11-23: Colleges Are Sending Students Home for Thanksgiving at the Worst Possible Time

✅ COVID-19 outbreak at Concordia University infects almost 50 students, 16 employees -- Nearly 50 students and 16 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at Concordia University in Irvine, the school’s coronavirus dashboard for active cases showed on Saturday, Nov. 21. Dan Albano in the Orange County Register -- 11/22/20 

✅ One year after a pledge died, SDSU still struggles to control its fraternities -- It should have been a momentous night, the kind a fraternity pledge remembers forever. Gary Robbins, Lyndsay Winkley in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/22/20 

✅ CSUF study: Latinx first-gen students’ success tied to family social support 

Professor's research finds validation can alleviate stress and depression. 

—OC Reg

✅ ‘You Must Retract This Paper’ 

Scientists want to know why a major journal published findings that female mentors may be bad for your career, even after reviewers pointed out flaws in the paper’s methodology and analysis. Nature Communications says it’s investigating. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅ Report: Student Satisfaction Down, but They Still Plan to Enroll 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Nearly 90 percent of students plan on re-enrolling at the same college they attended during the fall semester, despite decreased satisfaction with support services and social experiences and heightened concern about finances as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new white paper based on a survey administered by Anthology, a higher ed technology services company. 

     About two-thirds of the 1,143 students surveyed in October by the company were taking classes fully online, while nearly one-third have a hybrid model of instruction and 3 percent were fully in person, the white paper said. Over all, 32 percent of students said they didn’t “feel included” in a circle of friends, and 27 percent said they did not feel like a part of the “college community,” both of which are “typical factors of mattering and belonging that lead to increased retention,” the white paper said. 

✅ Stanford Senate Speaks Out Against Scott Atlas 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Stanford University’s Faculty Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution against Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution who is currently serving as a senior adviser to President Trump. The resolution, introduced by a group of Stanford medical and infectious disease experts who previously criticized Atlas as downplaying the threat of the coronavirus, condemns Atlas’s Nov. 5 tweet calling on Michigan to “rise up” against Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer’s new COVID-19-related restrictions. The tweet, which has since been deleted, said, "The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept." Atlas later tweeted that he would never incite violence. Whitmer was the target of a political kidnapping plot revealed earlier this year. 

✅ Colleges Are Sending Students Home for Thanksgiving at the Worst Possible Time 

Many students won’t follow recommendations to stay put over the holiday. Will they take Covid-19 with them? 

—CHE 

✅ Trump’s post-presidency will be cluttered with potentially serious legal battles 

The swirl of criminal investigations and civil complaints stemming from his business activities and personal conduct could prove more serious once he leaves office. 

—WashPo 

✅ Protesters demonstrate in Huntington Beach in defiance of coronavirus curfew -- A couple hundred protesters, many donning bright red caps and waving American flags, gathered Saturday night at Huntington Beach Pier in defiance of the state’s coronavirus curfew that went into effect at 10 p.m. Rosanna Xia in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/23/20 

OC Covid numbers: a MASSIVE SPIKE

Today's OC Covid numbers: a massive spike

Johns Hopkins

11-21

11-20: Fear of hospital overload in OC; Amazing Russian Ph.D. plagiarism; Undoing DeVos

✅ As Orange County’s Second Coronavirus Wave Worsens, Fears of Hospital Overload Surface 

—Voice of OC 

     Public health experts are increasingly worried the coronavirus case spikes are going to strain hospitals, while also exhausting medical staff, as hospitalizations continue to rise ahead of Thanksgiving. 

     “Parts of the country are already completely inundated with patients in ICUs and hospitals. They’re beyond the capacity to handle the number of patients. I think the fear is that we’re kind of heading toward that direction in Orange County and California, as well,” said UC Irvine epidemiologist Sanghyuk Shin. 

     Shin, who’s also director of the university’s infectious disease science initiative, said if the trends over the past couple weeks continue, then OC could end up looking like North and South Dakota, where the hospitals are quickly being overloaded with virus patients. 

     “If nothing is done, then we are likely to get to a place where people who get sick are not going to be able to be taken care of because our hospitals are beyond capacity,” he said…. 

     But an overwhelmed hospital situation is a possibility, said UC Irvine epidemiologist Daniel Parker. 

     “The new cases are high now. It’s not good. So, weeks from now, we’re still going to see these cases and hospitalizations climbing — maybe even faster. And at the same time we don’t have any extra interventions to put in place (masks, physical distancing, etc.), so we have to rely on people’s behavior,” Parker said in a Thursday phone interview. 

      He said, at that point, that’s when more people die. 

     “That’s highly related to the hospitals being stressed and running out of necessary beds and that’s when you see people having to make difficult decisions. To make these triage decisions: Who to put on the bed, who to pull off. That’s when things get really bad,” Parker said…. 

✅ Gov. Newsom announces COVID curfew that includes Orange County 

The order, intended to deal with a worrying surge in coronavirus cases, requires most non-essential work, movement and gatherings to stop between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. 

—OC Reg 

✅ Evaluating Exit Plans 

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. Many colleges still have no plans to test students before they leave. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅ Report: Rich Colleges Keep Getting Richer 

It's known that some policies help the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. A new report shows the same pattern is affecting institutions of higher education. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅ Russian Politics and Ph.D. Plagiarism 

Study finds that half of the regional governors with Ph.D.s plagiarized them. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Researchers have exposed widespread Ph.D. plagiarism among Russian regional governors, which they say is part of a broader culture of academic corruption in a country where ghostwriters are routinely hired to win the rich and powerful the prestige boost of a doctorate…. 

✅ CDC Urges Precautions for College Students Over Thanksgiving 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended against travel for the Thanksgiving holiday and said college students returning home, and their hosts, should abide by extra precautions, including wearing masks, social distancing and improving ventilation…. 

✅ Colleges Want Biden to Undo Much of What DeVos Did 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     …In particular, the administration should undo the new requirement under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that requires cross-examinations in a live hearing in cases involving sexual assault on campuses. That “could have a chilling effect on the willingness of survivors to come forward and raises serious concerns about retraumatization,” wrote Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, in a letter signed by 44 other higher education groups…. 

     The groups also applauded President-elect Joe Biden’s plans to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and urged the incoming administration to drop Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s position barring DACA and other students who do not qualify for federal student aid from receiving emergency grants under the CARES Act.

11-19: People die, but little changes; Community college enrollment falls; Pandemic stress!

"Protecting the German homeland" (WWI)

✅ Faculty Pandemic Stress Is Now Chronic 

COVID-19-related changes to teaching and dealing with students' mental health continue to weigh on professors, with implications for their own mental health. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅ Groups Call on Biden to Cancel Student Debt 

They want him to move without Congress. Will he? 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅ Who's Up, Who's Down and Why 

Dig deeper into the state of community college enrollments, and you'll find some hints at what could be keeping some institutions afloat while others sink. 

—Inside Higher Ed

     Community college enrollments are suffering. Badly. 

     Nationally, they are down 9.5 percent, according to the latest report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Community college freshman enrollment is down by 19 percent. Enrollment of underrepresented minorities has taken an especially hard hit -- it's down by nearly 30 percent. 

     Some colleges are doing worse than others -- and some are doing well. But it's hard to pinpoint exactly why. Inside Higher Ed requested enrollment data from every state's community college system but to date has received information from fewer than half the states. Several systems have said they don't expect to release numbers until January…. 

✅ Community college enrollment falls as students grapple with job loss, online learning -- David Lewis was just a few credits shy of earning his associate’s degree in journalism from Long Beach City College when the pandemic hit. Emma Hall and Tess Kazenoff CalMatters -- 11/18/20 

✅ Annual Report Analyzes Global Attacks on Academic Freedoms 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     A new report from the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project of the Scholars at Risk Network analyzed 341 documented attacks on students, scholars and educational institutions in 54 countries over the past year. 

     This year’s “Free to Think” report, the latest in an annual series, highlights how COVID-related restrictions affected academic freedom by cutting off academic travel and enabling greater surveillance of university classrooms....

✅ The Long Tail of an Unprecedented Crisis 

How can college leaders support faculty members during this difficult time? 

—CHE 

✅ States That Imposed Few Restrictions Now Have the Worst Outbreaks 

A Times analysis shows that the surge is worst now in places where leaders neglected to keep up forceful virus containment efforts 

—NYT 

✅ People die, but little changes 

Many Americans stick to their original notions about the coronavirus, no matter what sorrows they’ve seen, no matter where they live. 

—WashPo 

✅ UC Berkeley to remove names of LeConte and Barrows halls due to ‘controversial legacies’ -- Two halls at UC Berkeley will have their names removed Wednesday in response to growing awareness of their namesakes’ controversial legacies, campus officials said. Hayley Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/18/20

SPARKLERS:

• Trump's legal adviser Jenna Ellis in 2016 called him an 'idiot' and said his supporters didn't care about 'facts or logic' - CNN 
• U.S. Passes 250,000 Deaths, With Government in Disarray - NYT 
• All the president’s ‘Guys’ - WashPo 
• Let This Bit of Gossip Haunt Ivanka as She Claws Back to Manhattan Life - Mother Jones

Climbing fast

Their monthly enbubblement (updated!)

[Please see significant UPDATE below!]

     I just happened upon the above video, posted by Tim Jemal in late September, in which he identifies his promises made, and kept, as SOCCCD trustee. 

     —For what it's worth. (It seems unobjectionable to me.)

     Recently, a friend alerted me to the following events at Monday's board meeting. He tells me that the trustees are back to giving "invocations" at the start of their monthly enbubblement, or at least they gave one in October and now one in November. On Monday, during the pre-meeting public comments I guess, IVC Academic Senate Prez June McLaughlin criticized the board's October prayer-invocation, no doubt citing the importance of separating church and state, etc. (As I recall, Trustee Wright used to lay it on pretty thick with his invocations, years ago. "Dear Heavenly Father," he would piously intone.) Soon thereafter, Tim Jemal offered yet another pre-meeting invocation, though, according to my witness (via Zoom, I guess), it was more of an expression of gratitude than a prayer. 

     But get this: my friend reports that Jemal expressed gratitude that we live in a country "where people like Roy Bauer can express their views freely without fear of retribution."—Something like that.

     Golly. 

     My first thought was: retribution for WHAT? During the trustee campaign, I expressed my views about trustee candidates and about our board, a crew that I have been observing for years. I carped about trustee Wright's seemingly incorrigible, set-in-his-ways nature and his nasty habit of referring to Saddleback College (where he worked for decades) as though it were The District. I also noted that this board repeatedly renewed the contracts of very shitty administrators, despite vociferous complaints from faculty, et al. 

     A case in point: Glenn "MAGA" Roquemore, who was granted a 17-year reign of error, academic suppression, and anti-intellectual buffoonery. (The current board can't take all the blame, of course, just recent years of the man's "leadership.")

     (Did I ever tell you about the time Roquemore blackballed an instructor candidate because the guy hailed from Colorado? "Colorado," he reportedly said, "is where Bauer comes from!" —Imagine having such a thought process! Note: I've never even been to freakin' Colorado.)

     So I was expressing opinions about candidates. Retribution for THAT? For expressing my views during an election campaign? —It's not like I was going crazy with Photoshop, pasting Wright's head onto pterodactyls, or walking into board meetings, menacingly waving a bottle of Wright's All Natural Hickory BBQ sauce!

     Sheesh!

     I've tried to view Jemal's Monday-night invocation, but the district's videos only work up through October. Dang! Tell me if you get the dang player to work for November.

     I too am glad I live in a country where I can express my views—well-grounded views offered sans hostility—without fear of retribution (unless, of course, its 1997 and I'm working at the SOCCCD). 

     —No thanks to you, pal!

     But seriously, folks; I'm mostly amused. It's like the good old days, getting mentioned by government officials as if I were the freakin' Golden State Killer. 

     (Remember when trustee John Williams compared me to the Unabomber? —When Raghu Mathur got a security stipend to protect him from the likes of Kate Clark and me? —Good times.)

Just for fun: 

• Your taxpayer dollars at work (Red Emma) 2005
• Calling all heroes! (Red Emma) 2005
• In Security: Tonkovich's security update (Red Emma) 2000
• Red Emma's infamous "open letter" to Raghu 1999
• In “an FBI zone” (Bauer) 2018

UPDATE:

Trustee Tim Jemal has (evidently) sent me this email (using his district email account):

Here is the text of my invocation last night. Your friend misunderstood it:

"Thank goodness we live in a country where votes are counted. Imagine living in a country where at any moment you could be jailed, tortured or killed by simply engaging in free speech. Not hate speech, but free speech, like saying “I don’t like Joe Biden.” Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world. According to Freedom House, there have been 14 consecutive years of decline in Global Freedom. More than half of world’s established democracies deteriorated over the past 15 years. Freedom of expression and belief, which includes academic freedom, and the rule of law, are the most common areas of decline. Imagine one day Roy Bauer suddenly disappears because someone from the state doesn’t like the content of his blog. This kind of action is a very real threat in many countries around the world.

Here in Orange County we had an amazing 87% percent voter turnout in this election. Think about that. 87%. Never before have I seen a turnout like this in my lifetime. We should all rejoice that the people’s voice was overwhelmingly heard and counted. Freedom flourishes when governments are held accountable by the people. Thank you."

—Well, that's great. It's clear that my friend did misunderstand Trustee Jemal's remarks, which included nothing about fear of retaliation for expressing my views. On the contrary, Jemal uses this blog as an example of something that should be allowed to exist—an example of free expression that is endangered increasingly in the world.

I can find nothing to object to here. Quite the contrary. And I too feel great about the 87% turnout. It is indeed a reason to rejoice.

So thank you, Trustee Jemal. And congratulations!

11-18: "Ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian," imputed the Trumpian dean; Meanwhile, OC Covid numbers go up, up, up while Supes carp about state limits and defiant GOP governors spawn major health crises

✅ Dean Who Said Biden Voters Don't Meet His ‘Standards’ Resigns 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     A dean who criticized supporters of Joe Biden as “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian” has resigned from his leadership position and his professorship at Virginia Wesleyan University, the institution announced this week. Paul Ewell, former dean of Virginia Wesleyan’s Global Campus and former professor of management, business and economics, made the controversial statements on Facebook, where he asked Biden supporters and Democrats to unfriend him, alleging that they had “corrupted” the recent election, “our youth” and the country. “I have standards and you don’t meet them,” Ewell wrote on his personal Facebook page, images of which were circulated online. “I wouldn’t hang out with you in real life, I don’t want to hang out with you virtually either.” 

     Ewell apologized for his comments as unbecoming of a Christian and asked for forgiveness in a statement to the college newspaper. An email from Virginia Wesleyan president Scott Miller to the university's governing board, obtained by the local Virginian-Pilot, says, “While we respect Dr. Ewell’s right to free speech, his comments, particularly coming from a dean of the institution, contradict the values and culture that are such a valued part of who we are.” 

     President Trump retweeted a news story about Ewell's comments, saying, "Progress!" 

✅ UC's New Gender Pronoun and Lived Name Policy 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     The University of California has new, systemwide gender identity and name options for UC-issued documents and information systems, it said Tuesday. The university system “continues to fully embrace diversity in our country,” said President Michael V. Drake, announcing the new policy. John A. Pérez, chair of the UC Board of Regents, said as the state’s third-largest employer, “UC’s recognition of nonbinary gender identities and lived names supports broader transgender rights, which has been a long time coming for California and the nation.” 

     University students, employees, alumni, retirees, vendors, medical center patients and others may now choose from man, woman or nonbinary gender identification options on official documents. They may also choose a lived name, or preferred name, that differs from their legal name, as a default for all documents. The legal name will be kept confidential and not published. 

✅ The Outrage Peddlers Are Here to Stay 

Campus Reform, a website that calls out professors for spreading “liberal bias,” has become mainstream. And higher education is learning to live with that. 

—CHE 

✅ California State University faculty, administrators remain at odds over ethnic studies requirement -- California State University took another step Tuesday toward requiring students to take an ethnic studies class as part of their lower-division coursework, a move that would also have significant implications for the state’s 115 degree-granting community colleges. Michael Burke EdSource -- 11/18/20 

✅ These governors' states are in crisis after they resisted masks and Covid-19 rules 

—CNN 

     …[South Dakota] Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican in office since 2019, has adopted much of the language of President Donald Trump during the pandemic…She has resisted restrictions on gatherings and given credence to those who question whether masks are helpful in stopping an airborne virus…. 

     Noem has also encouraged crowded gatherings with no social distancing, in particular at a Trump rally at Mount Rushmore in July. 

     The results have been devastating health-wise. South Dakota has averaged more than 1,400 new coronavirus cases per day over the past week in a state with about 885,000 people. Adjusted for population, it's the second-highest number of new average cases in the country. The state's seven-day positivity rate is a stunning 58%, and more people are hospitalized per capita than in any other state, according to the Covid Tracking Project. 

     Jodi Doering, a nurse at a South Dakota emergency room, said some people dying at the hospital are still in denial about the virus. 

     "They don't want to believe that Covid is real," she said. "Their last dying words are, 'This can't be happening. It's not real.' "

✅ The Trumpiest and most anti-Trump counties in California: Where does yours rank? -- November’s election results showed that most of California’s Democratic counties moved further away from President Donald Trump — and the bulk of its Republican counties did too. Ben Christopher CalMatters -- 11/17/20

The trend is bad; OC Supes don't seem to get it. They're Republicans. They don't believe in science and they condone pussy-grabbing and constant prevarication. God help us.

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….