A Plan for the Worst
COVID-19 has already uprooted Wash U’s 2020 Spring Semester, with in-person classes canceled for the remainder of the semester and most students sent home. Wash U has also shifted Summer classes online, and grim as it may seem, administrators and students should begin planning for the possibility that the pandemic may continue to pose an insurmountable obstacle to in-person classes in Fall 2020. The CDC predicts a second wave of coronavirus cases, and most infectious disease experts warn that cases may rise following the removal of social distancing restrictions. Hopefully, some combination of restrictions on large gatherings, pervasive testing, contact tracing, and experimental treatments will limit the danger of a second wave and allow for in-person Fall classes. As a university community, however, we should plan for the worst.
Another semester of mandatory online coursework seems unacceptable. Social science research shows that online classes do not adequately replicate classroom instruction. GMU Professor Spiros Protopsaltis and Skidmore Professor Sandy Baum found that online learning leads to worse outcomes than classroom instruction, and exacerbates socioeconomic disparities. A Brookings report surveying existing literature found the same.
Frankly, however, we don’t need statistical research to know that learning from a bedroom cannot possibly rival learning in a top tier, 169-acre facility designed expressly for education. Online education isolates students from their learning partners, including both professors and other students. Zoom enables rudimentary lecturing and discussion, but it cannot replicate the experience of listening and asking questions in real time. Nor can Zoom simulate the experience of studying with a group of other students, books collectively strewn across a common room table. Worse, students lack access to Wash U’s world-class facilitates. While social science and humanities students might make do without smart boards littered across campus, science and engineering students cannot possibly master their disciplines without labs and Sam Fox students cannot learn without their studio spaces. Wash U’s many partnerships within the St. Louis region, so often touted by the university, have similarly been stripped from students. Online learning shrinks the Wash U bubble to the size of a computer screen.
Even if online education could overcome these pragmatic barriers, the emotional toll of online learning frequently overwhelms students. Most students have built-in support structures at Wash U, both through campus mental health facilities and other students. Expecting equal levels of learning from students whose only remaining support comes from their family ignores the crucial role that in-person networks play in students’ lives. Similarly, the lack of structure makes motivation and maintaining a strong work ethic extremely difficult, even for students who make every effort to stay engaged. Particularly for incoming First-Years with no experience managing college coursework, the challenge of beginning on their own may prove too much.
Note that I do not intend to criticize the university’s current policies. No safe alternative existed to shifting to online classes for Spring 2020, and the university deserves credit for trying to make online learning as effective as possible in dire circumstances. Looking forward, however, it’s clear that the university cannot force students to choose between paying Wash U tuition prices for a virtual semester and dropping out.
One alternative to shifting to a mandatory semester of online classes would be canceling the semester or postponing it until Spring. While this proposal may be preferable to online classes, it has serious flaws. Some students may intend to graduate in a four-year timeline, or not wish to take so much time away from their studies. They may have financial motivation to graduate as soon as possible, even if they didn’t have to pay for the canceled semester. Canceling a semester also has serious logistical difficulties. The university would find itself with 1,783 more students than normal competing for housing and class space the next Fall, as the Class of 2021 would not graduate until December 2021.
In the face of such poor options, the university should emphasize providing students as many choices as possible. Each individual student has unique circumstances and preferences, and either mandating online classes or a deferred semester will be to the detriment of some. Only individual students know which group they fall into, and so they should be allowed to choose the best path forward for themselves. Moreover, this pandemic has already taken so many choices away from students, like the rest of the population. Offering students options on how to proceed will ensure that students feel the university has done right by them and reassure them that the university holds their best interests at heart.
[pullquote]We don’t need statistical research to know that learning from a bedroom cannot possibly rival learning in a top tier, 169-acre facility designed expressly for education.[/pullquote]
I propose that Wash U offer an optional and discounted online semester in the Fall with an extremely flexible leave of absence policy designed to make individualized postponement as workable as possible. The goal should be to minimize the number of students who enroll in online classes to avoid worse learning outcomes, while retaining the virtual semester as an option. Toward that end, the online Fall semester should be opt-in only, and students should be reassured that they will face no penalty for skipping the semester. The administration and individual academic departments should guarantee students the ability to participate in traditionally year-long programs, like senior theses. The University should offer a full First-Year orientation in the Spring, and emphasize to incoming First-Years that their true Wash U experience begins on campus.
A key element for ensuring this proposal’s workability is offering a significantly expanded Summer program in 2021, designed to mirror a Fall or Spring semester as closely as possible in terms of expected course offerings and courseload. In the best-case scenario for both students and the administration, Fall and Summer semesters would effectively switch roles, with the Fall offering a limited selection of online courses and the bulk of students returning for the Summer. A high-enrollment Summer semester benefits students by allowing for a greater variety of classes, an academic and social atmosphere mimicking the school year, and an opportunity for seniors to graduate as close as possible to on time. It offers parallel benefits to the administration, expediting the return of lost revenue and minimizing the number of additional students forced to return in the Fall.
Many reasonable objections can be made to this proposal, the first being financial. If relatively few students choose to enroll in the online Fall Semester, the university would see a dramatic decline in tuition and pre-college summer program revenue at the same time as it loses significant housing, dining, and patient services revenue. Yet in 2019, tuition accounted for a mere 12.5% of the total revenue. In fact, the university still would have made a profit in 2019 even with no tuition revenue at all. Although the figures for 2020 and 2021 will surely be quite different due to the loss of other revenue from the pandemic, tuition fees will not make or break the school’s ability to pay its expenses. More importantly, Wash U would not really be losing its Fall tuition revenue, but deferring it into the Summer. Given the university’s significant endowment reserves and typical yearly margins, this delay in revenue should be an acceptable price to pay for a vastly improved student experience.
Another potential worry would be enough members of the Class of 2021 opting to remain at the university for Fall 2021 such that the university would lack the faculty or housing space to accommodate them. I suspect that if the Summer semester was advertised and operated properly, very few class of 2021 members would actually stay on past that summer. Certainly, that number would be small enough that classes could accommodate them. Although I lack sufficient data on Wash U’s surplus housing each semester, the small influx of super seniors could likely be accommodated. If absolutely necessary, the university could announce to potential super seniors that they may not have guaranteed housing in Fall 2021.
Some of the most troubling objections to my proposal regard the expanded Summer semester’s jarring impact on faculty, who typically have the summer off for research. Hopefully, faculty will welcome the substitution of the Fall for the Summer and conduct their typical Summer activities in the Fall while teaching the Summer. Faculty should also receive bonuses for the schedule adjustment, which would further complicate the school’s financial situation, though not detrimentally.
Finally, effectively replacing the Fall semester with a Summer semester would preclude students from taking on internship opportunities in 2021, either deterring enrollment or requiring students to miss out. I don’t see a silver bullet on this issue. Academic departments can help by loosening restrictions on counting internships for credit so that students feel empowered to seek employment at a remote or St. Louis-based internship concurrent with their classes. The career center can help students find remote or safe in-person opportunities in the Fall, even if classes cannot return. Ultimately, however, some students will inevitably pass on a Summer semester to take on an internship, while others will make the hard sacrifice of an internshipless Summer. All the university can do is give students that choice.
The objections presented here are serious, and none can be easily dismissed. Operating on my proposed schedule would not be easy, nor painless, but pandemics are not known for being easy or painless. Given the dearth of alternatives, Wash U should do everything it can to give students options for how to proceed in unprecedented times. That means offering, but not encouraging, online coursework while building out an appealing Summer alternative. If that option still seems like a worst-case scenario, that’s because it is. It’s still possible, maybe even likely, that the pandemic will be under control by Fall and this article will be nothing more than a dispiriting waste of time. Let’s hope so.