Far from being ivory towers, nowadays universities look more and more like battered citadels besieged by armies of Orcs. The Covid-19 pandemic may have given the final blow to a structure that was falling anyway. (image credit “crossbow and catapults“)
A couple of weeks ago, I saw the end of the University as I knew it. It was when I saw a line of students standing in the main hall of our department. All of them were masked, all of them had to stand on one of the marks drawn on the floor — at exactly 1 meter of distance from each other. A teaching assistant was watching them carefully, least they would stray away from their assigned position. The only thing that was missing was iron chains and balls and the students singing the cadence gang march.That was not the only humiliation imposed on our students because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Of course, it is all done with the best of intentions, but it is a heavy burden. Students can’t get close to each other, they have to reserve in advance a seat if they want to attend a class, when they enter a building they have to show their ID and to stand in front of a camera that records their face and takes their body temperature. The diabolical machine can also check if they are wearing their masks right and will refuse to open the door if they don’t. Then, of course, the university personnel is supposed to check that the rules are respected and to report those students who don’t respect them. Symmetrically, I suppose the students are expected to report a teacher who doesn’t comply with the rules.
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