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U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

bloomberg.com

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Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#171

Post by dmode »

avgDev wrote: post #123
tomp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Us dearh rate is pretty low and excess deaths are almost back to zero. The problematic outlier is just NYC, where the problem was arguably exacerbated by Democratic mayor encouraging NewYorkers to party in Chinatown end of January. Overall Trump’s response was decent. Edit: Looks like this triggered a few people. Low mortality rate: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr... Excess deaths almost…

Trump response was decent? Jesus. His lack of leadership resulted in many deaths. His base refuses till this day to wear masks and the southern states and Cali are now in the thick of it. He could not be seen wearing the mask. He called the virus a hoax. He told the US people it will go to 0 very soon. The administration buried their heads in the sand and failed to listen to professionals for a long time. Then, conti…

I am wondering with all the downvotes to any anti-Trump messaging here, whether this thread is being heavily brigaded

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#172

Post by parsimo2010 »

wahern wrote: post #153
generationP wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, most universities don't take attendance. It's a waste of time, it punishes pro-social behavior (there is no good reason for people feeling sick to go to class), and it's infantilizing. "Attendance required" often means "we will notice if you never attend, and then will feel less bad failing you if you don't do your homework either".

My law school classes took attendance. Rigorously. Because time management is a critical skill for attorneys, judges don't tolerate any amount of unannounced absenteeism, and missing filing deadlines can be and often is extremely costly, not just for you but for your client. (Also, taking attendance weeds out the liars. The ABA has strict attendance requirements and you're not supposed to get a degree if you miss the…

> I'm sure the military is similar.

Ironically, Roll Call is a formal concept in the military and rarely used after training. But the concept of accountability certainly exists.

This varies by country, branch of service, and job, but it’s fairly common for young airmen (enlisted troops) in the USAF to be docked pay after showing up late to work a few times. The punishment usually goes something like a stern warning-> light paperwork-> paperwork in your permanent file and formal counseling. The next step is non-judicial punishment (named so because your only option is to accept the harsh punishment or be court martialed), which could mean any combination of confinement, demotion, forfeiture of pay, or several other things. The only things left after that are being discharged or sent to prison. And that’s for being late to work. If you backtalk the wrong person you could be demoted with no warning.

And I know the Air Force Academy takes attendance every class because I had to. The registrar would occasionally audit the attendance system and notify the department chairs of instructors that didn’t log their attendance.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#173

Post by dmode »

jimbob45 wrote: post #134

This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially. It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capital…

Yes, humans are just political pawns to be played around to pacify a voting base.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#174

Post by paxys »

oh_sigh wrote: post #64
amerine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t they? Your question doesn’t make sense to me

You can't just sue because you are displeased with something - you need to have suffered, or will suffer direct harm from the thing(this is called locus standi). I'm guessing OP is saying that Harvard/MIT would not be harmed from this, only the students would be harmed(so they would need to be the ones to sue, not the college). It kind of makes sense - if everything is online courses, it doesn't matter to Harvard whe…

> It kind of makes sense - if everything is online courses, it doesn't matter to Harvard whether the students are at an apartment in Cambridge St or in the middle of the Mongolian steppe, as long as you have internet access.

It makes a massive difference.

1. Students need good internet access, which a lot of them don't have in third world countries.

2. Students can't be expected to attend lectures and participate in class when they are in an opposite timezone (i.e. all of India and China).

It's a pretty easy decision for all of these students to just skip a semester rather than pay ridiculous tuition and not even be allowed to stay on campus, hence causing problems for the university.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#175

Post by filoleg »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #126
amf12 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are free to travel anywhere within the united states. Theoretically that's true for on-campus courses too. Most (at least that I know of) universities don't track attendance. So the students are still free to travel anywhere as long as they keep submitting online assignments and are physically present for any exams.

Attendance is tracked at any university with students that receive federal aid... So most of them.

This is so obviously wrong. Source: I went to a public state school less than 10 years ago and I (along with many other students) received federal aid.

90% of the classes I took didn't require attendance, and the ones that did were mostly general studies courses for freshmen (like basic lab sciences or language classes). None of the major-related courses required attendance or had it as a component of the final grade (which in my case would be maths and CS classes). Obviously, you still had to attend midterms and final exams. And each of those classes would have a couple of prodigies who would attend zero lectures and still end up doing very well in the class (with many more who attempted that and failed massively, but still).

The only way of legitimately interpreting the meaning of your reply is that universities receiving federal aid are required to submit the list of students registered for each course. That has nothing to do with attendance though.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#176

Post by ojbyrne »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #167
quadrifoliate wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in some ways this was the perfect outcome for that kind of posturing. Anecdotally, it seems to me that an actual drop in international student numbers would likely have hurt colleges in Republican-controlled states worse than Democrat-controlled ones. American students armed with student loans would still flock to top universities to make up for the international student shortfall, and I can't think of a top 10…

Harvard and MIT don’t come to mind? (Mass. Gov Charlie Baker is a Republican)

And Johns Hopkins (MD) makes 3 out of 10.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#177

Post by pnw_hazor »

ardit33 wrote: post #7

Is this administration very incompetent, or very sadistic? If they rescinded the order, means they: 1) Didn't think through the consequences, or the legality of the order. 2) They just wanted to crate some chaos, and mess up with the foreign kids, while posturing to their base 3) Force universities to stay open in the middle of the pandemic in order to help Trump's reelection bid... (not sure how breakouts of covid i…

Mostly 3. (or more charitably they hoped the covid emergency would be winding down by now)

Here, ICE attempted to rollback the current emergency rule and put in place a new rule that was broader and more flexible than the pre-covid-19 rule. They have pulled that back now.

But, as soon as the Covid-19 national emergency order expires, the current emergency rule can be easily reverted to the stricter pre-covid-19 rule if that's what the Admin wants. Otherwise, a new rule (following administrative law rule-making requirements) can be made to implement the broader/flexible policy ICE was seeking here.

edit-to-add: Trump could probably issue an Executive Order directing ICE to change its rules.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#178

Post by [deleted] »

aspaceman wrote: post #165
wahern wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My law school classes took attendance. Rigorously. Because time management is a critical skill for attorneys, judges don't tolerate any amount of unannounced absenteeism, and missing filing deadlines can be and often is extremely costly, not just for you but for your client. (Also, taking attendance weeds out the liars. The ABA has strict attendance requirements and you're not supposed to get a degree if you miss the…

I think small classes and discussions (like in law school) are a different breed than large lectures. My view has always been that if the class is less than 10 or so students, attendance can be required. The students should be given the ability to email for an absence, no questions asked. In these cases, the success of the class is entirely dependent on students attending. If they don't, the class fails. Military you…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#179

Post by jorblumesea »

Just Trump playing to his base and international students were the unfortunate pawns. Doesn't take a political expert to see that Trump's mishandling of the COVID crisis has put him in dire political straits. He needs to manufacture wins, or look like he's winning in order to stand some chance of reelection. This isn't the first or last time he's implemented some obvious unconstitutional policy only to withdraw it because he already got the soundbyte he was looking for (remember the travel country ban?). He ran on a populist nativist platform and has gotten very little accomplished so he's going to try everything he can in order to look like he's "really trying but those libruls are the problem".

You know, despite the issue being is fundamental lack of understanding of the constitution and the presidency.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#180

Post by sgnelson »

generationP wrote: post #139
ngngngng wrote: post #104

A well known religious University near me just started offering "in person" (wink wink) classes where attendance would not be taken. I was proud to see it.

Actually, most universities don't take attendance. It's a waste of time, it punishes pro-social behavior (there is no good reason for people feeling sick to go to class), and it's infantilizing. "Attendance required" often means "we will notice if you never attend, and then will feel less bad failing you if you don't do your homework either".

This depends largely on the state, and whether it's a public or private school.

Because for some schools, it's all about that FTE (Full Time Equivalent, a measure of how many students are taking how many classes, and how some state schools get their chunk of funding.) And while FTE isn't directly related to attendance more State legislatures/University boards are combining the two and want to make sure that their funds are being spent wisely and students are actually in class.

Also accrediting bodies like to know that students are actually showing up as well.

So while taking attendance is silly for college students, it's not a waste of time or silly for the powers that be.

(I know this because my friends who teach are now being chastised if they don't keep daily attendance records.)

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