CONAHEC News and Information

Presidents Fear Financial, and Human, Toll of Coronavirus
Thursday, Apr. 09, 2020

College and university presidents are deeply worried that the coronavirus crisis could wreak havoc on their institutions' finances in the near term and, especially, beyond.

But right now, they say they're most concerned about the toll the crisis could take on the mental health of their students and employees.

Those are among the key findings of a survey of 172 campus leaders Inside Higher Ed conducted with Hanover Research last week (March 17-19), as the sweeping scope of the COVID-19 situation began to come into clearer focus in the United States.

"They Don't Want Me Home"
Thursday, Apr. 09, 2020

The public-health campaign against the coronavirus began early in Singapore, where An Nguyen and Kaela Seiersen are spending the semester.

Covid-19 Changed How the World Does Science, Together
Tuesday, Apr. 07, 2020

Using flag-draped memes and military terminology, the Trump administration and its Chinese counterparts have cast coronavirus research as national imperatives, sparking talk of a biotech arms race.

The world’s scientists, for the most part, have responded with a collective eye roll.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” said Jonathan Heeney, a Cambridge University researcher working on a coronavirus vaccine.

“That isn’t how things happen,” said Adrian Hill, the head of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, one of the largest vaccine research centers at an academic institution.

While we fixate on coronavirus, Earth is hurtling towards a catastrophe worse than the dinosaur extinction
Tuesday, Apr. 07, 2020

At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out.

In the past, these events were triggered by a huge volcanic eruption or asteroid impact. Now, Earth is heading for another mass extinction – and human activity is to blame.

I am an Earth and Paleo-climate scientist and have researchedthe relationships between asteroid impacts, volcanism, climate changes and mass extinctions of species.

Universities Forced to Face Addiction to Foreign StudentsÔÇÖ Money
Tuesday, Apr. 07, 2020

When the coronavirus outbreak triggered travel bans during the Lunar New Year holidays, about 100,000 Chinese students were stranded at home and unable to return to Australia. Siqi Li, a 23-year-old Master of Science student from Guangdong province, was one of them.

“The first thing I felt was really panicked,” said Li, who had to spend two weeks in Malaysia before authorities would let her into Australia. She’s now living in lockdown and trying to study online after the University of Melbourne switched to a virtual campus.

Scores of institutions announce faculty hiring freezes in response to the coronavirus.
Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2020

Higher education is COVID-19-positive. And in the parlance of triage, the patient needs emergent care.

At many institutions, that means getting just enough instruction and support online to be able to operate tomorrow, and having enough money to do so. Everything else can wait, including faculty hiring. Already, scores of colleges and universities have announced hiring freezes for this year fiscal year and the next one.

How will higher education have changed after COVID-19?
Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2020

This is not an article about the 300 million people worldwide who are not in workplaces or classrooms because of COVID-19. This is not an article about locked down cities, overwhelmed medical facilities, stock market declines, travel plans in tatters or cancelled conferences, sporting events and concerts. 

This is an article that will attempt to calculate what the worldwide economic and higher education landscape will look like after the threat of COVID-19 has dissipated; what remains.

Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM): A Novel Mechanical Ventilator Designed for Mass Scale Production in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemics
Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2020

Presented here is the design of the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM), a novel mechanical ventilator designed for rapid mass production in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to address the urgent shortage of ventilators in many countries, and the growing difficulty in procuring these devices through normal supply chains across borders. This ventilator is an electro-mechanical equivalent of the old, reliable Manley Ventilator, able to operate in both independent and patient-assisted modes.

Universities in lockdown: the good, the bad and the ugly of online teaching
Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2020

Universities across Europe are grappling with digital problems, after the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to shut down and move research and teaching online. 

Digital capabilities are not distributed equally across European universities, and deficiencies have delayed implementing systems for online teaching. Bandwidth and student access to computers is also an issue. 

What's Next: How long will colleges have flexibility to offer online classes due to coronavirus?
Tuesday, Mar. 24, 2020

Colleges have been moving classes online in droves to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

At first, school officials said they'd reassess the need to continue remote instruction after a few weeks. Federal agencies and accreditors afforded them some flexibility to do that, loosening rules that would typically guide how colleges use distance learning. 

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