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i'm teaching two composition classes at a big public university in Detroit, and one literature class at a smaller private university, and i am exceedingly stoked to say that both universities are being fairly responsible and conscientious in dealing with this mess, and all of my teaching is online synchronous via Zoom...
...which i know is not ideal--i miss the classrooms and campuses dearly--but is definitely a best-case alternative. i have a shit ton of enthusiasm and energy, so i've been pretty good at keeping my classes engaged thus far.
i feel bad for my students though--it's like taking all of the fun and social stuff out of the experience, and it's just the scholarly grind. i think it would be fair if the universities at least temporarily made tuition less for this "remote" learning--no matter how much integrity, preparation, and enthusiasm instructors have, something is by all means lost without the classroom. of course, i am an adjunct professor, so i couldn't make much less than i do for each 3-credit class...
i always said i would never teach online, period, but alas, necessity...
I think the kids should be able to wave a lot of the fees associated with being in person, but, I disagree with the idea of tuition reduction.
Arizona State charges the same for online as they do in-person classes and they've done this for a long time. Online isn't the same, but I feel there is some romanticization of the in person experience.
Prior to getting my act together as an undergrad, it didn't matter whether my class was in person or online, I just wasted the professor's time and didn't gain anything.
i get this perspective too--trust me. i just know the experience has been fundamentally transformed, and a lot of what young people enjoy about going to college--which really does help to balance out the hard work--is lost right now.
i teach at Wayne State University in Detroit, and apparently enrollment is up this fall, but tellingly, there's paradoxically all kinds of budget issues ("crises") across the university in the different schools and departments. to me, this says everything about the racket of university educations, and how much is lost when something as seemingly insignificant as parking--for instance--is drastically reduced. so like Alan at least partly jokes above, cutting the bloated pay at the top amongst admins (or amongst the bloated tenured fogies), to allow for reductions in tuition might be a nice option in a better world, but of course won't happen.
what happens in the classroom is by all means romanticized at times, and plenty of students are "present" physically, but probably would be better off online. but what does happen in the classroom even when only a handful of students care and are engaged, is why i got into all of this in the first place...
I see your point of view and I think there is quite a bit of merit in your argument, but I still disagree for a few reasons:
1) I'm doubtful that most college students take the education part seriously. I worry most don't care about the education and it is really just a middle/upper-class party that offers them the opportunity to gain a credential that allows them to feel better than their peers couldn't afford to fuck around for 4 years and actually had to work. So, I have less sympathy for the notion of the social aspect of college.
My anecdotal example, comes from a prof I TAed for during my last year of university. He would do a pop-quiz once a semester that ask his students, "What article we read for class?" Each year the majority of kids couldn't identify the article by name, author, or topic. He would cancelled class because no one was prepared and took his TAs out for lunch. Dude was awesome and insanely frustrated with the lack of effort on the part of his students.
2) I didn't participate in the college lifestyle and I don't feel I missed out on anything. I went to class as soon as it was over I went skating or to work at a local shop. The skate world provided an amazing social life... although, my "social capital" in professional world remains weak since most of my skater friends didn't go down that road.
3) I blame the "tax payer"/libertarian retreat from supporting education, which encourages this reliance on dorms, parking fees, meal plans, etc. Using Arizona as an example again, the state constitution says that higher ed should be as close to free as possible. The Gov. cut 100 million out of ASU, UofA, and NAU's budgets a few years ago, because we need to lower taxes. The schools have to have bottom line business goons like President Crow who charge fees for everything and sell college as a luxury resort in order to make ends meet because the state refuses to pitch in, what else are they going to do?
Despite the lofty goals and the few students who really want to learn, universities strike me as overpriced holiday retreats for spoiled children because selling "hard work" isn't something most consumer's want nor do they want to pay a lot of money for it. Universities sell credentials and "fun" to middle-class suburban kids so their parents can justify passing down their professional class positions in society.
And, unfortunately, despite the faculty's dreams for their students, the universities probably just saddles working-class kids without connections with debt. Even if those working class kids gain knowledge, skills, etc., the job market is all about connections, so they're still fucked.
Topic: Corona Virus. What's going on where you live? (Read 93038 times)