[INDOLOGY] Overseas students and online teaching (US)

Tue Jul 14 19:43:22 UTC 2020

Good news: The administration has rescinded this terrible new rule.
https://news.yahoo.com/judge-hear-arguments-challenge-foreign-174235492.html?ncid=twitter_yahoonewst_sjwumo1bpf4

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 9:03 PM Richard Mahoney | Indica et Buddhica via
INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> And for a little more on all this:
>
> *What Harvard and Your Local Commuter College Now Have in Common*
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/upshot/virus-colleges-harvard-reopening.html
>
> "... Which means that, in our topsy-turvy coronavirus world, online
> higher education has abruptly gone from down-market and sometimes
> disreputable to a privilege reserved for the elite few. In 2020, only
> the best and the brightest will be allowed to not go to college. ..."
>
>
>
> Best, Richard
>
>
> --
>
> Richard Mahoney | Indica et Buddhica
>
> Littledene Bay Road Oxford NZ
> T: +64 3 312 1699 M: +64 210 640 216
> IM: @rmahoney https://t.me/rmahoney
> rmahoney at indica-et-buddhica.com
>
> https://indica-et-buddhica.org/
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Lusthaus via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> Reply-To: Dan Lusthaus <prajnapti at gmail.com>
> To: Rosane Rocher <rrocher at sas.upenn.edu>
> Cc: indology at list.indology.info
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Overseas students and online teaching (US)
> Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 19:03:45 -0400
> Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3124)
> X-Spam-Score: 0.0
>
> Many of us know students in similar straits. Schools have been working on
> various ways of threading a difficult needle that will address for the Fall
> semester student, faculty, and staff safety on one hand, provide quality
> education on the other, and satisfy the financial bottom line, all at the
> same time. The new federal rules have certainly made that more difficult.
> Students on campus is a recipe for spreading the disease - that has been
> demonstrated, including recent outbreaks in Seatle, etc. Hybrid mode will
> include many remote learning courses (the details as to which parts of the
> curriculum will be online, in-person, or even a hybid classroom in which an
> in-class session is simultaneously including remote learning enrolled
> students, perhaps with a trained student monitor to keep the two sides
> interacting, is still being worked out in some schools), which will mean
> that students will have to find at least one in-class course to take to
> retain their visa, regardless of relevance or interest.
>
> For many years, students in Korea studied English from early grades on,
> many with the hope of attending higher education in the US. In more recent
> years, there has been a shift toward studying Chinese instead of English,
> many Koreans are now studying in Chinese universities rather than US. Many
> Chinese students are starting to consider whether bothering to study in the
> US is worth it at all. Many schools have encouraged large Chinese
> enrollments for financial reasons. My wife teaches Japanese at Boston
> University - most of the students studying Japanese there are Chinese, so
> there is some concern that the long term future of the program itself might
> be endangered by Trump’s xenophobia.
>
> Clearly, instead of stabilizing things during the unavoidable
> uncertainties of a pandemic, he has just increased the uncertainties, while
> pushing everyone to take the least safe course of action. Meanwhile he just
> formally began the process of withdrawing from WHO. Wherever he’s turned
> his attention, he has been a force for destruction and death, from the
> environment, to federal agencies, to corruption, to disease management.
>
> Dan
>
> On Jul 7, 2020, at 11:42 AM, Rosane Rocher via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Regulation #3 affects students at institutions that adopt the hybrid mode,
> who are already in the US. I think of one of my neighbors, a member of the
> youthful squad who have volunteered to run critical errands for the elderly
> who are most at risk in this pandemic among some 1000 residents in our
> building. She is about to enter into the final year of the doctoral program
> of Penn’s Wharton School of Business. Penn has chosen a hybrid mode of
> instruction, details of which are being worked out. Her first priority may
> have to be finding a course that is taught in person instead of what is
> most relevant for her dissertation and/or her career plans, in this last
> shot at academic education. I think also of Penn’s International Student
> and Scholar Services who may have to deflect from their role of helping
> vast numbers of international students navigate an unfamiliar environment,
> in order to monitor each international student’s roster against a list of
> courses taught in person and attest that each is in compliance with ICE
> regulations. Such a level of detail and of intrusion in educational
> planning would reek of bureaucratic harassment. I cannot see how kicking my
> young friend out of the country might contribute to mitigating Covid
> contagion and/or reinvigorating the American economy. She is not an
> Indologist, but she is a living representative of the international flow of
> scholarship that this list so demonstrably fosters. I guess I will just get
> her another box of blueberries, her comfort food.
>
>
>
> Rosane
>
>
> On 7/6/20 6:33 PM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:
>
> The new ICE regulation is aimed at schools that will be entirely online
> with no in-class instruction.
>
> “1. Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely
> online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United
> States.”
>
>
> “3. Nonimmigrant F-1 students attending schools adopting a hybrid
> model—that is, a mixture of online and in person classes—will be allowed to
> take more than one class or three credit hours online. These schools must
> certify to SEVP, through the Form I-20, “Certificate of Eligibility for
> Nonimmigrant Student Status,” certifying that the program is not entirely
> online, that the student is not taking an entirely online course load this
> semester, and that the student is taking the minimum number of online
> classes required to make normal progress in their degree program. The above
> exemptions do not apply to F-1 students in English language training
> programs or M-1 students pursing vocational degrees, who are not permitted
> to enroll in any online courses.”
>
> A list of what 800+ schools are currently planning for the Fall is
> compiled and avaiable on the Chronicle of Higher Education website.
> https://www.chronicle.com/article/Here-s-a-List-of-Colleges-/248626?cid=cp275 (click
> the arrow to move to the next page - the list, not the top text, changes).
> Schools that plan to go completely online include the Cal State schools,
> but most schools seem to be considering a hybrid semester or quarter.
>
> Dan
>
> On Jul 6, 2020, at 6:19 PM, Rosane Rocher via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> I tend to believe that the intent is to force universities to re-open in
> spite of the continuing Covid crisis, which Trump claims has been
> palliated.
>
> Rosane
>
> On 7/6/20 6:05 PM, Antonia Ruppel via INDOLOGY wrote:
>
> From what I have seen, I assume this is Trumpian, and related to the
> restrictions to H1B visas (which most foreign academics come in on):
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/us/politics/trump-h1b-work-visas.html
>
> There was debate at one point that non-commercial organisations such as
> universities would be excluded from this ban; but they are now in it, as
> far as I know.
>
> A step leading up to those restrictions was that the government got rid of
> expedited processing for H1Bs (for a fee, a reply within a period of a few
> weeks was guaranteed - which often was the only way to get a foreign
> academic into the US in time for them to start their work on time/at the
> beginning of the semester).
>
> Not a good time, neither for people nor institutions.
>
> --Antonia
>
>
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2020 at 23:53, Jeffery Long via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Thank you for alerting us to this, Patricia. Do you have a sense of
> whether this is COVID-19-related, or just more Trumpian BS?
>
> All the best,
> Jeff
>
> Dr. Jeffery D. Long
> Professor of Religion & Asian Studies
> Elizabethtown College
>
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
>
> On Monday, July 6, 2020, 5:26 PM, Rosane Rocher via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> This is insane.
>
> Rosane Rocher
>
> On 7/6/20 3:28 PM, Patricia Sauthoff via INDOLOGY wrote:
>
> I wanted to bring this to the attention of anyone teaching in the US this
> autumn.
>
> The US government has made changes to its overseas student visa rules.
> Overseas students may now no longer remain in the US if their universities
> operate entirely online. They either must leave the country or transfer to
> a school with in-person instruction.
> https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Patricia
>
> --
> Patricia Sauthoff
> (she/her/they/them)
> Postdoctoral Fellow
> AyurYog.org
> Department of History and Classics
> University of Alberta
> Edmonton, Canada
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Dr Antonia Ruppel
> cambridge-sanskrit.org
>
> allthingssanskrit.com
>
>
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-- 
Patricia Sauthoff
(she/her/they/them)
Postdoctoral Fellow
AyurYog.org
Department of History and Classics
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Canada

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