The First Ward Report – Aurora University’s bait and switch!

For purposes of full disclosure, our eldest son currently attends Aurora University and our decision to send him there is one I deeply regret. In an effort to get parents to show them the money, like a slew of savvy used car salesmen, they’ll tell you whatever they think you want to hear, including, but not nearly limited to promising student services they’ve never provided.

And my son enrolled there based on those assurances, but then after one bad sophomore semester, those commitments evaporated faster than Agent Orange’s vaunted health care plan.

Furthermore, as much as I like to think I set my own issues aside whenever I take to the keyboard, were I you, Dear Reader, I’d take this particular prose with a reasonable grain of salt. I truly believe the facts fully support me, but to say I’m unhappy with the University would be the most mildest of understatements.

Then there’s the not-so-subtle appearance of fighting my personal battles in print, something I have not and will not do here.

You see, my son has less than a year of college left, so I’ve resigned myself to realities that clearly won’t change. Even if AU provided students and parents with any manner of timely warning, a senior year transfer is a proposition perpetually fraught with peril.

Put more simply, sometimes you find yourself in a position where your only choice is to bend over and take it. Ah! But there are plenty of AU parents and students who can avail themselves of the options my family cannot. This is for them.

This sad bait and switch story starts with AU President Rebecca Sherrick sending regular summer emails to parents and students in which every last one of ‘em gloriously described the development of an ostensibly reasonable hybrid teaching plan. They sounded so good they actually had me rethinking my disdain for that institution.

But, as it turns out, to this very day, AU has never truly declared they’ve moved to fully remote learning.

In President Rebecca Sherrick’s final August 17 summer email she wrote, “Soon undergraduates will hear from faculty members teaching remote fall semester classes…” Yes! Students will hear from those professors who opted for remote teaching.” There’s certainly no cause to believe anything had changed.

And when I privately called her out for this intentional obfuscation, not only did she claim her intentions were abundantly clear, but that their webpage was ever clearer. But it isn’t! Today, it still stipulates that, “In late July, Aurora University announced revised plans for the 2020 fall semester that include class instruction via enhanced remote delivery.”

Oh! And by “enhanced remote delivery” they mean Zoom, which crashed nationwide on the first day of “class.”

Again, any reasonable parent would understand “that include class instruction” to mean as a part of a greater hybrid plan because that’s all that had been previously discussed.

Conversely, when the East Aurora School District announced their shift to remote learning, they sent an email to every parent clearly specifying, “We’re going fully remote until November,” so there was absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind. It’s really not that difficult, is it?

And when we’re talking about a college rife with professional communicators, this deception by omission clearly was intentional. As that great philosopher Judge Judy likes to say, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!”

So, as you might imagine, a scant 24 hours before his first in-person class, while we were working out the family vehicle logistics, my son received two emails from two professors explaining that their classes were now fully remote. To say I was “peeved” would be yet another massive understatement.

C’mon! Everyone within the sound of my voice knows that President Sherrick and AU pulled this last-minute bait and switch money grab because, had they provided ample remote learning warning, those inevitably unhappy parents and students would’ve made other arrangements, and all that tuition money would’ve vanished along with them.

Even if I give Sherrick her errant assertion that we were adequately warned in late July, that’s not nearly enough notice to make other arrangements, and she knows it!

And we know this is a money grab because they’re not shutting down the dorms or their associated cafeterias. In fact, at the very same time they were closing all those classrooms, AU was gleefully ushering incoming students into their residence halls. So, now parents are paying to have their sons and daughters take Zoom classes in a tiny room while they get fed bad college food.

Call me crazy, but couldn’t those same students have done the same thing at home while enjoying better meals without having to take out another student loan to pay the $6,165 in AU dorm and meal fees? Oh! And that’s just for the fall semester, too!

At least we didn’t get suckered into that bovine manure, but my heart certainly goes out to all those families who fell for this slimy tactic.

All those dorm dwellers will religiously practice the best kind of social distancing, too, because that’s what college students are renowned for, right? When I mentioned this prospect to one of my favorite appellate court judges, his eminently keen-perception-of-the-obvious response was, “Social distancing in a dorm is considered to be wearing a condom.”

But the best part is, unlike many other colleges, AU refuses to provide any kind of tuition discount for suddenly offering a vastly diminished university experience. And my updated job description now includes Teacher’s Aide as I’ll be making sure my son isn’t nodding off or playing video games during his “classes.”

On Friday we’ll discuss:

• How the science and FACTS don’t support classroom closures
• How remote learning is a complete farce
• Why students and parents should bring a class action lawsuit against AU
• Why I somehow still haven’t learned that arguing with a narcissist is pointless

Until then…