Gaeun Lee
reporter
With in-person classes returning in the fall, faculty members have mixed feelings about returning to campus.
NE Spanish instructor Marsha Hall looks forward to the productivity that wasn’t available remotely.
“The loss of teaching time because of technology issues and delays were huge problems for me,” she said.
Hall said the biggest disadvantage of virtual learning was the limited ability to develop relationships with people, a problem other faculty members struggled with.
South academic adviser Joan Gomez said she hasn’t been able to meet her new coworkers face-to-face since she began her position in October.
“I also have no idea where my office will be on the campus since I haven’t been able to be assigned an office space,” she said.
SE art instructor Mary Holcomb said she asked herself a lot of questions about returning. She wonders how everything will look and how things will differ from the past.
“I think one thing that will be different is that students will be more involved in class,” Holcomb said. “Both instructors and students have missed having learning communities, and I think the in-person classes will be more exciting than ever before.”
Gomez said despite sometimes feeling isolated at home, she prefers working remotely.
“Although I am able to interact well with both my coworkers and students face-to-face, I am not as nervous to do so remotely and am therefore able to be more confident when speaking and advising by telephone and online,” Gomez said.
Hall likes the fact that students who are not able to attend live lectures still have a chance to hear and watch recordings of them.
“There is an opportunity to have students from all over the United States join the class,” Hall said.
She said she would choose to teach online classes if she could because of the convenience
“Another advantage has been that I do not have to drive in traffic each day to go to my job, which also means that I am saving gas,” Gomez said.
Because Gomez is working remotely these days, she said she is at home during all of her working hours and if her children need her for anything, she is nearby.
“I have also been able to easily help my daughter with her school work,” Gomez said.
Along with these conveniences of virtual class, Gomez said she thinks the time is too soon to determine whether everyone should go back because nobody knows how things will progress through the summer.
“I don’t think the school can make a rule that students must accept the vaccines, but maybe they will make a rule that only students with vaccines can take the classes on campus,” Gomez said.
Some faculty and staff can possibly rotate to do their work on each campus so the same employees are not constantly exposed to the danger of virus, she said.
“On the more practical side of things, I do think that we will have to keep preventive measures in place to keep everyone safe and healthy,” Holcomb said. “And that will be something that we are somewhat used to, but not within the college setting, perhaps.”
