11-17: Many patients deny coronavirus exists, right up until death; Killer pancakes at a Connecticut college; Stanford rebukes Trump advisor; Fauci advocates "uniform approach" to Covid; Wagner squawks

✅ Cutting the In-Person Semester Short 

Many colleges are now announcing new shifts to online learning that will continue for the rest of the semester. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅ Sacred Heart Settles Suit Over Pancake-Eating Contest Death 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut, has settled a lawsuit filed by the mother of a student who died after choking at a pancake-eating contest on campus in 2017, the Associated Press reported. 

     Caitlin Nelson, a 20-year-old junior and social work major, died three days after choking at the contest, a charity fundraiser conceived by a sorority. The lawsuit alleged that Sacred Heart approved the contest despite the potential danger of eating pancakes quickly due to their thick density. Sacred Heart denied wrongdoing in court documents.... 

✅ Plummeting Community-College Enrollments: Inside the Numbers 

—CHE 

✅ S.D. nurse says many patients deny coronavirus exists, right up until death 

—WashPo 

✅ How human behavior will likely make the coronavirus become endemic 

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread in the United States, experts expect the virus to become endemic, existing permanently in the population. 

—WashPo 

✅ The lowest-paid workers in higher education are suffering the highest job losses 

—WashPo 

✅ Stanford rebukes Scott Atlas following his controversial ‘rise up’ tweet -- Stanford University sought to distance itself Monday from Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the university’s Hoover Institution and key member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, a day after Atlas encouraged people to “rise up” in response to new pandemic-related restrictions implemented by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Michael Williams in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Jason Green in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/17/20 

✅ After more than a year of enrolling students, Calbright College makes significant changes and learns from mistakes -- It’s been a rocky year for California’s first online community college since it first enrolled students. Ashley A. Smith EdSource -- 11/17/20 

✅ ‘More People May Die’ Because of Trump’s Transition Delay, Biden Says -- President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday sharpened his criticism of President Trump’s refusal to cooperate in an orderly transition, warning that “more people may die” from the coronavirus if the president does not agree to coordinate planning for the mass distribution of a vaccine when it becomes available. Michael Crowley and Michael D. Shear in the New York Times$ -- 11/17/20 

✅ Biden urges a new economic relief package and warns again of a ‘dark winter’ ahead -- President-elect Joe Biden urged Congress to immediately pass an economic relief package Monday as he warned that the coronavirus pandemic will worsen in the coming months. Anne Gearan and Jeff Stein in the Washington Post$ Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport in the New York Times$ -- 11/17/20

✅ Covid-19 Live Updates: Mask Orders, Curfews and Shutdowns — States Take Piecemeal Actions as Virus Floods the U.S. 

Fauci says the nation needs “a uniform approach” to the pandemic. 

—NYT 

     Ohio announced a nightly curfew. Illinois is suspending indoor dining and drinking. Mississippi extended a mask mandate to seven more counties, while Iowa will issue its first statewide mask order. 

     Those actions, announced in the past 24 hours by governors who warn that hospitals are reaching capacity, are just the latest to be added to the ever-expanding patchwork of pandemic-related restrictions as the coronavirus erupts to crisis levels across the United States. And they came as Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said on Tuesday that the nation needed “a uniform approach,” instead of a “disjointed” state-by-state, city-by-city response....

✅ Orange County officials cry foul after state imposes sweeping COVID-19 restrictions 

—LA Times

     ...“We’re hearing a bit of hopelessness that is out there in the community as we move back into purple, and that hopelessness, I think, is not there just because, ‘Oh, gosh, we’re doing more clampdowns,’ but because we’re seeing no end in sight,” Supervisor Don Wagner said during Tuesday’s board meeting. 

     “And by that I mean every time this governor has come up with some sort of a plan for dealing with coronavirus, it ends up changing — changing for the worse.” 

✅ OC’s Coronavirus Hospitalizations Keep Increasing, Health Officer Points to Private Gatherings 

The second wave means OC restaurants, movie theaters, churches and gyms have to move their operations outside. 

—Voice of OC 

     House parties and dinners are largely driving the second wave of coronavirus infections not just in Orange County, but across the state, as hospitalizations steadily increase from the case spikes… 

     OC health officer Dr. Clayton Chau also said the county’s spiking cases are from parties, dinners and other private gatherings....

     Chau also urged OC residents to rethink having large Thanksgiving dinners this year as hospitalizations are steadily increasing….

     Orange County Supervisors criticized Newsom and the State Legislature for not debating the state’s virus policies so people can better understand why decisions are made, like limiting private gatherings to no more than three households in attendance…. 

     Supervisor Don Wagner said [Governor] Newsom and state public health officials have moved goal posts too many times, which leaves some people hopeless. 

     He also took issue with OC’s immediate move back to the Purple Tier…. 

11-16: International Student Numbers Decline; Loopy Trumpian law professor to be fired; College Republicans call to "arm up"; OC Covid numbers rising

✅ International Student Numbers Decline 

A survey found that new international enrollments dropped by 43 percent this fall. It also provides the first glimpse of the effects of the pandemic on international exchange and insight into pre-pandemic trends. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     The total number of international students studying at U.S. universities, whether from within the U.S. or online from abroad, decreased by 16 percent this fall, while enrollments of new international students decreased by 43 percent, according to a new survey of more than 700 colleges conducted by 10 major higher education organizations. 

✅ Covid-19 Caused International Enrollments to Plummet This Fall. They Were Already Dropping. 

Here’s what you should know about the latest “Open Doors” report. 

—CHE 

✅ Dying on the Tweet 

University of Miami law professor says he's being fired for his controversial views. Some colleagues have spoken out against him, but some worry about making him a martyr. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     A politically conservative lecturer of law at the University of Miami says he’s being pushed out over his views, as expressed on Twitter -- including the disproved claim that President Donald Trump was the victim of widespread election fraud. 

     Dan Ravicher has also tweeted about buying guns to protect his family from post-election protesters, compared some Democrats to Nazis and warned students that professors who don’t share their political views will give them lower grades. 

     Perhaps most controversially, Ravicher tweeted on election night, “Latinos are now clearly the most politically important minority group in America. Blacks allow themselves to be taken for granted and treated horribly by Democrats. Latinos don’t. Also, population difference will grow bc blacks have 50% more abortions than Latinos per cap.” 

✅ Iowa State Students Sign Open Letter Against GOP Call to ‘Arm Up’ 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Hundreds of students and faculty members at Iowa State University have signed an open letter to administrators calling for disciplinary action against the campus College Republicans for a tweet telling others to “arm up.”

     On Nov. 7 the College Republicans tweeted, “Everyone, you must arm up, expect these people to attempt to destroy your life, the elites want revenge on us.”…. 

✅ California faces new wave of restrictions and business limitations amid coronavirus surge -- With coronavirus again surging across California, officials are faced with a narrowing number of options to slow the spread. Luke Money, Alex Wigglesworth, Rong-Gong Lin II in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/16/20 

✅ Trump coronavirus adviser tells Michigan to ‘rise up’ against new shutdown orders 

“I’m not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) responded. 

—WashPo

✅ 2nd virus vaccine shows striking success in US tests -- A second experimental COVID-19 vaccine — this one from Moderna Inc. — yielded extraordinarily strong early results Monday, another badly needed dose of hope as the pandemic enters a terrible new phase. Lauran Neergaard Associated Press -- 11/16/20 

✅ DACA will live on under Biden. Will he give ‘Dreamers’ a path to citizenship? -- When Joe Biden won the presidential election, Vanessa Mejia said she felt hope again. Tatiana Sanchez in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/16/20 

✅ Biden seeks window on vaccine plans as Trump stalls handoff -- President-elect Joe Biden’s scientific advisers plan to meet with vaccine makers in coming days even as a stalled presidential transition keeps them out of the loop on government plans to inoculate all Americans against COVID-19. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Will Weissert Associated Press -- 11/16/20 

✅ Trump, Trying to Cling to Power, Fans Unrest and Conspiracies -- Before going to play golf at his club in Virginia for the second day in a row on Sunday, the president once again lashed out at the news media and Mr. Biden’s supporters, retweeting reports of a university professor who said that anyone who voted for the Democrat was “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian.” In his tweet, Mr. Trump called that “Progress!” Michael D. Shear in the New York Times$ -- 11/16/20

OC Covid: today's numbers—and the trend

Don't be a fool. Listen to the music.

11-15: local Covid surge

✅USC will continue mostly online classes in spring due to coronavirus surge -- USC will likely continue to hold classes almost entirely online during the spring semester as coronavirus cases continue to spike in Los Angeles County, the school announced Friday. Alex Wigglesworth in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/15/20 

✅Trump’s student loan cliff threatens chaos for Biden 

Biden could inherit the confusion of monthly payments restarting for tens of millions of Americans amid a pandemic.

—Politico 

     At midnight on New Year’s Eve, President Donald Trump’s pause on student loan payments for 33 million Americans is set to expire, just three weeks before President-elect Joe Biden is slated to take over.... 

OC Covid: spiking still

IVC alum in the News: Sarah Rafael Garcia & LibroMobile

Rebel Girl misses students, misses colleagues and misses, she realizes, bragging about her students and colleagues. So much to celebrate. So here's a brag, well-deserved.

Sarah Rafael Garcia will tell you she was in the first class Rebel Girl ever taught at the little college in the orange groves, back in the last decade of the century.  And it's true! Recently Sarah even showed Rebel Girl the final essay she wrote in that class, which she had saved all those years. Rebel Girl recognized her slanted endnote, the mixture of praise and gentle reminders. She still writes the same - or will, once she is done teaching on a screen...

Anyway, Sarah (now teaching at Chapman) has been in the news lately - check it out! 

KCET's Liz Goldner profiles Sarah here:

Chicana Writing Avatar Sarah Rafael García Moves Forward with Her Rolling Bookstore

excerpt:

Sarah Rafael García, a familiar writer/entrepreneur/celebrity in her hometown of Santa Ana, exudes radiance, energy and success. Yet she attributes her accomplishments in writing, teaching, publishing and recently becoming the owner of a bookstore to acknowledging discomfort in her life. She uses that discomfort — as an out-of-place Chicana — as a major source of motivation. 

One of García’s most notable achievements was the creation of her nonprofit LibroMobile bookstore in 2016, from which she sells her own books of memoirs and fairy tales, along with low-cost Latino, bilingual and feminist volumes, and those dealing with mental health and LGBTQ issues. Her incentive to start the rolling bookstore was the closing of the Santa Ana bookstore, Librería Martínez, founded years ago by Chicano activist and MacArthur Foundation genius grant winner Rueben Martinez.

And listen here as Sarah is one of three female bookstore owners of color who are interviewed by Minnesota Public radio's Kerri Miller:

Booksellers of color lift up diverse voices

And if you are buying books as gifts for yourself or your loved ones, now or for the holidays, consider doing so via LibroMobile.  Support your local indy bookstore. Support an IVC alum who is doing good and giving back in so many ways: LibroMobile

Hope you all are doing well, staying safe, making good trouble.

11-14: Biden Implores Trump to Confront a Surging Pandemic; OC Covid spike continues

✅Biden Implores Trump to Confront a Surging Pandemic -- President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. demanded on Friday that President Trump do more to confront the coronavirus infections exploding across the country, calling the federal response “woefully lacking” even as Mr. Trump broke a 10-day silence on the pandemic to threaten to withhold a vaccine from New York. Michael D. Shear in the New York Times$ -- 11/14/20 

✅Waiting for a Vaccine 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Promising news about potential vaccine candidates brings a shred of hope to higher ed, but medical experts say “normal” is still several months away. 

✅Just How Dishonest Are Most Students? 

—NYT opinion: Christian B. Miller 

✅Newton’s Daunting Masterpiece Had a Wide Audience, Historians Find 

The discovery suggests that “Principia” had a stronger impact on Enlightenment science than previous research suggested 

—NYT 

✅The Pandemic’s Future — and Ours 

—NYT (book review) 

✅Parents, students push colleges to open more in spring: ‘I wish I was in a dorm with my friends’ 

Students are tiring of remote instruction, and parents are tired of paying for it. Many also point to colleges that avoided shutdowns this fall and ask why that can’t happen everywhere. 

—WashPo 

✅Pandemic on course to overwhelm U.S. health system before Biden takes office 

The country’s health care system is already buckling under the load of the resurgent outbreak that’s approaching 10 million cases nationwide.

—Politico

The spike continues

11-13: California faces winter of misery as coronavirus spreading like ‘fire’; California hits 1 million coronavirus cases; OC Covid SPIKE!

✅Hospitalizations Climb As Second Coronavirus Wave Exposes New Case Rate Fronts Across OC 

—Voice of OC 

     Orange County’s second wave of coronavirus infections is putting more and more people in the hospital and making it clearer to epidemiologists and public health experts the potential for a situation like — or even worse than — the region’s summer sickness wave. 

     County officials, who have long been eager to move into less restrictive tiers to reopen more sectors of the local economy, canceled their weekly news conference on Thursday for public virus information just a few hours before publishing new data that points to a worsening situation on their hands…. 

     “Given sort of the trends — not just in OC, but across the country — it’s not looking good. I think there’s a real strong potential that it could be a lot worse than in the summer,” said University of California, Irvine epidemiologist Sanghyuk Shin in a phone interview…. 

     Shin — who specializes in studying how diseases, like Tuberculosis, spreads through aerosol droplets when people talk, cough, yell, sneeze and sing — said COVID-19 spreads much the same way.     

     “That’s what the epidemiological evidence points to, as well as the environmental science and engineering folks … those experiments point to that as a primary mode of spread,” Shin said…. 

     “The second wave is starting, I would say,” [epidemiologist Andrew] Noymer said. “We don’t wanna see ICUs in the 80’s and 90’s and so on … I’m frankly concerned.”…. 

✅Appeals Court Backs Harvard on Affirmative Action 

Judges rule there is no evidence of discrimination against Asian Americans. Case is headed to Supreme Court. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Harvard Doesn’t Discriminate Against Asian American Applicants, U.S. Appeals Court Rules 

—CHE 

✅Colleges Ask Professors to Return to the Classroom. Their Answer? That’s ‘Reckless.’ 

On-campus learning is critical to student success, leaders say. And in some cases, college budgets may hinge on it. 

—CHE 

✅California hits 1 million coronavirus cases as L.A. County urges travel quarantine -- Coronavirus infections in California are racing upward at a level not seen since the summer, with the state surpassing 1 million cases on Thursday, and health officials are warning dire action must be taken to stop the spread of the illness. Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/13/20 

✅Biden finds support among Republicans as Trump scrambles to salvage his strategy to contest the election -- President-elect Joe Biden began seeing more support, if indirectly, from Republicans on Thursday as senior GOP lawmakers called for him to receive classified briefings even as the Trump administration continued to bar a formal transition. Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey, Matt Viser and Jon Swaine in the Washington Post$ -- 11/13/20 

✅Election Officials Directly Contradict Trump on Voting System Fraud -- Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised. David E. Sanger, Matt Stevens and Nicole Perlroth in the New York Times$ -- 11/13/20 

✅As Trump stews over election, he mostly ignores the public duties of the presidency -- On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling. David Nakamura in the Washington Post$ -- 11/13/20 

✅California faces winter of misery as coronavirus spreading like ‘fire’ -- Coronavirus is again on the rise in California, and the big question is: How bad it will get? With the holidays approaching, state officials have already rolled back reopenings in some counties as case numbers surge. Officials now fear more hospitalizations and deaths, and they are debating whether more intense measures will be needed to slow the infection rate. Maura Dolan, Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/12/20

✅Today's OC Covid numbers: here

Spike!

11-12: Undergraduate-Enrollment Picture Worsens; most Republicans think the election wasn't fair; Investigating Trump after all this

✅The Biden Presidency and International Education 

     It's been a hard four years for supporters of international education. Experts expect a reset in international education policies under Biden, but caution that damage to the once-welcoming image of the United States can't be easily erased. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Enrollment Still Down 

Undergraduate enrollment is still down across higher education, according to the latest National Student Clearinghouse report. Black and Hispanic enrollment in community colleges is still down more than white and Asian enrollment. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Undergraduate-Enrollment Picture Worsens as Pandemic Drags On 

—CHE 

✅Biden Draws on Colleges to Aid in Transition 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is drawing significantly the nation’s colleges and universities to prepare to take the reins of government on Jan. 20. 

     Of the nearly 600 mostly volunteers announced by Biden’s transition team to serve on agency review teams to help coordinate the transition from the Trump administration, nearly 80 are professors…. 

✅The Pandemic May Have Changed International Recruiting Forever 

New tactics started as emergency measures, but could be a lasting way to keep enrollments up. 

—CHE 

✅Cheating-detection companies made millions during the pandemic. Now students are fighting back. 

Some described intense stress as remote proctors watched them take tests, worrying they would be labeled as cheats. Others said they had urinated at their desks for fear that leaving for the bathroom would hurt their chances of a post-graduation career. 

—WashPo  

✅The Right Way to Investigate Trump Once He Leaves Office 

The Department of Justice can appoint a special counsel. It will help keep politics out of holding Trump accountable. 

—Politico 

     On January 20, 2021, Donald Trump will no longer be the President of the United States. Later that year, he may become the first former president to face a criminal indictment. Trump is reportedly worried about being arrested, and he should be. 

✅‘A grand scheme’: Trump’s election defiance consumes GOP 

Many party officials are suggesting to the rank and file that the election was stolen or that the outcome stands to be reversed. 

—Politico

     …A majority of Republicans, according to new polling, are convinced the election wasn’t fair. Party officials are attacking one another for failing a litmus test of defending Trump’s interests. Lawmakers in Congress and states across the country are rushing to the cause…. 

✅California joins most of U.S. in ‘uncontrolled’ coronavirus spread -- The rampant spread of the coronavirus across the U.S. has now engulfed California — which until recently had stood apart from the majority of states by keeping transmission in check. Annie Vainshtein in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/12/20 

✅Skelton: Expanding vote by mail in California was a success. Let’s do it permanently -- The pandemic produced one good thing: mail ballots for every California voter. And regardless of our fired president’s nonsensical claims, they were cast without a scent of fraud. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/12/20 

✅Donald Trump Is Purging the Defense Department to Elevate His Most Fervent Supporters 

The lame duck president is getting his revenge on the national security state. 

—Mother Jones 

     …Policy chief James Anderson, intelligence head Joseph Kernan, and Esper’s chief of staff Jen Stewart are all gone, replaced by true believers with a history of echoing Trump’s most conspiratorial views on Russian election interference and the Deep State. The sudden nature of the departures was reflected in a terse Pentagon statement, which said Kernan’s exit had been “planned for several months,” but said nothing of Anderson or Stewart’s reasons for resigning….

✅Biden’s Policy Agenda Rests Heavily on Senate Outcome -- President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s transition team is preparing multiple sets of policy proposals for the economy, health care, climate change and other domestic issues, including the ambitious agenda Mr. Biden laid out in his winning campaign, while acknowledging it may have to be pared back in recognition of divided government. Jim Tankersley in the New York Times$ -- 11/12/20 

✅A winter surge in COVID-19 cases seems inevitable. Can we stop it? -- Temperatures are dropping, nights are growing longer, the holidays are nearing, and the science is clear: The pandemic is far from over. A long, dark winter awaits. Deborah Netburn in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/20