In this episode, Phil Hill, Jeanette Wiseman, and Kevin Kelly discuss multiple news items coming out of California that could be an early view into nationwide reactions – Cal State system remaining (mostly) virtual through Fall 2020 and California’s revised budget and its impact on higher education.

Hosts:

* Phil Hill* Jeanette Wiseman* Kevin Kelly

Transcription:

Phil: Well, welcome back to the podcast COVID Transitions. I’m Phil Hill, and again I’m here with Kevin Kelly and Jeanette Wiseman for another episode. Welcome. And I probably need to get started saying, Jeanette, any updates on how your husband’s doing and how your family is recovering?

Jeanette: Thank you, Phil. We’re doing really well. He’s recovering nicely. The bruising is still there, but surprisingly not as bad as you would think. I think it may be a few more weeks till he’s feeling completely back to normal but thanks, we’re all doing well.

Phil: I like that intro because now people who are just starting to listen to this episode are going to have to go back one episode and get started earlier. So that’s that’s good.

Jeanette: Yes. That’s a good tease.

Phil: Yes. Yes. And Kevin, how are you doing? I know that look like you had some impressive work you were doing last week with the stained glass window outside. So how are things going in your household?

Kevin: Well, we did that work outside over the weekend, and then I haven’t seen it since. It’s been it’s been busy. And Phil, if you’re going to entice people to go back and listen to previous episodes, they should have to go find it.

Phil: Oh, it’s a treasure hunt. Well, this will be our sixth episode of COVID Transition. At least now listeners will know how many they might have to search through.

As for me, probably one of the more disappointing days I had is when I needed to take a break from being in the office so much, and at lunchtime, I took the dog to go walk on the beach and rediscovered that we have our beaches closed from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It was very difficult to convince the dog that we couldn’t walk down the stairs. He’s not as concerned about the fines that they levy out here if you go on the beach at the wrong time. Sort of first world problems. But that was a challenge for us.

Jeanette: Sorry to hear that. I didn’t know that had happened.

Phil: Yes. Well, I felt dumb, too. Of course I’d know this, but once I get there, I’m like, ‘oh, I can’t even go down the beach.’ But that’s something I might even turn to what we’d like to talk about today, which is problems in California, or opportunities in California. Basically all things California.

A lot of the news this week has centered on the announcement by California State University system that they are opening primarily online for the fall. We’ll go into more details of what that means, but most classes will be online for all 23 California State University campuses for Fall 2020. And that obviously has repercussions beyond just the system.

And I like the way that they actually mentioned this in the Wall Street Journal coverage, where they noted that “five percent of Americans holding a college degree graduated from a Cal State school.” It puts it in perspective how influential that is. And at the same time, the University of California, one of the other public systems here,