I’ll Get You Through
Image/Alison Gaulden.
By Alison Gaulden, APR
The end of spring semester came with a crash. Fifteen-hour days, seven days a week. Training with the online experts. Adjusting classes. Adjusting assignments. Trying to add the minutia of details for every step for clarity. Trying to support students who can’t adjust. I can’t tell what’s going on. But I tell the students we’ll get through.
Summer comes. Online training on online education. Rest. No classes and nowhere to go. I try to prepare the classes for fall semester. It is taking far longer than I anticipate. There’s the devil’s choice-work throughout summer off-contract or work on-contract without sufficient time and prep for the classes. A week is not enough. It takes the whole week to read through all the materials about the pandemic, resources, expectations, protocols, the website. The staff putting in the hours to keep the website up-to-date are doing excellent work. I plow through.
Fall. The anticipation of meeting with students bursts through my hesitation of the new learning environment. I’m hoping they are as excited to do the hybrid class as I am. I can’t wait to build relationships with new students, reinvest with the students I’ve had before. I conscientiously choose to be positive about the hybrid class structure.
The students walk into class, one at a time. They start learning the routine: grab the wipes, clean the desk, put the wipes in the trash, sit at the pawprint designated spot. Two students who know each other and couldn’t wait to hang out, sat too close. They were disheartened when I told them to separate. These are the Roomies-the half of the course’s students allowed to attend class on Tuesdays. We’ll trade off with the Thursday students. Same for the Monday/Wednesday class.
“Now Smile for the Photo,” a ridiculous thing to say for people wearing masks, but you can tell whether they are smiling or not when their eyes light up. I’m taking the photo daily for contact tracing purposes, hoping I never use it. Every day I must log the names of the students-who is sitting where. Some I know from previous classes, others I’ve just met. Maybe this weird attendance will help me learn their names and faces. It doesn’t. Make a mental note to login to the second-floor sign-in sheet so the administration will know if I’m in the building on the day of an outbreak. I dutifully sign in. I doubt anyone reads it.
Roomies await class to start as the process of admitting the “Zoomies”—the other half of the students attending via the digital platform—begins. I say hello as each “enters” the room. Wait, their audio isn’t working yet. Say hello again. I can see all their faces. Their names are on the screen, but it disappears when students aren’t talking. Oh, for crying out loud-—how on Earth am I going to learn their names? The tiny screen doesn’t help me discern the five young women with long hair from each other. I’ll get a roster and start asking each to share their thoughts on the subject. I am determined to know their names before the midterm. I learn them. I hope I know them if I ever get to see them in person.
A student was late to class, and she texts another who tells me her friend’s in the Zoom “waiting room.” I have seven applications open just to see the class: Zoom, the roster in university platform, the Zoom participant tab, the Zoom chatroom tab, chat in the campus platform, my cell phone, and the “sharing the class PPT” feature in Zoom. The screen isn’t big enough.
The class setup requires the projector to be on, the fancy speaker to be on with two specific lines for the microphone and the speaker for students to hear each other, and the computer to be on. It all seems so simple. Did I tell you I’m going through menopause? Great pandemic-menopause-brain is a thing. My colleague is exasperated helping me with a seemingly innocuous task. It is not that hard, until it is. I am near to tears every class because I can’t keep up. Am I just obsolete? I love the students, but I hate this.
For the first two weeks of classes their faces are bright-beacons of curiosity, eager to participate yet a slight apprehension about not being ready or good enough or concerned about the virus.
Week three. The class with 10 students coming in-person had three. The class with all nine students in person, only two students arrived. Three let me know they’d be all online for the rest of the semester. The third class…no one came to class. The third class should have 11 attendees.
“Oh, I had to work.”
“My internet isn’t working.”
“A family member has COVID.”
“I am quarantining, I may have been exposed.”
The faces, when I get to see them, are no longer bright. Only about half of the students are keeping their camera on. I ask for them to turn them on-but they have bandwidth issues. Too many in the house using the internet so service is unstable. They can’t have the camera and the sound on. They call in by phone. They don’t have the fancy background filters on their old computer. They are ashamed of their location. One student goes to campus to find the empty rooms with WIFI access. All four classes are asked if they just want to be all online. Three of the four do. The smallest class with only two or three in-person attendees still wants the option to meet in person. I drive to campus for them, two young men coming on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The deadlines and assignments due start coming in. And so do the letters from the Disability Resource Center.
“The student listed needs more time with assignments.”
“The student listed may have attendance problems and needs your support.”
“The student listed needs a proctored test with time and a half.”
“The student listed….”
The semester wears on. We are in a groove. Grading is a one-week turnaround. I don’t read the PPTs to students-let’s have discussion on the subject. One class consistently never reads the assignments. Ever. They rarely came prepared to class. Let’s pivot; go do the assignment now. Let’s discuss. Classes end after 45 minutes. I can only engage them so long. They seem relieved.
The Provost comes to visit a class. We haven’t been in person in five weeks. Three teams said they’d come. One team of four students showed up. Students were encouraged to share their collegiate experience. One admits she needs the structure of class and just gave up. She goes to one of the two classes we have together. Others berate the parking-paying for a full semester, which is nearly the same as a 3-credit class; apparently out of the 40 other classes no one else mentioned a prorated parking rate for the one class to come to campus for. The sharing function stops working while I try to talk to the groups in breakout rooms. The Provost tries to help me. Neither of us are successful. I’ve learned three different ways to see student work-in Zoom share, in Canvas collaborations, in Google Drive. Usually it’s Google drive; I’m just going to use it as the go-to solution.
The students agreed to finish up classes by the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The requests for the deadline extension continue to come. The stories of the students vary:
“I have COVID.”
“My roommate has COVID.”
“I had to move back home; I lost my job.”
“Moving this week because my sorority has too many COVID cases.”
“I’m being harassed and fear for my safety.”
“I’m having a rough semester,” which is as close as many of them can tell me about their mental health issues. It’s okay, I tell them. I’ll get you through.
About one-fourth of the students aren’t coming at all. Some text and let me know. Some I keep reaching out to as a line of connection, just in case they can. The brightest student I’ve taught in years I’ve seen in class three times. She is so smart. And the meds just aren’t working. The semester ends late December. I’ll work with you on your assignment deadlines. Let’s not assume you can stay up all night and catch up. One assignment at a time. I’ll get you through. I haven’t talked to her since October. She’s not the only one.
When the Provost came to class, I had an epiphany. I thought the students were zombies. Laying on their backs, laying on the couch, slouched in a chair. But they told the Provost they love my class. It’s not full of busy work and I haven’t given up, unlike some of their teachers. I realized I have an intimate view of how people look when they are watching TV. But they are watching. I kept my promise, I got them through.
Alison Gaulden, APR, Senior Lecturer for the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada Reno is a women’s and LGBTQ rights advocate, political activist, public relations professor, student mentor, competitive ballroom dancer and business owner. Her greatest accomplishment is teaching young people to use their voices and tell their stories. Before teaching at the university, this reproductive freedom fighter worked for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte for nearly 25 years.
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