It should be noted that they have not moved lab classes online. For someone in the sciences, much of your classroom time is spent in lab classes. Unfortunately, there isn’t a good way to teach students how to run a gel, or do a titration, or identify minerals, etc. without in-person instruction.
There are students who are graduating this spring and the skills they learn in upper division or capstone lab classes are some of the most important skills they will learn at school. You can’t just cancel the classes (or those students won’t graduate), you can’t do a very good job at all teaching them online... What can you do? We haven’t figured it out here at my institution, and it looks like nobody else has figured it out.
Nor will in-person, small group seminars be moved on-line. It might be fairer to just extend spring break for 2-3 months, and pick up the semester again in May or June.
Or, refund this semesters’s tuition, room, and board, and give everyone a do-over until next fall. (I am assuming the virus will burn out in 2-3 months.)
Maybe the best outcome would be radically improve remote learning, this time with full institutional support.
Actually, that's extremely pessimistic. Unchecked exponential growth until it slams in to the population ceiling is both the worst-case scenario for fatalities, and also the scenario that would finish in three months.
There are students who are graduating this spring and the skills they learn in upper division or capstone lab classes are some of the most important skills they will learn at school. You can’t just cancel the classes (or those students won’t graduate), you can’t do a very good job at all teaching them online... What can you do? We haven’t figured it out here at my institution, and it looks like nobody else has figured it out.