
Georgia Tech professors revolt over reopening, say current plan threatens lives - tonyztan
https://www.gpbnews.org/post/georgia-tech-professors-revolt-over-reopening-say-current-plan-threatens-lives-students-staff
======
stu2b50
I'd add that Georgia Tech is asking for Out-of-State and International
Students to come in on July 24-26th, which is 2 weeks after the announcement
was made (very recently). Which seems kinda absurd.

>If you have secured, or expect to have secured your visa, and plan to enroll
for the fall semester on the Atlanta campus, you should plan for in-person,
residential instruction.

>You will be asked to arrive in Atlanta between July 24-26 and be required to
follow quarantine guidelines.

>Per guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, any
individual who is traveling to the U.S. from an international destination
should quarantine for 14 days upon arrival, monitor their health, and practice
social distancing. This guidance should be followed by students planning to
live in either on-campus housing or private housing located off-campus.

~~~
avs733
and also effectively binds them to this process because now you are making
people fly domestically or internationally on very short notice...and will
look ridiculous if they cancel that a week or two later.

------
cglong
I'm in a Georgia Tech Facebook group and this has been a really controversial
issue, particularly among international students. They only provided 4-6 weeks
notice before reopening, so not only is flying risky, it'll be expensive too.
To make matters worse, some classes will be offered online, but students won't
know if it is until after the semester has already started.

~~~
Archit3ch
Did the students fly to their home countries?

~~~
Donald
They moved online after spring break. Many students went to their home
countries and were asked not to come back for the remainder of the term.

~~~
avs733
and the online transition was bungled when the state university system
overuled GT's president and insisted they stay in person, then changed their
minds.

So campus went from 'we are coming back after break' to 'online after spring
break' to 'coming back after an extended break' to 'online after spring break'
in something like 96 hours.

------
avs733
I am a Georgia Tech faculty member. I've been reading this thread and
considering how to respond, and decided I should be transparent. There are a
lot of things being discussed here and I don't think I have the bandwidth to
respond to all of them but I'm happy to try and answer some questions. No clue
how to verify this but happy to do so non-publicly.

~~~
avs733
I'll add a couple other notes...

It's interesting to see GT's experience here get picked up specifically and I
think partially its just randomness, partially the other issues in Georgia,
partially the particular failures of GT/the university system of Georgia.

Basically, GT is in the same boat as many other places...working on the
assumption that students will pick the university with in person or take a gap
year before doing online. So everyone, to some extent, is bluffing each other.
Now it's a race to see who admits they were wrong first. You are starting to
see it (or have already seen it) from private universities mostly because they
have total control over their financial state and (in some cases) an immutable
reputation that won't be damaged (think: MIT, Harvard, etc.) by being
conservative. For everyone else, it's a crap shoot.

~~~
blaser-waffle
> It's interesting to see GT's experience here get picked up specifically and
> I think partially its just randomness, partially the other issues in
> Georgia, partially the particular failures of GT/the university system of
> Georgia.

It's a tech school, and this is a tech blog, plus GA (as a proxy for the south
in general) has a lot of the COVID and has not done a fantastic job managing
outbreaks. Makes sense it's a source of scrutiny.

~~~
avs733
When I say picked up I mean by the general media.

Yes HN is tech focused....but the GT specific story has been reported by a
number of news outlets while similar stories at other universities have not.
It started with a story in the local press, and has ballooned. There are other
campuses in Georgia where faculty are doing similar things with no/little
coverage. Obviously GT is more well known...but there is an element of
commenting on all of Academia via proxy.

------
fabian2k
Given the current numbers in the US, it does not seem likely that you can
reopen universities in any kind of safe way. Anything that puts a lot of
people into small rooms is problematic, and I really can't see anything that
is close to the regular operation being possible in the fall.

The only way to be able to reopen inherently risky activities like this is to
suppress the virus sufficiently that you can handle the remainder with mask
mandates, contact tracing and prohibiting mass events. I'm in Germany where
the number of cases is drastically lower than in the US right now, and I doubt
we'll be able to reopen universities fully in the fall. With the dramatic
numbers from the US right now, it does seem extremely unlikely that they could
be controlled enough in the fall to make any kind of reopening safe.

~~~
daseiner1
or, just let what will happen, happen? i hear a lot about case numbers, almost
nothing about mortality rates

~~~
CyanLite4
I think you missed the whole reason to “flatten the curve”. The
hospitalization rate is the problem, not mortality rate. 20-30% of people who
get the virus end up in the hospital since there are no known treatments
available. For now, if we have hospital capacity you’re very likely to survive
COVID-19. If we run out of supplies and overwhelm the limited medical staff
the mortality rate is going to skyrocket and we will run out of places to
store the dead bodies.

~~~
orangecat
_20-30% of people who get the virus end up in the hospital_

That's way too high. According to
[https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page),
0.65% of New York City residents have been hospitalized for COVID-19. Antibody
tests show at least 20% of NYC residents have been infected, so the
hospitalization rate is more like 3%.

------
molmalo
In some universities in Spain, they have mandatory antibody tests, and they
divide students in 3 groups: the ones with antibodies, the ones without and
sick people that can follow the classes online.

To enter the buildings in the campus, you need to get a "passport", after
completing antibody test and lots of questions... Some preconditions, like
being asthmatic disqualifies you (so you need to follow classes online). Also,
they have several new rules, like using only stairs to move across floors,
minimum distance, thermal cameras, etc.

It's a new world in many aspects.

~~~
luxurytent
Reading this, I can't believe how far behind North America is with respect to
this virus. When it comes to day to day life, we have very little new, quality
information compared to March.

I'm not saying what Spain is doing is great, but it feels like an iterative
step to remove a few top layers of anxiety

~~~
gdulli
It's been fascinating in a dark way to see how cultural differences from place
to place are translating into vastly different responses to this situation
(and vastly different outcomes) from country to country and from state to
state within the US.

How often do we get to see the entire world deal with the same problem at the
same time for such a sustained period?

------
pmoriarty
I feel for the students, but reopening the school for in-person classes makes
no sense.

If a student flies home, they face one day of risk. If school reopens for in-
person classes, then they'll face hundreds of days of risk.

That single day of flying may not even be as risky as a single day of classes
(never mind hundreds of days of classes), because not nearly as many people
fly these days due to fear of the pandemic.

Also, if classes reopen, many of the people that get sick (who'll be far more
numerous than those that get sick from flying a single day) will spread the
sickness to others, causing way more knock-on effects than those caused by a
small number of students flying one day.

~~~
djsumdog
The risk is so incredibly low thought, especially since most of these students
will be under 30! There is something important about in-person classes you
don't really get online and I'd hate to be forced to be online only.

We've lost a whole year, to a virus that is nowhere near as deadly as anyone
thought it'd be, and it will likely die, or we'll reach herd immunity, long
before any virus can be safely manufactured.

I feel like a lot of this is fear, hysteria and an completely inability for
humans to properly assess risk, mixed with just a plethora of bad and
conflicting information.

~~~
jacoblambda
As somebody who is just wrapping up university, got the coronavirus, and know
other young and middle-aged people who got the coronavirus, the virus can both
be super mild and super aggressive from one person to the next.

I was mostly physically fine but I was miserable for the entire time I had it.
One other person who got sick went from that same mild shitty experience I had
to not being able to breath in a matter of hours.

Older people get it worse but from what I've seen and what I've heard from a
family member(they work with COVID-19 patients), it's basically a coin toss
whether somebody ends up asymptomatic, gets it mildly, or gets it absolutely
brutally.

Another thing to consider is that universities will still have to deal with
students going out and getting absolutely tattered at bars and parties. We've
already seen smaller incidents of this resulting in an explosion of cases.
Knowing how university culture is, things will get bad very quickly.

Even ignoring the party culture, students will come to class sick out of fear.
I've felt bad doing this in the past but the unwritten expectation for classes
with attendance is "show up unless you literally can't walk". If you actually
reach out to the prof, they'll tell you to stay home but most students will
just assume the worst and try to show up.

Sorry for ranting a bit but I just can't see universities safely opening up
with how the culture is at the moment. Online courses are not nearly as good
in most cases (and I say this as someone who generally prefers online or
recorded lecture courses) but it'll be a disaster to have in person courses
with how things are.

~~~
Jommi
I am trying to understand this comment in this context. The commentor above
you talks about the statistical fact that cases under in younger people are
not only rarer, but very low chance of getting hospitalized, and an even lower
chance of death.

You then respond with an anecdote of experience talking about the potential
outcomes of this virus. Why exactly is this? Of course there are terrible
potential outcomes in everyday actions we take. We might face a car crash, we
might get hit by lightning. Why should we treat this matter any different than
that?

Only difference I see being is that this is infectious, and with the
professors usually being of older age, there should definitely be some
protections in place. But lets at least shift towards talking about being
infectious, and not talking about plainly getting COVID, because the
implications of that are on complete different scales of magnitude depending
on your personal charasterstics.

Also, you seem to talk in your latter parts of the comment about things that
are not set in stone. E.g. Class attendance could be made nonmandatory and not
affect grades. Also, parties could on campus could be restricted.

~~~
newacct583
> commentor above you talks about the statistical fact

No, the commenter above talked about the "risk", and cited that one fact. Both
of you are forgetting that sick people are infectious. We're trying to control
an epidemic here, not save the lives of some particular GT students. If they
get sick they'll make others sick. One of those cases might be your
grandfather.

~~~
Jommi
I am not sure if you read my comment through. I mentioned sick people being
infectious, and urged the discussion to move towards how sick people infect
others, and how long they are infectious.

I would love to learn more about how sick people transmit the disease, and
when are they the most "infectious". I have heard something related to a
period of few days before showing first symptoms, but I have yet to discover
more indepth discussion around it.

For example, its pretty hard for me to undertand how you can be "very
infectious" when you do not exhibit symptoms such as coughing or sneezing.
Would love to learn more!

------
anonms-coward
Makes a lot of sense. Professors of high age are at very increased risk.
Students fit in tight spaces would for sure include asymptomatic careers. And
any hope of expecting an entire student community to take utmost caution is
simply futile.

------
AlexCornila
I assume this is a $ issue for them, they won’t be able to charge what they
normally charge for online classes so they try to bring people in somehow
edit: normally charge for campus

~~~
davidtsong
Kind of on the right track. As a student myself, we have realized the value of
a college education comes from the on campus environment. So, if it's online,
we will take gap quarters/years and universities will receive $0.(I am
planning to take Fall quarter off because online is not worth it)

~~~
AlexCornila
please explain this to me how the value comes from the on campus education?

~~~
sdesol
I'm no longer in school (graduated a while ago), but I would make the same
decision as the person you are responding to. What I liked about school was
the social aspect that made learning easier/more enjoyable. It was nice
walking into the library and recognizing a face from class to chat about what
was taught. It was nice running into somebody while walking to class to chat
about what was going to be taught/what was taught.

There is a spontaneous social element to the learning process that I believe
can't be replicated online.

~~~
enchiridion
While that aspect is nice, I firmly believe that basically any college class
can be aced by attending lectures and more importantly, reading the book.

------
mnm1
Reopening universities and colleges is also a major threat to the entire
community. Here in WA over a hundred students tested positive this week after
partying at their frat. In Alabama, students are intentionally trying to get
infected. This will happen en masse if universities open their campuses and
those infected will spread the infections into not only the immediate
community but also the ones that many of them traveled hundreds of miles from
to attend university. It would be pure madness to reopen or to pretend like
university students will social distance and wear masks.

~~~
charliepark
Here's a pretty good thread from a professor arguing that the Alabama story is
very likely made up:
[https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1278703871053963269](https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1278703871053963269)

But I totally agree that the entire premise of colleges trying to function as
an on-campus institution is absolutely absurd until there's a vaccine.

~~~
djsumdog
> until there's a vaccine

Why do people think we're getting some magic vaccine? Gavi/Gates have pushed
this "18 months" bullshit, where they're developing some magical vaccine for a
family of viruses that's never had a vaccine before, and every previous
attempt has been met with either bad immunopathic responses or immune
enhancement syndrome[0].

Vaccines takes decades to develop safely, and the techniques being proposed
now have never led to a vaccine that made it through clinical trials before.

There is no vaccine coming in any reasonable amount of time. The 100+
companies are take a lot of WHO/government money, and who knows if they'll
actually produce anything.

Safe vaccines for new families of viruses take a decade. There is still no
vaccine for retroviruses (herpes, HIV, etc.) It's straight up Gates pipe dream
to think a safe vaccine for this can be made in a year.

[0]: [https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-
hon...](https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-
honor/#vacinations-should-not-be-made-in-a-year)

------
georgeburdell
The Board of Regents are political appointees so I'm not surprised this is the
policy they came up with. I'm generally not a fan of blanket shelter in place
rules on freedom grounds, but the science is clear on the positive benefits of
masks [0]. And there isn't really a down-side.

[0]
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)31142-9/fulltext)

~~~
djsumdog
There are a lot of downsides if asymptomatic spread isn't really true (the WHO
said it wasn't and then walked it back .. reading a lot of the studies, I
think there is a lot of evidence to suggest there is little to no asymptomatic
spread; and the push to say otherwise is very political).

Masks are very bad psychologically. They cause judgement and distrust, plus
they're a pretty useless placebo effect. This virus is clearly no where near
as dangerous as original made out to be, and I the normalization of the mask
directly lead to an increase of violence during the recent riots all around
the nation. They have the potential to lead people to take more risks and do
things they wouldn't normally do[0].

It's absurd to think masks don't have any downsides. They certainly do.

[0]:
[https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/43402/](https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/43402/)

~~~
tripletao
Your link is vaguely Freudian storytelling, evoking a sort of secular
spirituality more than anything resembling objective science. Here's a sample:

> The wearing of a mask, under conditions in which an individual is aware that
> their face is no longer their ‘face’, will lead to a transformation away
> from the usual ‘self’ through a self-attributional process.

Whatever the negative consequences of that self-attributional process, nurses,
cleanroom operators, and countless others who routinely wear masks seem to
have gotten over it, and to enjoy basically normal social interactions.

You didn't quantify your claims as to the dangers of the virus, but ~0.3% of
NYC--of the total population, not those confirmed or estimated infected--is
dead from the coronavirus. Treatment has improved (no early ventilator use)
since then, but that's a rough lower bound for the IFR. Herd immunity should
come much sooner than 1-1/R0 of the population due to heterogeneity, but even
a lower bound for IFR times a lower bound for total infected is a lot of dead
people.

Finally, the case count is increasing. So regardless of whether the people
spreading it are truly asymptomatic, misattributing light symptoms to
allergies or similar, or aware that they're seriously sick but going out
anyways, they're out there spreading. A mask seems likely enough to help in
all three such cases to be clearly cost-effective to me.

Have you tried wearing a mask? What bad experience did you have? Some of the
fabric ones are near-impossible to breathe through (especially the handmade
ones in that pleated pattern everyone seems to have adopted). Lighter cotton
or surgical-style seem fine to me, and are widely used here in California--and
have been widely used in East Asia for decades--without obvious negative
consequences.

------
tijuco2
Just to contribute. I have student visa and the "problem" is that with our
visa (F1) we are not allowed to have online classes only. We have to attend
class for X hour every week. This or we lose our visa. It's an immigration
problem.

------
m0zg
I sure hope we as a society figure out a way to make college campuses (and
physical presence of students) largely unnecessary eventually. I don't expect
it to happen in a year, but in-person lectures seemed ridiculous to me 25
years ago, and they seem even more so now when there's abundance of tech and
anyone can record 4K videos of arbitrary length. Most of those lectures also
sucked ass, since they were slow-moving, but if your attention lapses for like
3 minutes of a difficult lecture, you're lost for the rest of the lecture and
there's no way to rewind and listen again. That's not to mention the time
spent writing on the chalkboard and speaking - you could take in the same
amount of information from a book at easily 3-4x the speed, leaving more time
to do practical work that actually helps build the skills.

Of course one still needs to be able to go to labs if one is doing research,
but those could be bolstered by not investing in auditoriums, halls, cafes,
and other physical infrastructure.

It'd also be great (in the US) to shut down all the sports programs. They're
like this weird benign tumor on the side of large schools which costs money
and does not provide educational value.

------
aurizon
A well designed online course needs online tested milestones, segment by
segment. Student get an online automated test. What he gets wrong creates a
fork to an online module to teach that item. Fail again = re-teach in a
different way. Repeated failmode might attract an online human to step that
person along. Then back to the lessons. This is just smart teaching programs
do. Labs can be done youtube style, but need careful design to deal with each
possible fork in the road where a student can get off track. Some people might
not be smart enough for complex abstract stuff - I have met and failed many
'memory machines' \- students who can read and repeat everything they see, but
are unable to use the knowledge in a novel way that has not been worked out in
examples before.I used to tutor goofs like that in Engineering Physics at U of
T. They had near perfect recall, but off the beaten track they could not solve
new problems. Weekly problem sets were made to make them fail. They fought
back with study groups - I was always in demand to help. In the end they
failed the problems exams or at year end in the exams because they were
basically dummies with near total recall.

------
mnky9800n
What's wild is Georgia tech has a very successful online master's program that
apparently everyone forgot about because it could be a great starting point to
do everything online.

~~~
HenryKissinger
Online degrees that are marketed as online degrees carry a stigma among
employers, because they are perceived as being lower quality than not-online
degrees, and the stuff of diploma mills.

My final semester will be entirely online, but I couldn't care less, since my
degree isn't an online degree.

~~~
xigency
Georgia Tech issues the same diplomas for their online and offline masters
degree programs.

~~~
metaphor
Please do expand. It's apparent from this list[1] that GaTech differentiates
traditional from online.

[1] [https://www.gatech.edu/academics/masters-degree-
programs](https://www.gatech.edu/academics/masters-degree-programs)

~~~
throwgeorge
[https://omscs.gatech.edu/explore/faq/admissions](https://omscs.gatech.edu/explore/faq/admissions)

>Your diploma will read "Master of Science in Computer Science," exactly the
same as those of on-campus graduates. There will be no "online" designation
for the degrees of OMS CS graduates.

------
adamsea
"Faculty were already feeling anxious about the upcoming fall semester, GPB
News was told, but a recent decision by the Board of Regents and state
university system to not require students wear masks in classrooms sent
faculty over the edge."

Allowing a gathering of 10+ people in an enclosed space without a mask sounds
like a terrible idea.

~~~
djsumdog
It's been going on all around this country for over a month now. I think it's
safe to say this thing was an gorse overreaction and it's on its way out.
Let's stop the mass hysteria

~~~
majormajor
> It's been going on all around this country for over a month now. I think
> it's safe to say this thing was an gorse overreaction and it's on its way
> out. Let's stop the mass hysteria

Not based on active hospitalization counts in the current hot zones...
complain all you want about test numbers not be comparable day over day, but I
haven't seen anyone explain THAT away.

------
ryandrake
Title: "Georgia Tech Professors Revolt..."

Reality: Georgia Tech Professors release a not-even-strongly-worded letter [1]
to express their alarm and recommendations, a letter that doesn't even mention
actions they might take if those recommendations are not followed. I guess
this counts as a "revolt"?

1:
[https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdjyLGfLIncWtm8fntd...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdjyLGfLIncWtm8fntduj3mMhZhhGtF2khGYHNJdZIXu1xBhg/viewform)

~~~
noirbot
If you want to see some more direct anger, as well as some indications why
they may not be taking that much public action, you can read some more here:
[https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/1279070755888738305?s=21](https://twitter.com/ibogost/status/1279070755888738305?s=21)

~~~
ryandrake
I always thought the word "revolt" implied at least _some_ kind of action
rather than mere anger. The instant burial of my comment seems to indicate
that the word's definition must have changed recently.

------
aurizon
This sounds like a plot to deal with faculties top-heavy with senior tenured
profs - who will be on that top rung of risk in the death lottery = save
Georgia Tech a bundle. Prove me wrong!

------
dang
Recent and related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23726410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23726410)

------
tomohawk
Taking a look at excess mortality:

[https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-
covid](https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid)

(scroll down to the Economist graphs)

It would appear that the worst occurred in the April timeframe (Europe, New
York), and that we've mostly reached a point of no excess mortality at this
point.

However, if another wave were to come through, the graphs are pretty sobering.

For 65+, excess deaths peaked at 35k/week extra

For 45-64, excess deaths peaked at 2.5k/week extra

For 15-44, excess deaths peaked at .8k/week extra

So, most students returning is a negligible risk, but for some professors, it
could be daunting, if there were to be another wave.

~~~
hef19898
You mean another one than the one currently happening in South America, India
and the US?

Also, it is not just deaths. The less at risk groups infect others, that can
be more at risk.

~~~
tomohawk
It's unfortunate that the excess mortality is not a metric that is rigorously
collected at this time. As a result, it lags quite a bit. We'll know in a week
or so how June looked.

You're right that it is not just deaths, but morbidity. Someone who gets on a
vent due to covid may never regain the life they had previously.

However, we've learned a bit since April. Wearing masks works with social
distancing, but requires administrative enforcement.

Sweden has kept their schools open during this time (through high school) and
offers an interesting point of comparison. It hasn't appeared to cause any
problems for them. The main problems they've had are in the immigrant
communities (220% higher rates of covid) and in elder care facilities.

~~~
vkou
> It hasn't appeared to cause any problems for them.

By which you mean, it is neck-and-neck with the United States and Brazil in
daily cases per capita, and is soundly leading both countries in deaths per
capita?

Their strategy of 'isolate the vulnerable population and do little else'
worked great, except for the part where it hasn't worked at all because... The
vulnerable population is getting sick and dying.

~~~
tomohawk
If you look at the linked data, you'll see that Sweden reached zero excess
mortality by the end of May. This is a very good indication that their
approach is working as they expected it would. Their execution has not been
perfect, but they've been transparent about that and are working to address
the known issues.

------
aaron695
Everyone in the USA will get C19.

So what's the argument here?

They will overload the hospital system?

The very few (at a university) who might die, might get a extra year of life
by the university lockdown for longer?

Where they wait for the non existent vaccine or treatment (many years away at
best)?

Do they have an actual exact reason other than a wishy washy _fear_?

What mathematical model do they hope for by delaying?

------
Sybth
Fuck Georgia tech.

------
mensetmanusman
Reopen for the students, have those at risk work remote or lecture remote.

We can’t assume a vaccine will be developed, so we need to act accordingly.

------
Symbiote
To make a political post even more political...

Do American university staff belong to unions? Including the faculty?

Hopefully this can be resolved with words, but striking for better working
conditions has a very long history.

~~~
hypersoar
I'm not aware of any faculty unions representing professors. There are some
academic student employee (inc. grad students) unions and a handful of postdoc
unions.

~~~
avs733
some faculty are unionized (I know of at least a few where the faculty are all
NEA members)

Additionally there are not-officially recognized groups such as AAUP (American
Association of University Professionals) that represent faculty issues.

~~~
avs733
clarifying my own post...because my language may have been confusing

faculty actually refers to the body of faculty at a university or in a
department as a whole...when writing to certain communities

What I meant was that certain universities have the whole body of faculty
unionized

------
umvi
Air Force Academy has already re-opened with next semesters' students already
there. They are marching socially distanced and with masks and elevated hand
washing.

On a side note - several USAFA cadets committed suicide due to lockdown-
induced mental health issues a few months back... so it's pretty safe to say
that the cure is more deadly than the illness (at least currently... 0 cadets
have died from covid-19 while 2 have died from suicide).

~~~
ceejayoz
[https://www.airforcemag.com/usaf-suicides-skyrocket-
in-2019/](https://www.airforcemag.com/usaf-suicides-skyrocket-in-2019/)

> A total of 137 Airmen took their own lives in 2019—a 33 percent increase
> from the 103 suicides in 2018 despite service efforts to tackle the problem.

I'm not sure you can conclude much from two.

------
glofish
What is not discussed there is that all these professors signing the document
expect to be paid the same as last year.

One might argue that if the lectures are online then the tuition (and
professor pay) should be proportional to the value they produce - and that
can't possibly be the same as last year.

~~~
joshuamorton
[I attended GT for Computer Science and signed one of these petitions]

This comment seems to misunderstand professors and universities. Instruction
is a relatively small part of professor responsibilities. Most tenured
professors will teach perhaps one class a year, some one class a semester.
Some do more, though often by choice and at least at Georgia Tech, much of the
undergraduate instruction is done by lecturers, who are not tenure track
faculty.

So the value they produce won't decrease by much. In fact it might actually
increase. Georgia Tech is, and has been, one of the leaders in online
instruction through the OMSCS program. This allowed professors to be in many
ways more valuable and teach more students per professor (with an increase in
TAs).

My experience is limited mostly to the College of Computing, but some courses
taught by other Colleges (notably gen-ed physics I and II in the College of
Sciences) have been optionally taught in mixed online form for years (I took
an "inverted" Physics course where the lectures were online in 2014). This
allowed in-lecture time to be much more tailored to specific student
questions.

So there's no a priori reason to believe that online instruction is less
valuable. (This isn't the same, by the way, as the opinion that university
education that is completely online is as valuable as in person, there are
environmental factors that are advantageous for in person experiences).

There are some classes and subjects where this doesn't always work
(Engineering courses often need specialized equipment for more applied
course), but these aren't the majority of classes, and forcing a CS professor
to lecture in person when the same course, often taught by the same professor,
already exists as a MOOC is ridiculous.

~~~
AlexCornila
nahhh this is the same as the opinion that online university education can be
equally valuable as in person. It jus got exposed now for anyone still having
doubts

~~~
joshuamorton
I don't disagree with that. In fact, I said as much when I stated

> This isn't the same, by the way, as the opinion that university education
> that is completely online is as valuable as in person, there are
> environmental factors that are advantageous for in person experiences

But that has nothing to do with professor salaries. A professor's value to a
student is about the same whether they're lecturing in person or through a
screen. The rest of the system however has less value to the student. But that
the university can't provide as much value doesn't impact the professor's
value. So if you're looking at this from a value-driven economy, the
professor's salary shouldn't change, the university should profit less from
the Prof's labor because the university is providing less value-add over just
the professor.

