By Rehat Thussu ’23 & Casey Roepke ’21
Staff Writer & News Editor
While the majority of course offerings this spring remain entirely online, Mount Holyoke began some in-person teaching this past week. According to Elizabeth Markovits, associate dean of faculty, the College is offering 17 hybrid courses, four courses with in-person meetings outside of normal hours and 29 that “occasionally” meet in person. Physical education classes, laboratory courses and independent studies also may offer in-person components depending on individual situations.
“Faculty determine how to best meet the learning goals of their courses, given the health and safety considerations in place,” Markovits said. “All courses need to have the remote option given how many of our students remain off campus. We don’t anticipate dramatic changes at this time, although we are all constantly adjusting given the dynamic and evolving public health conditions.”
Some classes were designed specifically to run entirely in person, such as COLL-208: Histories, Memories and Legacies, a course designed for first-year international students, as their visa requires them to take at least one in-person class on campus. Kareena Guness ’24 is a student in this class.
“I think it’s a wonderful class and a safe space for me to express my views and concerns,” Guness said. “Everything can easily become overwhelming for an international student, so I think this class is really helping us get accustomed to life in the U.S.”
There are also other courses, like the PHYS-220 Intermediate Laboratory course, which are hybrid, with some students in person and others entirely remote.
Neal Abraham, a professor of physics and the instructor for the intermediate lab class, prepared ahead of time for the transition into in-person learning. “I was doing all of the setting up of experimental apparatus and data taking during the first two weeks while the on-campus students were quarantined and taking the course remotely before in-person work was permitted,” he said. “Having some students in the laboratory working with the apparatus gives me added clues to student learning, more than I get from teaching students who are learning remotely, which helps me adapt the exercises and presentations to their needs.”
“Besides the nitty-gritty of being in the same room as a classmate and a professor, I feel very lucky for being able to be in the lab,” Lindsey Hands ’22, a student taking PHYS-220 in person, said. “The first two weeks of class were spent in quarantine, and … it was hard to focus and conceptualize the experiments that my prof[essor] was running for us.”
For Hands, transitioning back to in-person learning involved some adjustments. “One thing that makes me laugh — and cringe a little — is after almost a full year of Zoom classes and meetings, making eye contact with a prof[essor] feels very strange,” Hands said. “Also, making all those audible signs you are listening … is something I stopped doing over Zoom, and now I feel strange nodding in silence as my professor speaks but also strange making those signs. It’s not something I thought I would have to get used to again.”
To meet COVID-19 health and safety regulations for in-person learning, students taking in-person classes must wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines. Students in the physics laboratory course clean their equipment and sanitize the classroom at the end of each class.
According to Hands, the transition to hybrid learning has not been entirely seamless. “[A] downside [to hybrid learning] is the clumsy navigation of three laptops and sometimes a tablet all on the same Zoom call, separated by 6 feet,” Hands said. “We’ve turned the piercing feedback shrieks into a nifty physics lesson on the finite nature of the speed of sound.”
Still, despite the challenges, many students are happy to be back in the classroom. “As a person who wants to go into research as a career, it’s exciting to have some autonomy in an actual lab,” Hands said.
“Given the unprecedented times we are living in, in-person classes seem unreal,” Guness said. “Remote classes and Zoom burnout can be really detrimental. I'm really thankful for having an in-person class where I can actually interact and meet with people — while taking all the required COVID[-19]-related precautions, of course.”