Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel
By Ansley Keane ’23
Staff Writer
Editor’s Note: As of April 14, 2024, one interviewee’s name has been removed for their privacy.
For students around the globe, this academic year is proving to be one like no other. For Mount Holyoke students, not only are all classes online this fall, but the entire academic structure has been reimagined. As previously reported by the Mount Holyoke News, on May 14, 2020, former Dean of Faculty Jon Western shared a letter to the Mount Holyoke community outlining the seven-and-a-half-week semester system now used today. This model is known as Flexible Immersive Teaching or, more informally, the module system. According to the Academics page of the College’s Opening the Gates website, “The goal [of FIT] is to be flexible enough so that all students may participate, while preserving the immersive and rigorous academic experience of being in a Mount Holyoke class.” However, after completing just about half of Module 1, some students are feeling challenged by the switch to the module system.
The Academic Planning Group decided to recommend that classes be delivered via shorter, more intensive seven-and-a-half-week modules rather than the traditional 15-week semester for a number of reasons. Dean of Studies Amber Douglas noted that “students were struggling to manage multiple courses” when the College shifted to an emergency remote model in the spring of 2020. “It seemed like we were hearing consistently from students that the volume of courses and switching back and forth was really challenging,” Douglas said. By instituting the module system, students would only need to focus on two classes at a time, rather than the usual four or five, which could alleviate the problem of students feeling overwhelmed by the amount of courses they had to manage at the end of the spring.
Director of Teaching and Learning Initiatives Elizabeth Markovits said, “In the science and research around online learning, four courses at a time is not recommended.” Douglas noted that, when the Academic Planning Group decided on the module system, they were “taking into consideration all of our students” and that “we wanted to make sure we would have something flexible enough for students who were remote.” Markovits also mentioned the challenges faced by students in different time zones, asking, “With a 12-hour time difference, how do you take four classes at a time?”
Preserving the essence of a Mount Holyoke classroom environment was also a priority of members of the Academic Planning Group. Douglas explained that the committee “felt like the intensive approach was really going to replicate what happens in our classrooms more readily.” Markovits also mentioned that the module system offers some logistical advantages during the pandemic. “We knew from a study out of Cornell that if you’re taking two classes at a time, those are two networks,” Markovits said. Were students on campus and attending in-person classes this fall, the module system would allow for easier contact tracing because the average student would only be interacting with two groups, rather than four. Despite the necessity of meeting these numerous goals, Douglas summarized that “it’s really important just to underscore how much we were focused on students.”
While the module system was designed, in part, to make learning during a pandemic less overwhelming for students, it is not without flaws. Chisato Kimura ’22 shared that she has been rushing to get all her work done. “Missing one class is such a huge deal because everything is moving at such a fast pace,” Kimura said.
Liv Pitcher ’23 echoed that sentiment. When asked whether the module system improved her remote learning experience this semester, Pitcher replied, “It has made my learning experience significantly worse. I feel constantly stressed because there is always something new.”
Julia Wolf ’23 shared that “all of my classes are STEM which has made the module system not work for me.” Wolf also noted that “I feel that meeting 4 to 5 days a week is not helpful because I never get a break to absorb the material.” The amount of information students are being asked to learn in such a short time is tiring, but, as Kimura put it, “it’s not just the fault of the [module] system. There is a lot going on outside of school.”
Tasha Elizarde ’22, who is currently taking a class at Amherst College and a class at Hampshire College through the Five College Consortium, as well as one class at Mount Holyoke, shared, “I’ve found that both my classes in the [Five College] Consortium are less stressful than my module course. For those classes, I only have to attend class once or twice a week, and I feel like we’re able to build up our big assignments over time. While I think my professor did a great job at trying to build up to our final assignments, I still feel rushed to accomplish more than even a job would require me to do.”
Elizarde also noted that her Mount Holyoke professor has been considerate of how difficult the module system is for some students. “My Mount Holyoke course started out with a lot of work, but our professor was wonderful enough to change our workload after the midway course survey,” Elizarde said. Additionally, Elizarde mentioned that “all my professors, this and last semester, have been incredibly supportive during the pandemic and they are able to change my immediate learning environments.”
Markovits herself mentioned how difficult the module system can be and that faculty are also dealing with these challenges. “Everyone I know is exhausted, and I know people who don’t work at Mount Holyoke,” she said. “I want to acknowledge that the accelerated pace could be exacerbating [that].”
One First-Year, who took a gap year prior to starting at Mount Holyoke in August, also had mixed opinions of the module system. They said, “As someone who is neurodivergent, I appreciate that the focus is only on two subjects at one time. However, because of the shortened time in the classes, we have to process a lot of information much more quickly than if we were in person. That is very difficult for me to do.”
The First-Year also made the point that “I’m not even sure we [can] judge [the module system] on whether it’s a ‘good’ thing or a ‘bad’ thing. It’s a thing that happened amidst a global pandemic because students, staff and faculty were all trying to figure out a way to make a Mount Holyoke education and experience happen as best [as] they could.”
Douglas shared that “we were trying to translate [the Mount Holyoke experience] into this different environment” in creating the module system. Students are currently only halfway through the first of four modules, so there is room for adjustments throughout the rest of the academic year.