Vaccinations

 

It is time to schedule your vaccinations if you have not already done it. We scheduled our flu shot for the end of September. Today, we had our second shingles vaccination (it takes two.) Hopefully, we will be able to get a Covid-19 vaccination before the end of the year. I keep hearing that many people are going to wait for the Covid-19 vaccination until there is more data available. The only way more data is going to be known is if people get vaccinated. Sounds like a Catch 22 situation. Right now there are at least three competing vaccines in third stage testing. Personally, I will get the first available one, and then the second available one, and also the third one that is available. If each one is less than 100% effective, I intend to be protected, especially when 25% of the US population says they will not be vaccinated. If that sector does not help protect me, I will defend myself. And this is from someone who absolutely hates getting shots and hates going to see a doctor.

Risk and Trust in the Pandemic

 We have been socializing with another couple every week. All of us have been self-quarantined, so little to no risk. The other couple attended a family function this past weekend with their two children, their spouses, and three grandchildren. We will not be socializing with the couple for a couple of weeks to minimize our risk of exposure to Covid-19. We were ok with the risk of exposure before—two people who were seeing two people who were all social distancing and self-quarantined. The socialization risk factor has increased by several hundred percent. If we were to socialize, we would be extending our trust to four additional adults and three children.

We have no idea how many people those seven have been exposed to. If it is only 2 people each, potentially, we risk exposure to a minimum of 21 additional people. In a state where the infection rate is 10% or more, two of the 21 people probably have the virus. Since my wife and I are in a high-risk group, this is more risk than I am willing to take. If each of the seven additional people has been exposed to 4 other people, we would be extending trust to 35 people. There are likely at least 3 infected people in the group. When people meet in groups, without social distancing, they are significantly increasing their risk of infection. Yet, we continue to see people that refuse to wear a mask and ignore social distancing rules. I don’t think we will stop the pandemic until we have a vaccine that works, and enough people have received the vaccine. With 25% of the population saying that they will not get vaccinated, we may never end the pandemic.

The first week of school

 

Today is Thursday, the first Thursday of the Fall 2020 semester. Classes and emails are typical for the first week, especially for the incoming Freshmen who are taking the course online instead of in person. That is my accommodation for the Covid-19. In the first three days, I have been notified that ten of my students are quarantined due to Covid-19 exposure or positive testing. With other universities going 100 percent online, the question is, when will Oklahoma State University? The faculty I communicate with are anticipating that will happen soon. Some hope that we will continue with the current model for six to eight weeks. Personally, I think that the University should not have opened for in-person classes. No one asks me or cares what I think. The administration is more concerned about money than anyone’s health. The current university model cannot survive 100 percent online. There is too much overhead.

 I am quite happy to be online and living in Texas, although I feel for my colleagues that are teaching face-to-face. I spent my fourth morning in the Glass Art Studio making leaves. Leaves are a good practice item for improving my flameworking skills. The problem with the oxygen concentrator disappeared with the relocation of the concentrators and the addition of a fan. They were getting overheated, and so was I. With our 100 degree days, I can only work until about 9:30. That is fine since I start before 6 am. I am looking forward to cooler weather.

Glass Art Studio - Day One

 

My glass art studio is finished. I was able to work for about an hour this morning and then had an issue with the oxygen generator. I emailed the manufacturer. If I haven’t heard from them by 11:30  am, I will call. One of the oxygen concentrators started alarming, so I shut the system down. The instructions say not to shut off the concentrators, but shut the system down. I waited for an hour and then tried to turn the system back on. The generator stayed dark. Nothing would come on. No oxygen, no flame, no working glass. Darn!

The Missing Month

I missed posting in the blog for almost a month. A lot went on in that month. I taught a summer class online that had 72 students. This led to many emails. I held online office hours using Microsoft Teams, which went well after I learned to use it. My TAs and I will keep office hours this way this fall. This fall, all of my classes will be online. I currently have 894 students enrolled in my four sections. I have a long list of things I need to do to get ready for Fall, which is really August. Besides updating some videos, I really need to find TAs. We have 18 assignments that are due in 12 weeks. Yes, that is 16,092 assignments to grade. We will also hold student meetings with company representatives through MS Teams. More on that later.

I decided to build an art glass studio. I will do flameworking, also called lampworking. The glass art is created using a torch powered by propane and oxygen. I will be concentrating on borosilicate glass (also called hard-glass with a COE of 32.) I will have the capability of creating glass art with soft-glass since I have glass rods and frit left from glass blowing. I purchased an 8 x 8 ft. Tuff Shed that is installed on the covered parking pad. Today the electrical is being installed. Then we have to wait for the city to connect the electricity. I have already ordered and received a holding kiln, a torch, several hundred pounds of borosilicate rod and tubing, a steel workbench, and a chair.

Yesterday, the oxygen generator arrived. I already have the cement board to go on the floor and some of the walls. My dear wife makes fun of me getting all of the equipment here before the building is ready. Oh well, we each do things in our own way. Tools are due tomorrow and the toolbox next week. Again, she is making fun of me getting supplies and materials delivered out of order. At least I have not ordered the kiln yet, but only because I did not want to have to move it more than once. That and the garage is really pretty full, waiting for the shop to be finished. After the electric is completed, I have to install the vent fan (yes, it is sitting in the garage), insulate (spray foam), and install the cement board. Then I will finally be ready to assemble the equipment and be prepared to work glass. I hope it happens before classes start.

I spent a lot of time last month researching what I needed to set up a glass studio. Also bought and read a couple of reference books. And watched several YouTube videos on flameworking. I have not been wasting my time during our self-quarantine. Pictures will be posted when the studio is complete.

College Costs

Over the last 30 years, college costs have increased by 213% compared to a 113% increase in the CPI over the same time. College cost increases have been twice the CPI for the last 20 years and the previous ten years.

There have been many articles written about the ill financial health of America’s universities. The higher education financial problem is not new news; the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the issues because we are seeing students that are not willing to pay the price when they do not get the “college experience.” First, let’s briefly review some of the reasons for the escalating costs.

The ratio of administrators and staff to teachers/faculty has increased dramatically. All universities I looked at have at least three times as many administrators and staff as faculty. Fifty years ago, most universities had fewer administrators and staff than faculty. The university’s business is to teach students. Administrators and staff do not contribute to the main business of the university, but instead, they facilitate it. The question is: are that many more people required to facilitate the business than in the past? To answer that, we need to look at the structure of the organization. First, universities tend to be very hierarchical organizations. Every manager needs one or two people working for them. Very few of the organizations are approaching a span of control of 5 to 7 subordinates for each supervisor. Please do not think that this is a call for a flat organization. This only points out that many universities have many levels of management and often duplication at each level.

Second, let’s look at the duplication of functions across the university. Each college has staff positions duplicated at the university level. For example, each college has a human resource function, accounting function, student advising function, marketing, communications, event planning, and online education function. One example that is easy to identify at the college level and university level is the online education department. At the college level, this department has a manager, two assistants, a production manager, a project manager, two instructional specialists, and six others with the title of an adjunct instructor for a total of 13 people. The university instructional services for online has 34 people. Several colleges at the university duplicate the online education department. At the very least, we have redundancy at the managerial level and probable underemployment at other tiers. This example is just the online education department. Any support function will reveal similar personnel excesses.

One of the explanations given is that the business school is different from engineering and other colleges; and therefore, it needs to maintain control of the online education support function. I have news for people that believe that this is a valid argument. Support for online education is not specialized, and your department/college is not unique. Working in industry, I had heard this argument repeatedly when we were trying to combine support functions to get an efficiency of scale. I never observed a case where it was true. Some support functions need duplication at remote sites, but not when all were in the same location. A valid argument for having single support departments is that the supervision of support functions (e.g., human resources, accounting) needs to have expertise in the supervisory role to manage the service properly.

Another reason for the increasing costs is the university building programs. One major Midwest university went from $50 million in debt to over $700 million in debt in less than ten years. A debt level of $1 billion is not unusual because of continued building programs. One university recently announced a $100 million new agricultural college building, with only half of it funded. They hope to raise the remaining $50 million before it is completed in 2023. One explanation of the problem is here: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/10/why-colleges-are-borrowing-billions/542352/. Notice that this article is three years old, and the trend has not slowed. If anything, it has accelerated. Even when the construction is fully funded, it can increase the university’s debt. Often, gifts are recognized now, but the university receives money in the future. If you donate in your will, the university will receive the funds from your estate when you die. The university often commits this planned gift to a current project and borrows the money increasing its debt.

The primary source of the university’s income is from the students in the form of tuition and fees. Fees are frequently more than tuition. Most universities do not discuss the fees when talking with prospective students and their parents. If you go to a university website, you may have to dig to find what these fees are and what they support. As an example, I went to the University of Oklahoma to see what their in-state undergraduate tuition is for a business school student. The following table gives the costs for a single semester.

Item	Cost/semester
Tuition	$2,394
Mandatory Hourly Fee	$2,010.75
Technology and Program Fee – Business School - $151/hour @ 15 hours	$2,265
Academic Excellence Fee - $90/hour @ 15 hours	$1,350
Total per semester	$8,019.75

Tuition and fees yearly cost $16,039.50, which does not include a place to live and food. Living on campus will add approximately $15,000 per year. A four-year business school education will cost approximately$124,000. The cost at most state schools will be comparable, and in some cases, substantially higher.

Is it any wonder that universities are very concerned about student retention and how to attract more students. What they have not been concerned with is lowering costs. The old adage is true, “when you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.” Universities have not stopped digging and are going to experience a revolution against the current university costs and curriculum.

Why are universities reopening this Fall?

Most universities are planning to hold in-person classes this Fall. They are telling us how they will do this. My university is telling us how in very general terms, at this point. Which means that they are not really sure how, in detail, they will manage a reopening and face-to-face classes. We have seen a dramatic increase in Covid-19 cases with states reopening. Just today, Texas has closed again, specifically bars and restaurants. Does the university think they can do better with a population of close to 30,000 students, aged 18 to 24?

The question the university leaders are not answering is “why.” Why are they insisting that the university reopen and expose students, faculty, and staff to a significant possibility of catching the virus? What is driving their actions? It is not likely that it is out of a concern for health and safety because their efforts will have exactly the opposite consequence.

I suggest that the driver for reopening the university is financial. The pandemic has exposed years of financial mismanagement. If the university charges students only for the education and subtracts all of the charges related to the university experience, they will be operating at a significant deficit. This would then require that the administration reduce the organization to only those functions necessary for education. Many people would lose their jobs, but the cost of a college education would come down dramatically. Those students that are only at the university for the experience would likely drop out. It would be interesting to teach a class where the students are there only for education.