course formats and found value in new teaching methods and media. Flexibility will, of course, be especially important now in the face of so much uncertainty. One student said, for example, that their course was “set up in such a way that I felt like I got to experience the course in more dimensions than I would have in a more traditional course setting. There were tons of opportunities for interactions with other students in a variety of mediums and always some way to participate.”

One caution: there was a common perception among students that online courses would -- or should -- be easier than traditional courses. Said one student, “This course was just very hard to keep track of and in my opinion way too demanding for an online course.”

On student engagement, some faculty members reported some concern about a lack of student engagement in online courses. Students saw very little difference in their engagement levels, however. Professors found these student engagement hacks to be helpful: short videos or mini-lectures, discussion boards, Google Hangouts and other group chat apps, assigned blogs, and earning logs.

New Opportunities

Significantly -- and echoing other research on online instruction -- the CIC found that “students who have difficulty speaking up in the traditional classroom found it easier to participate in online discussions.” One student wrote, for example, “I think learning online with other students lets me be open more in my discussions because the fear of others’ opinions of my views was decreased due to not having to be in a classroom face-to-face with my classmates … I also think I learned to motivate myself and [developed] more discipline having to do work on my own and meeting deadlines.”

A faculty member, meanwhile, commented that he “quickly realized that the technology created a kind of access that we had not had before. It enabled the 10-second thinkers in the class to be able to get into the conversation on a threaded discussion where previously they had been silenced by the two-second thinkers who dominated a face-to-face class.” This made for “a richer discussion and a deeper understanding of the text from 100 percent of the class members.”

Perhaps counterintuitively -- and speaking to the notion of presence -- students frequently reported that taking online courses actually increased their interactions with faculty members. One student said, for instance, that taking online courses “is like having several independent studies at the same time because faculty members spend more time with each student.”

Seeing an opportunity to better cater to students with diverse needs and abilities via online instruction, the CIC also concluded that colleges and universities that offered only traditional instruction until now are “recognizing that online instruction may provide new opportunities for recruiting a broader range of students and for developing new kinds of programs more aligned with professional development for adult students.”

Gadgets and Gizmos

From the faculty perspective, CIC consortium instructors -- many of whom had no online-teaching know-how -- said they benefited “enormously" from help from instructional designers. That kind of help may not be available to all instructors today, though it is available in many places to some degree.

“We’re ready to assist in what, for many of our colleagues, is something well outside their wheelhouse,” said Gannon, calling instructional designers “your new best friends.” In their absence, however, he said, “social media and other online communities are generously sharing and collaborating. Twitter or the Kansas State University’s Keep Teaching: Resources for Higher Ed community are just some ideas.

As for tools, professors in the consortium relied heavily on features available through standard learning management systems, such as Blackboard, Canvas and Moodle. They incorporated other technologies such as webpages, videos -- their own or others’ -- podcasts, blogs and microblogging platforms and shared text-annotation tools such as Hypothes.is. Half of the instructors also used Skype, Spotify, WordPress, YouTube and Twitter, saying they were helpful because they were already familiar with them -- and their students were, too. Videoconferencing software was especially effective.

Many professors ended up using some of these tools back in the classroom, as well. One professor of English said, for instance, "I thought my tech skills would become amazing and my teaching wouldn’t change much. In fact, it was the opposite."

Ekman, of CIC, said that professors teaching online during COVID-19 must “keep in mind the way that the humanities are taught are most often interactive in terms of pedagogy.” So “it puts a big burden on the particular technology you choose to use, so you can still have that interactivity online.”

In other words, choose your platforms wisely. They don’t have to be fancy, just accessible and able to facilitate a high-touch approach.

“My general education philosophy is the superior effectiveness of live instruction,” said Ekman, a historian. But colleges and universities “have the obligation to expose us to many different formats of learning, to include online instruction,” he added, finding something of a silver lining in the situation.

Hoffman, of Southeast Missouri State, said that the rewards of teaching online -- at least in a more normal scenario -- are “considerable in that you also have the possibility of engaging a wider array of learners more deeply than you might in a face-to-face situation, and are able to hear from all learners in the class.”

Speaking From Experience

Terence Day, a professor of geography, earth and environmental sciences at Okanagan College in British Columbia, wrote a paper on what happened when he once had to stay home for a week and teach online due to a personal issue (not the coronavirus). In his limited study, Day found that learning was unimpeded by Skype-based conferencing instead of live instruction for one week, based on student test scores. There were fewer student questions over all, however.

Day’s advice for COVID-19-related remote instruction is that there is a “range of different technologies available,” he said, and the “best” ones may not be the best for everyone or every course. For total novices at online teaching, Day said he’d go with a simpler technology, such as narrated PowerPoint slides, short YouTube videos or audio recordings. Conferencing may be "more desirable from a pedagogic standpoint," he said, "but things are more likely to go wrong for me or the students." Discussion boards on course management systems may be "more robust," meanwhile, "but less engaging."

Student reactions to the situation were varied, Day said. Most who signed up for face-to-face instruction "didn’t particularly like the idea of their professor not being present," he said. Yet they were "willing to go along with it for a week because they understood the rationale behind it. The online experience was OK for a limited period of time. Many students actually enjoyed it -- but some, not at all."

Remember that students will be “stressed, too,” he said. A calm demeanor, a relaxed attitude and a sense of humor will “go a long way.”

It’s “paramount instructors look after themselves,” Day added, because it's “harder to teach online than in a classroom.”

Hannah ─îulík-Baird, assistant professor of classical studies at Boston University, took her women in antiquity class totally online earlier this month, due to COVID-19.  On her pre-existing class blog, she posted a welcome video and explained that she’d be sharing short, pre-recorded lectures on the topic of the day each Tuesday and Thursday, in a certain location on Blackboard. Instead of in-class presentations, she also noted, students will upload their presentations to Blackboard on the regular due date. 

"Since we will not be together, and therefore not be able to have our usual vibrant discussion, we will have to find other ways to keep our strong community going," ─îulík-Baird wrote, saying that the class participation grade is relatively hefty 20 percent. Students may use the discussion board in Blackboard to share ideas or ask questions about readings and lecture videos and interact with others’ thoughts. ─îulík-Baird will devote some time, in turn, to addressing these questions and conversations at the beginning of each new lecture. Reflection pieces -- either written or recorded -- are another possibility. It's no longer an option to visit an art museum to complete the extra credit assignment on the original syllabus. Students are encouraged to report on museums’ digital holdings, however.

"Instead of show up in a classroom physically," ─îulík-Baird said last week, students now have to "show up" by "using their voice in a different way." Students have a variety of choices by which to engage, she added. And instead of giving in-class presentations, the uploaded presentations mean that students will grow their own “material record.” 

─îulík-Baird always asks students to stay active within classicists’ conversations on social media, including Twitter. Beyond that, "I need to keep encouraging them to keep talking to me -- whether over email, chat or voice call, because the potential for them to feel isolated and alienated is very high." Going forward, "we have to refocus our energies on the ancient materials which we are teaching our students to engage with in meaningful ways."

The ultimate goal in the weeks ahead, she said, is reaching a place where "we are so consumed with our interests in the material and our ideas about it that we forget we are talking over the internet."

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While they applauded President Donald Trump for indefinitely waiving the interest on federal students loans during the coronavirus crisis, consumer groups said the move doesn’t go far enough in helping borrowers survive the economic fallout from the pandemic.

“Freezing interest will keep balances from growing during this time, and that's important,” Persis Yu, National Consumer Law Center staff attorney, said in a statement. “However, many borrowers are going to experience income shocks and urgent expenses that will impede their ability to make their regularly scheduled payments … Moreover, people need the confidence to know that, if they are sick or medically vulnerable or need to care for children, that they can stay home and not face the draconian consequences of defaulting on their student loans.”

Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate, meanwhile, agreed some borrowers should get a reprieve on making student loan payments, particularly if their academic terms are disrupted by closings. House Democrats on Friday night formally introduced a bill identical to one Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate's health and education committee, proposed earlier in the day, which would provide a temporary exemption for students from repaying Pell Grants or student loans if their terms are disrupted.

Under current law, Pell Grant recipients would have to return a portion of their grants to the federal government if they withdraw from school, or in this case, if their institution closes.

With the House and Trump having so far only agreed to a package Friday that would extend access to coronavirus testing and provide sick-leave benefits, and the measure still needing to pass the Senate this week, the prospects of including relief for borrowers in another aid package was unclear over the weekend.

The bill, co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both New York Democrats, would provide $1.2 billion in funding to provide emergency financial aid to college students for basic needs created by unexpected college closures and COVID-19-related disruptions, including food, housing, health care and childcare needs.

It would also provide $1.2 billion in funding to help K-12 school districts and higher education institutions plan for closures, including how to provide meals to students, support efforts to clean and sanitize educational facilities, and provide training to educators and other staff members on how to properly ensure their buildings are safe for students' return.

The Education Department said Trump's plan to waive interest affects all federally held loans, including Federal Family Education Loans and Perkins Loans, as well as those in forbearance and on income-driven repayment plans. More details were not available on the waiver, which will be put into place in the next week, retroactive to Friday.

Consumer groups said they want more, having asked Trump and Congress to put in place a moratorium to give borrowers a break from making any loan payments during the economic fallout from the pandemic.

"No one should fall behind on their student debts because of this national crisis," said James Kvaal, president of the Institute for College Access and Success. "Waiving interest is welcome, but the key question is whether student loan borrowers can reduce or halt their monthly payments during the crisisÔÇï. Fully pausing student loan payments in addition to halting interest accumulation, and stopping punitive student loan collections, would provide much-needed, immediate relief to those individuals who may be unable to work and are facing economic hardship during this time of uncertainty."

Mike Saunders, director of military and consumer policy at Veterans Education Success, said waiving interest will only marginally help student borrowers.

"We call on President Trump to ensure borrowers, as well as all Americans, have extra cash in their pockets until this global pandemic is over," he said. "The federal government should not require Americans to prioritize payments to the government over ensuring the health and safety of their own families."

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No bracket busters. No watch parties or pregaming. No upsets or underdogs; no storming the court. Alumni fan clubs, student cheering sections and campus bars will be quiet for the next three weeks and perhaps even the remainder of the spring semester as U.S. colleges move into unseen territory -- the absence of intercollegiate athletics.

The coronavirus pandemic that has upended the daily lives and routines of college students around the world has also wiped out one of the most unifying features of campus and community life in the United States. The recent decision by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to cancel all remaining championship competitions for the winter and spring seasons to help reduce the spread of coronavirus and promote social distancing has only compounded the disappointment students are feeling about the unprecedented changes taking place on their campuses. They describe the cancellations in emotional terms, using words such as "tragic" and "traumatic."

Student athletes and graduating seniors for whom this was the last opportunity for an irreplaceable college experience are dealing with multiple levels of grief, said Susan Krauss Whitborne, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts who studies athletes and sports fandom. On top of suddenly being forced to take classes online or move away from campus, the cancellations of sporting events will have a psychological impact on students, especially those who were involved in winter or spring sports, marching band or cheerleading, Krauss Whitborne said.

“Some of them will never put on a uniform or pick up a ball ever again, and their whole experience has changed,” Krauss Whitborne said. “The professional teams want to have their games and play their championships as well, but it doesn’t have that ‘once in a lifetime’ feel.”

She said students had no time to prepare for decisions by college administrators reacting to a fast-changing and escalating public health crisis, and that made things feel worse. Some students got the news while they were away on spring break; some were in the middle of actual games or track meets, while others found out as they were packing to leave their campuses in the wake of mass closures by institutions that are moving instruction online and telling students to go home or not return to their campuses after spring break.

Allison Wahrman, a senior who competes in hammer throws for the University of Iowa's track and field team, found it all "heartbreaking." She said there was no closure on her college athletic career -- no senior night, no final meet. She believes she could have competed professionally with one last season of experience.

“I’m in shock right now. It hasn’t really processed that I already could’ve competed in my last meet,” Wahrman said. “I’ve been an athlete my whole life, so for it to come to an end like this, it doesn’t make sense to me. I feel like there’s something that needs to be done.”

The sense of loss is especially palpable for students who built and nurtured friendships through college sports.

Elizabeth Mason, a junior at Florida State University who plays softball, said the seniors on her team have become her "best friends and sisters."

"I am heartbroken for the seniors across the nation who have had their last year taken from them," Mason said. "I know we are all hurting for what may be the end of their careers."

Wahrman started a petition calling for the NCAA to extend senior athletes’ eligibility to play, which had received more than 164,000 signatures by March 13. The same day, all three of the NCAA's divisions agreed to look at rule changes that would allow extensions for spring sports players. The decision about extensions for winter sports athletes, such as those who play basketball or hockey, is less certain.

The Division I men’s basketball national championship, known as the March Madness tournament, will not be played for the first time since its inauguration in 1939, ESPN reported, which presents a different kind of loss.

The impact of an estimated nearly $800 million in revenue that the NCAA would receive from television networks to broadcast the tournament is an unknown, though COO Donald Remy has said the association’s reserves and business interruption insurance would partially cover monetary damages. More than 100 million people tuned in to the NCAA’s livestream of the tournament in 2019, television viewers increased by more than 10 percent last year and more than 72,000 people attended both the national semifinals and championship games, according to the NCAA’s 2019 viewership.

Americans' love for and obsession with March Madness is an “amazing phenomenon” that cannot be explained in other parts of the world, said John Shrader, a sports media and communications professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. His courses focus on the important community bonds created by the mutual love of sports at a time when people are less likely to attend church or be involved at their local community center, he said.

“Sports is where we gather, no matter a person’s identity, race -- all walks of life,” Shrader said. “We enjoy the community and camaraderie of sports.”

The cancellation of the tournament will also have an adverse economic impact on the 14 cities that were meant to host competitions, said Tom McMillen, president and CEO of the LEAD1 Association, an organization that represents 130 college athletic directors and programs.

“There’s a lot of collateral damage here,” he said. “You think about the vendors, concessionaires, hotels, restaurants in all these cities; that’s irreplaceable. This is traumatic. I hope that it wanes in the next three months, or otherwise we’re getting into the football season. And that’s the elephant in the room.”

The Alumni Association of the University of Kentucky canceled a pregame event for the men’s basketball team’s appearance in the Southeastern Conference tournament, said Jill Smith, the associate executive director of the alumni association.

She said there’s always a “deep sense of pride and competition” during March Madness, and people will drive for hours to be with other Kentucky fans and alumni and share nostalgic stories about national championship wins. Because there are no professional sports teams in Kentucky, the university's teams fill an important role, Smith said.

“It’s really one of the best, if not the best, sporting event in our country. It’s three weeks of unpredictability, excitement. It brings a lot of people together, whether it’s in person, watching, what have you,” Smith said. “We have people that follow us who have not even stepped on campus.”

The general reaction among alumni has been “understanding” and “positive,” Smith said. Some attendees asked that refunds for the event go to the alumni club in Nashville, Tenn., to contribute to a merit-based scholarship fund for Nashville high school students to attend Kentucky.

“You see kind acts of humanity at times like these,” Smith said. “Everybody is cheering for humanity to be safe.”

McMillen compared the impact of the pandemic to the time during World War II when football and basketball games were canceled because there weren’t enough men to fill team rosters. He said his most vivid memory as a basketball player for the University of Maryland in the 1970s was coming back to the campus after winning the National Invitation Tournament and seeing thousands of fans there to greet him and other team members. It will be difficult for the athletes who never again get the chance to experience that feeling, but recent developments related to the pandemic are another part of American history, he said.

Despite the distance created in communities and the loss of shared activities and entertainment due to public health authorities' recommendations that people not congregate in groups, students, team athletes and college sports fans alike will find ways to connect with one another, Krauss Whitborne said.

“The lack of physical togetherness will affect that sense of community, but outside hardships unite people,” Krauss Whitborne said. “Once they’re able to cope with the grief in general that they’re going through, they find ways to come together and find new ways for fandom.”

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Guidance on International Students and Online Courses

March 15, 10:21 a.m. The Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) has published more detailed guidance on how it will offer flexibility in relation to rules that typically restrict international students from counting more than one online course toward the requirement that they maintain a full-time course of study.

The guidance, published Friday, addresses three scenarios: one in which a school closes temporarily without offering online learning instruction, one in which a college temporarily switches to online instruction and the international student remains in the U.S., and one in which a college temporarily switches to online instruction and the international student leaves the country.

In the first case -- in which a college closes -- the Homeland Security Department said institutions should keep international student records active in the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) so long as students intend to resume their course of studies when classes start up again, just as they would for regularly scheduled academic breaks.

For the other two cases, in which institutions switch to online instruction, SEVP said it will temporarily waive restrictions on international students engaging in online coursework. Students’ SEVIS records should stay in active status if they continue courses online whether they are inside or outside the U.S.

SEVP stressed that the measures are temporary and that guidance is subject to change. Colleges must notify SEVP of procedural changes they make to respond to the coronavirus within 10 days of making those changes.

-- Elizabeth Redden

Grinnell Expands Pass/Fail Option

March 15, 9:45 a.m. Grinnell College, a liberal arts college in Iowa, is allowing students to take all their spring courses under a pass/fail grading system in light of the college’s temporary shift from in-person to distance education. Students have until April 10 to switch some or all of their spring courses to a pass/fail grading system. Students can still opt to complete their courses under a traditional A-F grading system, but Grinnell said expanded use of pass/fail grading "aims to reduce student stress during this already-stressful time, while still providing a pathway to fulfill program and degree requirements."

-- Elizabeth Redden

Academic Libraries Share Response to COVID-19

March 15, 9:10 a.m. Many institutions are busy preparing to take their in-person courses online, but few academic libraries have significantly altered how they operate in response to the coronavirus, early survey data reveal.

The Academic Library Response to COVID-19 survey was launched on March 11 by Christine Wolff-Eisenberg, manager of surveys and research at Ithaka S+R, and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, professor and coordinator for information literacy services and instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Over 200 libraries responded to the survey in the first 24 hours, reporting “relatively little change” in how they serve users. Libraries reported prevention and mitigation measures such as increased cleaning and public event cancellations, but only 64 percent of libraries said they engaged in regular communication with staff to provide updates and guidelines on safety measures.

The survey is still open and seeking responses. Regularly updated results can be accessed here.

-- Lindsay McKenzie

SNHU Shares Resources About Online Learning

March 14, 12:40 p.m. Southern New Hampshire University, which is one of the nation's largest universities, enrolling more than 96,000 students in online programs, released tips for other colleges as they move instruction online. The resources include guides on how to build a teacher persona, support student success, handle feedback and forums, and accommodate diversity, equity and inclusion in the online classroom.

"In times like these, the importance of working together becomes more apparent than ever. Uniting as one community to share critical resources and information is both a sign of solidarity, and a sign of our collective commitment to the good and wellbeing of all people -- not just the ones in our own campus classrooms," Paul LeBlanc, SHNU's president, said in a statement. "So as many colleges and universities move instruction online, SNHU would like to support their efforts in any way we can. We’ve compiled a list of resources and instructional tips that may be helpful, and invite our fellow schools to reach out to us if they feel the need as they navigate the process in the coming weeks."

-- Paul Fain

NCAA May Adjust Eligibility Rules for Athletes

March 13, 5:50 p.m. The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s three divisions will discuss adjusting eligibility rules for spring athletes, which would potentially allow seniors to compete for another season.

The Division I Council Coordination Committee agreed eligibility relief would be appropriate for all Division I athletes who participated in spring sports and said the details of any rules adjustments will come later. The Division III Administrative Committee officially granted spring sports athletes an additional season or semester of eligibility, according to statements released by the NCAA.

Division II officials have not yet made a public statement about their eligibility decisions.

-- Greta Anderson

Consumer Groups: Trump's Student Interest Waivers Not Enough

March 13, 5:35 p.m. Consumer groups applauded President Trump’s announcement that he will indefinitely waive the interest on federal loans during the coronavirus crisis.

But having asked Trump and Congress to put in place a moratorium to give borrowers a break from making any loan payments during the economic fallout from the pandemic, the groups also said the president’s move didn’t go far enough.

“Freezing interest will keep balances from growing during this time and that's important,” Persis Yu, National Consumer Law Center staff attorney, said in a statement.

"However, many borrowers are going to experience income shocks and urgent expenses that will impede their ability to make their regularly scheduled payments," said Yu. "Moreover, people need the confidence to know that, if they are sick or medically vulnerable or need to care for children, that they can stay home and not face the draconian consequences of defaulting on their student loans."

Yu also called for the Education Department to stop garnishing wages or taking payments from Social Security benefits and tax refunds during the crisis.

"No one should fall behind on their student debts because of this national crisis," said James Kvaal, president of the Institute for College Access and Success. "Waiving interest is welcome, but the key question is whether student loan borrowers can reduce or halt their monthly payments during the crisisÔÇï. Fully pausing student loan payments in addition to halting interest accumulation, and stopping punitive student loan collections, would provide much-needed, immediate relief to those individuals who may be unable to work and are facing economic hardship during this time of uncertainty."

Mike Saunders, director of military and consumer policy at Veterans Education Success, said waiving interest rates will only marginally help student borrowers.

"We call on President Trump to ensure borrowers, as well as all Americans, have extra cash in their pockets until this global pandemic is over," he said. "The federal government should not require Americans to prioritize payments to the government over ensuring the health and safety of their own families."

A spokeswoman for the department said more details are coming on Trump's order.

And earlier, a Democratic House aide said a moratorium on student loan payments is not expected to be included in the coronavirus package Congress is negotiating with the White House.

-- Kery Murakami

Trump to Waive Interest on Student Loans

March 13, 4:10 p.m. At a news conference to declare a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump said he is issuing an emergency order to help student loan borrowers. "To help students and families, I have waived interest of student loans until further notice," Trump said.

-- Kery Murakami

Wife of UT Austin President Tests Positive

March 13, 2:30 p.m. Greg Fenves, president of the University of Texas at Austin, is being tested for COVID-19 after his wife, Carmel, tested positive for the virus.

A second member of Fenves's family, who also works at the university, is presumed to have COVID-19 as well, according to a letter from Fenves to the university community.

Fenves, his wife and the other family member are in self-isolation. They are compiling a list of people they have recently had contact with. UT Health Austin nurses will reach out to those on the list who are affiliated with the university for screening.

Last week, Fenves and his wife traveled to New York City for alumni and student events. His wife began experiencing mild flu-like symptoms upon their return.

Classes at UT Austin were canceled and the campus was closed today, March 13, because of the positive test.

-- Madeline St. Amour

Change of Plans for Monmouth

March 13, 2 p.m. At least one college already has changed its initial response to the novel coronavirus.

Monmouth College in Illinois initially planned to resume classes on March 18, extending its spring break by a few days.

In a letter sent Friday, the college said it reassessed and will instead allow flexibility for students and faculty members to make their own decisions.

The college will stay closed for an extra week after spring break ends and reopen on March 23 under what it’s calling a “flexible plan” for the rest of the semester.

Under this plan, students can choose whether to return to campus or study online. Residence halls and food services will open this weekend as planned, and students can return to campus this weekend.

Professors will work with students who choose to study online. Faculty members can also choose to move their courses fully online if they wish.

Staff will also receive flexible options for their work.

Monmouth will be holding workshops for faculty on moving courses online from now until March 23.

“There is no perfect answer to the crisis that has happened upon us,” a statement from the college reads. “We believe this response affirms our twin commitments to quality education and to campus community wellbeing -- even as we acknowledge that a pandemic has a way of throwing a wrench into that mission.”

-- Madeline St. Amour

Call for More Tests

March 13, 11:55 a.m. The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health is calling on the Trump administration to take action to manufacture quality test kits for the novel coronavirus.

The association, which represents deans and directors of 128 accredited institutions for public health, said in a news release that it felt compelled to speak out about test-kit availability.

“When the United States failed to participate in the World Health Organization’s collaborative effort to bring testing to the world’s nations, it made an implicit commitment to provide its own tests,” the statement reads. “It has failed to do so, and clinical and public health organizations alike do not have anywhere near the testing capacity for an aggressive response to the expanding COVID-19 crisis.”

The association is asking the administration to use emergency public health measures and funding to facilitate public-private partnerships to validate and manufacture test kits for hospitals and clinics. Without enough reliable tests to diagnose and track the virus, the country won’t be able to combat the threat, according to the association.

-- Madeline St. Amour

Flexibility for Students Abroad

March 13, 11:55 a.m. The Student and Exchange Visitor Program announced that nonimmigrant students can temporarily use distance learning, either from within the U.S. or elsewhere, to continue their courses in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Some members of NAFSA: Association of International Educators had reported to the organization earlier that the Student and Exchange Visitor Program told schools and colleges to instead terminate records for students who took online portions of classes abroad.

After NAFSA contacted the program with their concerns and advocated that it allow schools and colleges to keep records in active status for students who switch to online courses, the program issued a statement correcting its guidance.

-- Madeline St. Amour

No Student Loan Relief Expected in Coronavirus Package From Congress

March, 13 11:40 a.m. The multibillion-dollar coronavirus package being negotiated by Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin isn’t expected to include a temporary suspension of student loan payments, said a Democratic House aide. Advocacy groups like Veterans Education Success and the Institute for College Access and Success had been hoping for some temporary relief. House Democrats, however, are working on proposals to provide help.

Meanwhile, Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate's health and education committee, proposed a temporary exemption for students from repaying Pell Grants or student loans if their terms are disrupted. Under current law, Pell Grant recipients would have to return a portion of their grants to the federal government if they withdraw from school, or in this case, if their institution closes.

The bill, co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both New York Democrats, would provide $1.2 billion in funding to provide emergency financial aid to college students for basic needs created by unexpected college closures and COVID-19 related disruptions, including food, housing, health care and childcare needs.

It would also provide $1.2 billion in funding to help K-12 school districts and higher education institutions plan for closures, including how to provide meals to students, support efforts to clean and sanitize educational facilities, and to provide training to educators and other staff members on how to properly ensure their buildings are safe for students' return.

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators applauded the co-sponsors “for acting quickly to find a solution to support financial aid recipients, who may now find themselves in dire situations in the face of this pandemic.”

-- Kery Murakami

Bogus Fliers at Bates College about 'Forced Contamination'

March 13, 10:50 a.m. Anonymous fliers appeared Wednesday on the campus of Bates College. They falsely claimed Bates was attempting to cope with the viral outbreak through "forced massed contamination," because the college had determined that students and all others will get COVID-19, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported.

The college, which is located in Maine, quickly denounced the fliers, calling on students, faculty and staff members to discard them.

“We are all doing our best to grapple with a very challenging public health situation, this kind of action reflects seriously poor judgment and blatant disregard for the concerns and well-being of others,” a Bates spokesman said in a message to the Bates community.

On Friday Bates announced it was suspending classes and moving to remote learning. The college said students must leave campus by today.

In a message to the campus, Clayton Spencer, Bates's president, expressed empathy for the resulting disruptions felt by students, their families and faculty and staff members.

"We find ourselves in a situation that is, quite literally, beyond our control. I understand that the solutions we are offering are necessarily imperfect and place extra demands on all members of our community," Spencer wrote. "I have heard from many students over the past week. Some have expressed their anxiety about staying on campus under current circumstances, and others have described to me how devastated they feel at the prospect of having to leave campus and their Bates world mid-semester. My heart goes out to all of our students, as these are genuinely stressful and difficult times. But this is an unprecedented situation, and we have no choice but to take this course of action."

-- Paul Fain

Wharton Creates Coronavirus Course

March 13, 10:30 a.m. As colleges across the country shut down or move online in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania already is taking lessons from the outbreak and putting them into a course.

Epidemics, Natural Disasters and Geopolitics: Managing Global Business and Financial Uncertainty will be a six-week, half-credit course offered remotely starting March 25, after the college’s extended spring break, according to a news release.

The course will discuss financial market reactions to the coronavirus, emotional contagion and how the virus affects the trade war with China.

“There are significant business lessons to be learned from the global response to the coronavirus outbreak, and Wharton is at the forefront of sharing valuable insights and creating a community to exchange ideas,” said Geoff Garrett, dean of the Wharton School. “This is a teachable moment for the global academic community, and this course is just one example of how Wharton is coming together to provide support during a time of heightened anxiety and ambiguity.”

More than 450 students have already preregistered for the course.

-- Madeline St. Amour

U-Haul Offers Free Storage

March 13, 10:30 a.m. More colleges are telling students to pack up and head home for the semester due to the novel coronavirus, often leaving students with costs for moving or storing their belongings.

U-Haul has stepped forward to offer 30 days of free self-storage to college students in the U.S. and Canada in response to the outbreak, according to a news release from the company. It also includes use of the company’s portable moving and storage containers.

“We don’t know how every student is affected. But we know they are affected,” John Taylor, U-Haul’s president, said in the statement. “More and more universities are giving instructions to leave campus and go home. Students and their parents are in need of moving and storage solutions. We have the expertise and network to help, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

The free month applies only to new customers with college IDs, according to the release.

U-Haul has offered this deal before to specific communities impacted by natural disasters, but this is the first time that it will be offered nationwide.

-- Madeline St. Amour

Sodexo Offers Expanded Sick Pay

March 13, 10:10 a.m. Sodexo, a company that operates food and dining services on many college campuses, announced Thursday that all employees, full- and part-time, will be granted sick pay for up to 21 days if they have a confirmed case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, or are asked not to come in because of related symptoms.

This use of sick pay only will be available after an employee has used up their accrued sick time. The limited and haphazard coronavirus testing regimen in the U.S. raises questions about how many employees with the virus will be able to access tests and confirm their cases. The country is far behind others in its ability to test for the virus, a fact acknowledged Thursday by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Sodexo is committed to the health and safety of our employees, our clients and the communities we serve, and that includes supporting our employees where we can if they get sick as they service our clients,” Sarosh Mistry, president of Sodexo USA, said in a statement. “Our long-standing commitment to our employees is something we will stand by, especially at a time like this.”

UT Austin Shuts Down Campus Operations

March 13, 9:20 a.m. Citing two positive cases of COVID-19 in the Austin area, the University of Texas at Austin on Friday morning canceled classes and closed operations. Only essential personnel should work today, the university said.

Yesterday UT Austin suspended campus visits and all university-sponsored travel and issued a worldwide recall of faculty, staff and students on university-sponsored trips.

-- Paul Fain

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Our mission, at a time of crisis and confusion, is to show you the full picture of how higher ed is affected — and how it’s responding.

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A chaotic week on many campuses, prompted by the coronavirus, has upended the enrollment process. Now some colleges are pushing back their deposit deadlines.

A PLUME OF pink smoke wafts above the treetops, signalling where the Black Hawk helicopters should land. They circle down and, one at a time, rest their front wheels on the hillside. It is too steep to land properly, so they keep their rotors whirring while the passengers alight and then immediately lift off again.

The Colombian government is pulling up coca bushes, the leaves of which are used to make cocaine. It is a costly task, both in blood and treasure. Ten Colombians were killed during coca-eradication operations in 2019, and 50 were wounded.

Gun-toting police stand guard on the hillside, near Tumaco in south-western Colombia, to scare off gangsters. Riot police with shields, batons and tear-gas grenades stand ready, too. Their job is to deal with angry coca farmers, who object to having their crops destroyed. They wear anti-slash gloves in case a farmer expresses his feelings with a machete.

Dogs sniff the field for landmines, which gangsters sometimes plant to make eradication more hazardous. Happily, they find none. Finally, men working in pairs uproot the coca bushes with a shovel and a two-handed tug. They are farmers, flown in from other parts of Colombia so they cannot be identified by the gangs. They are paid well, to compensate for the risk and long absences from home.

President...

While colleges haven’t reportedly laid off food-service workers and other staff members yet, they may face tough choices in the fall if the pandemic lasts through the summer.

Schools and colleges across the Republic of Ireland have been shut until March 29 in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The government announced the measures on March 12 after the total number of cases in the country rose to 70 and the first death linked to the virus was reported. 

In addition to the announcement, the government confirmed that where an English language school has closed due to government advice regarding COVID-19, “all international students will be considered to have met their attendance requirement for the shutdown period”.

ÔÇ£The safety of students and staff is paramountÔÇØ

David Russell, chairman of PCNÔÇô an organisation representing eight English language training centres in Ireland ÔÇô┬átold The PIE News that despite ongoing concern about the financial impact that coronavirus will have, many ELT schools have expressed their support for the measures.

ÔÇ£Obviously the ongoing COVID-19 situation is challenging and worrying for everybody. While the Irish government’s announcement of the closure of schools offers challenges to employers, most people see the rationale behind this step as a reasonable one,ÔÇØ he said. ┬á

Russell added that a temporary closure of school doors, with a view to curbing the spread of the virus, “makes sense”.┬á

ÔÇ£Having said that, schools are obviously worried about the future and how this whole situation may impact on sales and future trading,ÔÇØ he added.┬á

Russell explained that the closures impacts company revenue and cash flow, which in turn can have an impact on the ability to maintain staff and pay salaries. 

ÔÇ£Nobody wants to let staff go, this would be a worst-case scenario. I feel it is imperative that the government support employers at this challenging time.”

Rob McComish and Anne-Marie Connolly, company directors at Everest Language School in Dublin, told The PIE they were ÔÇÿgladÔÇÖ when they heard that schools had been ordered to shut.┬á

Everest has been offering all of its classes online using video conferencing since the evening of March 12. The school has had near full attendance in every class. 

ÔÇ£We have had contingency plans in place as the decision to close the schools was something that we have known was a possibility for the past three weeks so we have been preparing to implement this solution to ensure that our students can continue their lessons,” the directors explained.

ÔÇ£The cooperation of the students and staff has been key in our ability to make the switch to online classes as quickly as has been necessary. Everybody was incredibly understanding,ÔÇØ they added.

Despite Everest having been well prepared, coronavirus has still caused the school problems. 

McComish and Connolly explained that they are already experiencing cancellations from affected areas and are doing their best to keep student numbers up. 

Education agencies too are feeling the financial ripple effect of the closures.

Director of Turkish agency Global Vizyon, Deniz Akar told The PIE that a number of students have been looking to postpone or cancel their summer programs in Ireland.

“For the time being the flight companies don’t create problems ÔÇô they either refund the money or give credit for the next flight. The schools are not creating problems – they are okay with the postponement. The problem is some students don’t want to postpone, they want to cancel totally,” he said.

However, changes to bookings for Ireland aren’t throwing up as many problems as some other destinations, Akar continued.

“In Malta, there are not many cases [of coronavirus] but because of the proximity to Italy it is very difficult to convince the students to go,” he added.”Ireland students are quite okay to postpone to May.”

Universities in Ireland have also been closed, with many continuing to operate but online.

Even prior to the government’s announcement, Trinity College Dublin stated that it would be moving all lectures online from March 11.

According to reports, the university which exhibits the world-famous ‘Book of Kells’ could lose at least Ôé¼3 million following the closure of the exhibition.

“Colleagues across the university have been preparing diligently for this eventuality”

Another Dublin based university, DCU, is starting online delivery of its academic taught programs from March 16, while all first and second-year undergraduate examinations planned for May will be replaced with alternative assessments.

Despite the disruption, DCU president, Brian MacCraith said he welcomed the announcement of the government.

ÔÇ£The safety and well-being of our students and staff have been, and will remain, our priority,” MacCraith said.

“Colleagues across the university have been preparing diligently for this eventuality for a number of weeks and strong contingency plans are in place.┬á

ÔÇ£We are in a good position to move our teaching and assessment activities online,” he added.

The post COVID-19: Ireland closes schools and colleges appeared first on The PIE News.

The University of California has built a $34 million dining facility that offers international dishes from Indian shrimp curry to Tuscan kale and white bean soup in a bid to celebrate diversity and make overseas students “feel more at home”.┬á

Latitude Restaurant is situated on UC Davis, one of the University of CaliforniaÔÇÖs 10 campuses. It was opened in January this year after a 24 month building period.┬á

“We want to give our students that sense of comfort”

So far, the facility has provided a total of 300 dishes from regions around the world including Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia. 

Director of dining services for the university, Kraig Brady explained that Latitude was designed to celebrate the diverse culture of its campus community. 

“My idea was to find out how I make somebody from abroad feel more at home,” Brady told The PIE News.┬á

“Sometimes having something familiar makes you more comfortable and being from a different country a lot of our food that we serve is simply different from what international students are used to.┬á

So we thought that if we could offer them something more familiar it might make them more comfortable.”

Latitude has added 500 additional seats to student dining facilities and caters for a campus community that represents students from 113 countries. 

Brady explained that his team believed the comfort of students relates to how well they do in school and how much stress they experience in their lives. 

This idea that the familiarity of food might contribute to the wellbeing of international students has been explored by academics. 

Masters student, Erika Stewin, who undertook research on “food insecurity“┬áissues among international students at two Canadian universities.┬á

Stewin found that “many students described experiencing food insecurity, students related feelings of depression, homesickness and identity loss, hunger, difficulties with weight loss or weight gain, and stories of being forced to compromise religious beliefs in order to eat.”

Brady told The PIE that the dining services team also wanted to offer new cuisines to students who werenÔÇÖt familiar with other peopleÔÇÖs culture.┬á

“We thought this might help them bridge the gap and build food as the centrepiece to build community within our campus,” he said.┬á

So far the dining facility has been very well received. Students have the ability to text real-time feedback and, according to Brady, so far the response has had nothing but complimentary. 

“We had one student reply saying that she was brought to tears by tasting something that reminded her of the holidays back home.┬á

“To me, that was what all this is about. We want to give our students that sense of comfort,” he said.┬á

The post UC Davis dining facility celebrates diversity appeared first on The PIE News.

ELT schools in Malta are facing a loss of millions of euros due to the coronavirus outbreak, an impact assessment has found. However, stakeholders in the country fear losses will increase as the situation worsens.

According to the report carried out by Deloitte, the current level of cancellations at the Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations (FELTOM) schools are resulting in an estimated monthly financial loss of Ôé¼1.4million. It is estimated that the cost to MaltaÔÇÖs economy is Ôé¼3.4m per month.┬á

ÔÇ£Working together we will go through it and it will passÔÇØ

However, since March 5 when the report was completed, Malta has banned all travel with Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland ÔÇô meaning the impact on ELT schools will be even greater.┬á┬á

ÔÇ£Due to the fact that there was a specific ban on Italy and France regarding education travel, which are some of the largest economies [for ELT schools in Malta], there was a lot of turmoil for our schools,ÔÇØ James Perry, CEO of FELTOM, told The PIE News.┬á

ÔÇ£We asked Deloitte to create an impact assessment into the effect on the schools and on the economy, in the hope of going to our government and asking for assistance.ÔÇØ

The survey cited that FELTOM schools, which represent 85% of the total ELT industry in Malta, generated a gross operating profit of Ôé¼11m in 2018.┬á

However, the cancellation rate in March and April 2019 for ELT schools was in excess of 40%. The survey also noted a progressive slow down in booking pace which has already reached 45%. 

The result of these cancellations could be the loss of millions of euros, the survey concluded.

Deloitte estimated that the cancellation of 4,000 arrivals will result in monthly financial losses of Ôé¼1.4m to FELTOM schools. This figure will increase to Ôé¼2.1m with cancellations of around 6,000.┬á

ÔÇ£Unfortunately the impact assessment is already outdated because since we did the report, there have been further closures, of airports, of flights,ÔÇØ Perry said.┬á

ÔÇ£The Maltese government is taking quite drastic measures…so the impact assessment, while it was extremely valid, is outdated because the numbers [of cancellations] are much higher than reported.ÔÇØ

Some language schools in Malta have temporarily closed because of coronavirus; The PIE has learned that LAL Language Centres’s Sliema school is closed until March 20.┬á

In 2017, Malta’s ELT schools recorded historic increases in enrolments ÔÇô highs that FELTOM sought to stabilise in 2019.

FELTOM is hoping for funding and tax moratoriums from the Maltese government to help keep ELT schools afloat amid the pandemic.

“Working together we will go through it and it will pass”

Perry explained that it is also crucial that ELT schools keep positive. 

ÔÇ£We have to understand that this is a virus and this will pass and once it passes, we should not be afraid to travel,ÔÇØ he said.┬á

ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs not the first time there has been something similar to this in the world and we always manage to survive it.┬á

ÔÇ£This is the most important thing to keep in mind ÔÇô working together we will go through it and it will pass,” he added.

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