Interesting...I hadn't heard of schools closing for the remainder of the semester, just for a few weeks around spring break.

I respect schools/organizations/others' decisions to do this. Some may disagree, but if it helps slow things down or whatever, I'm all for it. I *do*, however, feel bad for service-industry workers whose jobs don't allow "working from home".

A fellow teacher's son is at Birmingham Southern. She says that if they make the kids finish the year with online classes, she'd better get a big fat refund check on his tuition because she's not paying that kind of money for him to teach himself.

I read that it's all Florida universities, not just FSU. UVa announced today that they will go to online classes and reassess on April 5th for the rest of the semester.

The University of Minnesota and all its satellite campuses will be closed for two weeks after spring break (which I believe is next week?).

UF, FSU, University of North Florida, Central Florida, and South Florida are all going to online classes. UF starts on the 16 and will have online classes until the 30th, at least. The other schools will begin their two weeks when the students return from spring break. They are expected to return to on-campus classes on April 6th.

From what I've been told at most universities in Ohio, these are teacher-led classes online. Students aren't teaching themselves. They are getting their lectures live but remotely.
I wouldn't expect a refund check when the university is still paying the teachers to teach, plus are paying for extra online broadcasts.

Per our POTUS, travel ban from Europe (Except the UK) for 30 days.....

NBA suspended season and Tom Hanks has COVID. This last hour has been kind of nuts.

Well, the New York Times is reporting that Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that 2 of 3 Germans are infected, so I would say that 66.67% is close enough to 70%.

Merkel said in an address to the German parliament that two out of three Germans may become infected, not that they are infected currently. Again, her assessment isn't outside the realm of possibility, based on what epidemiologists are predicting. Merkel's number is just on the high side of the predicted infection range.

As for my own experience, I work for a federal agency that still has provided absolutely no guidance beyond hand washing and "Dracula Coughing." They haven't advised us to postpone or cancel non-essential travel, request video teleconferences instead of in-person oral arguments, or do additional telework beyond the one day a week that most of us already do. We've been waiting for promised guidance since early last week, and nothing has arrived, not even after someone in my office was put in quarantine yesterday with a "probable" case of Coronavirus. "Probable" only because the narrow testing parameters spelled out by the CDC a couple weeks ago are still in place, at least in my area, so she can't be tested (yet). But given everything, her doctor is pretty sure she is infected. In the absence of any direction or communication from agency leadership on how to deal with this, middle management in my office is trying its best to deal with the situation, and the disruption that has resulted. For myself, I have to go in to the office today, but will start teleworking three to four days a week beginning tomorrow. Let the social distancing commence!

I wish I could say that my agency is an aberration, and that others are handling this better, but I've heard similar stories from friends at other Departments. It seems like a lot of state and local jurisdictions are ahead of the feds in dealing with this. Mind you, only my impression

The chapter houses on my campus are staying open but with caveats. Most are only allowing residents to be in the house, along with minimal "essential" staff (cleaners, cooks). No guests or out of house members allowed. Some houses are making their residents fill out a form to stay in the house and only those who with a form on file will be allowed in. Meal service will be abbreviated to some extent, again it'll vary from house to house.

My younger brother was at the Jazz-Thunder NBA game last night where they shut down the game at half time because one of the Jazz players tested positive. Now other Jazz players are testing positive.

Our Greater Chicago Alumnae Chapter just posted this to Facebook with the message: Are you tired of singing Happy Birthday? Try saying The Creed when washing your hands instead. 💚⚓💛

https://scontent-bos3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...de&oe=5E914BA9

How perfect! Ours is a bit long, but then, my hands would surely be clean.

ACC tournament cancelled, along with others.

Thanks for this. After my alma mater announced yesterday that it was going online only for the rest of the semester and everyone has to leave their dorm, I wondered what it would be like had a similar situation happened when I was in school back in the stone age. We were the rare Greek group that owned our house, so those of us who lived in the house could have stayed if the house corporation allowed it. It would have been strange, but I think I would have preferred that to trying to study back at home, where between my parents and sisters, it would not have been quiet enough.

With all these schools going online, will the internet keep up?

Merkel or the NYT isn't up with the facts. https://www.worldometers.info/corona...untry/germany/
These estimate, give to the public, do more harm than good. Even in China, then haven't seen numbers like those. They are bending the curves.

MIT is actually going to online classes, not closing completely. They've cancelled classes for next week. The following week would have been spring break anyway. Starting on the 30th, classes will continue online for the remainder of the semester. Commencement may or may not be cancelled.

All undergraduates in dorms and fraternity and sorority houses are being forced to leave. There are residences for graduate students, but they're set up as apartments, rather than dorms with kitchens and bathrooms shared among many residents, so graduate students who live on campus can stay on campus.

This is causing major headaches, especially for some international students, because of visa issues or because they come from countries that have been hard hit by COVID-19.

As of yesterday, there were 92 confirmed or presumptive cases in Massachusetts, 70 of which were connected to a recent conference in Boston - hence why Boston/Cambridge schools are taking precautions.

... And COVID-19 is the official winner of the NCAA tournaments. They've been cancelled.

You can let her know that I've been teaching - TEACHING - online for 6 years. He won't be teaching himself, and that professor is putting in too much work to go without pay.

Going around Alpha Delta Pi circles is this same meme to our "Boom Boom" Recruitment song1

Our Centennial Celebration, scheduled for April 3-5, has been cancelled. At Pitt, classes are cancelled and no group over 25, students or alumni, is permitted.

The real kicker is that Heinz Chapel, which hosts 5-6 weddings each Saturday, has cancelled all weddings until further notice. This is causing mass hysteria on wedding sites.

My University starts spring break tomorrow afternoon. As of today, spring break has been extended to a two week period to provide faculty an opportunity to convert all of our face to face classes to an online format. This will be the most difficult two weeks of work for me since the aftermath of Katrina. Rest assured, if the University has invested in training and preparation, students will not be teaching themselves. For faculty who have never taught online and/or have large class sections, teaching online will likely be more difficult than teaching face to face. We would absolutely prefer to see our students on-campus and for life as we knew it to continue. I feel sad for our students and student-athletes and our faculty. This is not what we signed up for and never anticipated such an event.

So most Georgia districts, as well as the University System of Georgia schools, are out for at least 2 weeks. My sons will come home from their university for that period--no idea if they'll get online work because 1 week was their break. My husband and I will be off and I guess we're keeping grandkids because most of our children who live in town don't teach.

COVID-19 in the age of Helicopter Parenting. Sounds like an amazing thesis paper in a few years.

I'm at work from Home until at least two weeks from Today. School is cancelled for my kid (HS Sr.) until that point. Still wondering if he'll get Prom or Graduation.

No kidding.

All K-12 public schools in Michigan have been closed until April 6th. Many start Spring Break that day so are really closed until April 13th. Closed. Not moved to online.

Most of the universities and colleges have gone to all online courses until late April. That's the week before finals for most. I think they'll go back in to take a final and leave. But my friend whose son is at Brown has to figure out how to get him out of a dorm and get all his stuff out of the dorm in the next week. Thankfully she has a brother in Connecticut who is going to help out.

My son is all online and I'm hoping his master's graduation ceremony isn't canceled. My work gave us the "work from home" direction today. Everything is canceled everywhere- theater tickets, sports, museums.

My daughter in DC is not so lucky. She's still going in to work (Dept of Education is her current project) and has practically no food and is panicking because store shelves have been wiped out. She's a bit anxious about everything.

Our cruise to Italy and Greece is definitely not happening for us.

All of my region's public libraries are temporarily closed or closing, most for four weeks. :(

All Louisiana public and Catholic K-12 schools are closed until mid-April. They are going to try to do online classes, but, according to the paper, 71% of public school children come from economically disadvantaged families, and I'm sure many of them don't have internet at home.

Officials are trying to come up with a way to distribute lunches to students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. For some students, their free lunch is the only solid meal they get all day. :(

I didn't mean to say that MIT was closing, but rather than many campus buildings and greek housing were likely to do so. Of course all schools in this situation of trying to close as much of the property as possible and limit students are moving to online learning. I was rather wondering how greek organizations are handling reimbursing students when they are being told to move out, etc.

Massachusetts educational commissioner today recommended NOT closing K-12 districts and gave very specific recommendations including closing for less than 2 days for thorough cleanings of buildings. The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents has issues a press release that I believe is very telling. The county I work in has over 70 confirmed cases among the very few people who have thus far had access to testing, including several passengers on the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship in the town that I teach in. I am so very proud of the Merrimack Valley Superintendents Association for banding together for the health and welfare of our communities. It will for sure be a strange few weeks, but the uncertainty is over and we can move forward with knowing we will be our of the building (minus a staff training day Monday) until at least March 27. Proms, Graduation, etc. unknown. Yet a little bit of solace in knowing that the superintendents in our area believe in the safety of our communities and that's enough for now....

link to press release.

They are closing down the country. ILL k-12 schools all closed. Heath clubs and the like are closing. Next up will be private businesses.

Thank you!

Alpha Phi Omega's information in regards to Covid 19.
https://apo.org/apo-operations-updat...t-of-covid-19/

Options include virtual pledge and initiation ceremonies (with the suggestion of holding a walk through in person when the school comes back and in person meetings can be done again.

Finally got an email from Princess Cruise Line stating that they're cancelling all cruises for 60 days -- up until now, it's just been one "SALE!!!!" pitch email after another.

When I saw this mentioned the first time on Twitter, people were responding to it like it was suggesting they sing the actual verse lyrics…silly people who don't know what a chorus is in a song, I guess. :rolleyes:

Well, found this on Amazon, so if you’re an AKA, you can wear a face mask with your sorority crest!
https://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Kappa-S...2C231&sr=8-203

Oh, wait, AKAs have a choice of 2 designs!
https://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Kappa-S...as%2Caps%2C231

Also found masks with owls (XOs), fleur de lis (KKGs), anchors (DGs), arrows (PBPhis), kites (KATs), dolphins (DDDs), roses ... oh, I could go on but I won’t.

(I’ll be traveling and my mom suggested I wear a face mask on my flight, so I was browsing Amazon. Then, fell down a rabbit hole.)

Just told by HR that my office is now WFH. Any suggestion for Netflix? Wanted to started Ozark. For HBO, Succession seems to be a good show to watch.

All restaurants and bars in Illinois will be closed to dine-in customers as of tomorrow through March 30. Only delivery and drive-through services will be permitted.

Also, Indiana University will be going to online-only classes for the rest of the semester. Residence halls will close on March 20. (I’m guessing Greek houses will too, if they haven’t already.) Little 500 has been cancelled.

This is so surreal.

So my campus has officially shut. Was looking forward to greek week, formal, and the poor new member class might have to wait till next semester to get initiated! This is happening at a lot of schools for spring new member classes.