Today I asked a person interviewing for a job at Gladlyville U what kinds of changes she envisioned in higher ed as a result of the pandemic, and she pretty much brushed off the question. But I have been thinking a lot about this question, and I am going to muse in your direction about it for a bit here.
We have offered students a lot of flexibility over the past two years. We have wanted to treat them humanely, compassionately, as they go through something unprecedented. It was the right thing to do, and they appreciated that flexibility. And now...I'm ready to be a bit less flexible again. If I put a due date in the syllabus and I remind you about the due date in person and you write to me to say, "I did not know if the thing would be due because it was snowing," I am going to have a facepalm moment before I reply politely to say that the posted due date was in fact the date the thing was due. It used to be a big part of our department culture that dates and deadlines mattered, and I would like to move in that direction again.
It is not a massive colossal hassle to allow students to attend via Zoom, but it's definitely a hassle; there are a lot of things to think about if I'm going to make a class work in two formats at the same time. Students have seized enthusiastically upon the idea that there are alternatives to attending class in person. I am ready for fewer alternatives. I'm tired of having in-class work submitted in multiple formats (sometimes on multiple days). It's not totally unreasonable for a group of students to ask me if I would record class for them on a day that they're attending another university's grad school open house, but it is not a request they would have made two years ago. (Oh, and would you like to hear about the student who ANSWERED A FACETIME CALL DURING CLASS yesterday? Because that is a thing that happened, and I attribute it at least in part to shifting norms.)
Our enrollment is up, which is both a good thing and a problem. My undergrad classes are >50% larger than they are supposed to be. One of them is a writing class. This, my friends, creates some difficulties. I cannot give thoughtful feedback on student writing if they have packed the class with 75% more students than it is supposed to contain. Can't do it. I think we have to decide: are we going to chase the tuition dollars, or protect the original purpose of the class? It has to be one or the other.
We can't just dust off our hands and declare that we're done with pandemic flexibility RIGHT NOW, any more than we can dust off our hands and declare that we're done with the pandemic. I can imagine that well-intentioned people will come down on different sides of questions like "Where does higher ed go from here?" If one of the most important things about higher ed is making strong connections in a classroom, maybe we push back harder against adjunctification. If one of the most important things about higher ed is ensuring access for all kinds of learners, maybe we put more energy into making technology more available to more people.
I do not have a road map for the next phase of the pandemic, any more than I have had a road map for the past two years. But I am tired. And I have a lot of questions.
Recent Comments