Hybrid classes provide a combination of in-person and digital classroom activities which allow students to learn in away that best suits their needs. Photo by Ella Shelton '26.
By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23 & Kaveri Pillai ’23
Opinion Editors
Mount Holyoke College returned to a fully residential experience in Fall 2021 for the first time since the campus began remote learning in March 2020. In an email to students from March 2021, former College president Sonya Stephens addressed the Mount Holyoke community about plans for Fall 2021 and beyond. Stephens stated, “Faculty and students will be engaged in our campus learning environment together, and we will make any adjustments needed to continue to protect health and safety.”
As outlined in the email, the College settled back into its residential program for students, akin to the system followed before the COVID-19 pandemic altered the college experience. Students again began attending in-person classes and continue to do so in Fall 2022. However, this return to in-person instruction has made little effort to acknowledge the continued need for hybrid models to support instruction — this decision has instead been left to the discretion of professors alone.
Mount Holyoke’s administration needs to do better in instituting and supporting the delivery of hybrid models of instruction alongside synchronous classes. Failure to adapt to these models of instruction and a lack of support from College higher-ups for professors in implementing a working hybrid system has the potential to hinder student performance in the classroom. There is an urgent need for the institution to support alternate modes of instruction on campus and a need for an active push from the administration to accommodate faculty and students on a campus where COVID-19 is still a reality.
In 2020, education systems nationwide were forced to adapt to the growing threat of COVID-19, with most of them shifting from physical classrooms to online spaces. According to a 2021 study published by The Brookings Institution, the academic year of 2020-2021 marked the widespread inclusion of the hybrid system in primary and secondary schools as they incorporated elements of synchronous and asynchronous activities to slowly reintroduce an almost-normal way of learning. The University of Edinburgh’s explanation of their hybrid instruction on their website echoes systems followed by educational institutions worldwide. Hybrid teaching, as per The University of Edinburgh, consists of a “mixture of digital and on-campus activities, where students may be able to attend on-campus sessions, digital sessions in the same time zone or digital sessions in a different time zone.”
Mount Holyoke announced its hybrid learning model — the module system — in 2020, following a message from former Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Jon Western on May 14, 2020. This academic system would divide the regular 16-credit semester into two seven and a half week halves and was designed specifically for the 2020-2021 academic year. As per Western’s message, students were allowed to take two four-credit courses per module with an option to take a full semester two-credit course or independent study. Mount Holyoke’s hybrid-module classes were delivered primarily for remote learning systems, commonly employing synchronous zoom sessions and often access to its recordings, asynchronous discussions forum posts and more.
While introduced primarily for remote learning, aspects of the module system are still relevant to the national classroom experiences during in person instruction in 2022. The current situation of COVID-19 in the U.S. supports the idea of maintaining hybrid modes of instruction made familiar to students during remote learning.
According to NPR, on Sept. 16, 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, is paraphrased as saying, “[COVID-19] is still killing hundreds of people every day, which means more than 125,000 additional [COVID-19] deaths could occur over the next 12 months if deaths continue at that pace.” Moreover, in the same month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discussed the post-COVID-19 conditions as people have been experiencing symptoms after infection. Symptoms ranging from respiratory and heart problems to issues with the digestive system allude to the general interference of COVID-19 even months after infection.
However, Mount Holyoke has conversely been working toward easing COVID-19 restrictions, especially now, during the Fall 2022 semester. Interim President Beverly Daniel Tatum shared plans for the semester in a Letter to the Community on July 28, 2022, on how the College would continue moving toward pre-pandemic operations as, according to Tatum, “strategies are shifting, locally, nationally and internationally, toward policies that help us live with COVID-19 as an ever-present part of our daily lives.”
As of this Fall 2022 semester, the College no longer requires biweekly testing. However, in an Oct. 21, 2022 email, President Tatum responded to a student-led group, MHC COVID Safety Now Collective, on their concerns for isolation housing for students who test positive for COVID-19, announcing that process this will recommence in November. On Oct. 14, 2022, Mount Holyoke lifted the mask mandate as a result of limited cases on campus. However, these national statistics regarding the ongoing effects of COVID-19 must push the institution to address the prevalence of a global health crisis and the risk it still poses on some level to students and faculty academically.
COVID-19 is still present on campus. This means that contracting COVID-19 or being a close contact to someone who has tested positive are still realities. In grappling with this, students must navigate how they balance out academic commitments and attend class. Hannah Watt ’25 spoke on the need for the school to come up with hybrid modes of instruction as a way to help students balance out class attendance and their health, noting the unclear policies followed by most of her classes. She said, “I think some of my classes can do a better job of incorporating these asynchronous options into the course for people who cannot attend a certain day.”
Watt emphasized how essential it is for the school to accommodate students who miss out on classes, even for reasons that go beyond COVID-19 infections, and said, “I have had days where I simply have too much going on in my life and need to regroup and rest so that I can keep going in the long run. Having asynchronous options allows me to still keep up with my coursework when something comes up so that I can still accommodate my mental and physical health while also keeping up with my classes.”
“I have had days where I simply have too much going on in my life and need to regroup and rest so that I can keep going in the long run. Having asynchronous options allows me to still keep up with my coursework when something comes up so that I can still accommodate my mental and physical health while also keeping up with my classes.”
What Watt’s quote successfully manages to highlight is not just the rising and existing threat of COVID-19, but also the way in which the pandemic has presented us with the opportunity to revise the way we conduct classes and go about academic assessment. This was partially done at Mount Holyoke in the 2020-2021 academic year with the adoption of the module system.
Herein, the need for modes of instruction outside of the synchronous in-person classroom becomes increasingly important, and the module system previously followed by Mount Holyoke, or additional modes of asynchronous instruction, provides one such solution. This module system was not unique to Mount Holyoke’s 2020-2021 academic plan alone. The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned in 2021 that liberal arts schools across the country deemed the module system and the division of the semester into two halves to be “logistically and intellectually easier for students than juggling four [classes] at once.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education noted that the module system additionally aids students living across time zones because students were expected to manage a comparatively easier course load with maximum engagement as professors planned five-day week schedules. The article also acknowledged how the latter characteristic benefited in addressing alienation experienced in students once online interactions with students and professors were increased during the module system.
Moreover, some long term possibilities were touched upon briefly in the article when it proposed that due to the rapid evolution of the global health crisis, institutions were pushed to entertain two key questions. With the module system forcing institutions to condense their academic content, professors were being made to question what really mattered in terms of what was being taught and what the importance was for revising these learning outcomes. While these two concerns require much evaluation, it benefits us in entertaining the idea of how the pandemic has perhaps pushed us to question the pre-COVID-19 style of teaching.
Serin Houston, associate professor of geography and international relations, echoed the need for rethinking and revising classroom teaching and learning. She said, “The pandemic allowed me to re-think my courses and review the way we set our learning outcomes, goals and purpose and how we replicate dominant and oppressive structures of higher education.”
She went on by commenting on why there is an urgency to revolutionize the way we operate in a higher education system because of the factors that have influenced it into its current being. She said, “I’ve recently been reading this book, “The New College Classroom” by Christina Katopodis and Cathy Davidson, that talks about the influence of industrialization in the Western higher education system that works towards producing a global managerial class — something that still holds relevance. I am personally committed to the transformative possibilities of higher [education] and I push myself to rethink the standard metrics that make the system inaccessible and exclusive and push it towards a consolidation of elite power.”
However, all is not lost as Houston listens to the way she has been tackling the challenge of the higher education system. She said, “As I opt for an active learning pedagogy in my classes that prioritizes learning opportunities for students as they get to build and believe in their capabilities, I hope that we can challenge the traditional systems and structures of power that dominate higher [education]. There is a need to revise the language and texts that we draw upon in classes and not replicate the voices that we have heard far too often. This is something that I strive for in all of my classes.”
On the other hand, professors at Mount Holyoke are making an active effort to address the situation of including hybrid modes of instruction on their own. Mount Holyoke Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Bianka Ballina of the Department of Film Media Theater commented on how she is working on making in-person instruction work, especially for students who miss out on classes due to issues with health. Ballina said, “In the past, I have had students Zoom into lectures when they cannot attend in person due to COVID-19. This semester I have opted out of that and instead offer to meet separately with students who must miss class due to COVID-19 or other health reasons. My understanding is that resuming full in-person instruction is the goal.”
Ajay Sinha, professor of art history and architectural studies, has been teaching at Mount Holyoke since before the COVID-19 pandemic, through the College’s remote instruction and since our return to in person instruction. Sinha highlighted the success of incorporating different modes of instructions for a successful classroom experience that still considers the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic as a reality on the Mount Holyoke campus. Sinha’s art history courses are discussion-heavy and require synchronous, in-person classes as the primary method of delivery, but he understands how COVID-19 still impedes attendance. He noted how quite a few of his students, especially during the first half of this semester, were unable to attend classes due to health concerns largely related to COVID-19.
“The first half of the semester, I had at least one student on Zoom in all of the classes I have been teaching,” Sinha explained. Sinha makes efforts to invite students who may be unable to participate in in-person instruction to join classes virtually. He discusses how the classroom environment is essential to learning and cannot be made up simply through office hours or asynchronously. “There is so much that comes out of discussion [that] cannot be replicated.” He therefore highlights the importance of having a system that acknowledges COVID-19, quarantining and staying true to the Mount Holyoke academic experience.
Professor Sinha’s classes are one successful example at Mount Holyoke, but there are students and professors who may require more assistance and guidance on why and how to conduct hybrid modes of instruction. Not all professors may know why and how to implement hybrid models in the classroom, and a framework from the administration to support this becomes vital. Student experiences show it is clear not all classes make enough efforts to acknowledge COVID-19 concerns.
Liv Pitcher ’23, while happy to be back to in-person classes, expressed her disappointment over the lack of provisions to accommodate students who might be in isolation: “I think it is irresponsible not to have an option for students who are isolating, especially when it is as simple as having Zoom open on a laptop so they can hear what is happening.”
Pitcher further discussed how there is a difference in her classroom experiences across courses, with some more attuned to COVID-19 and needs for asynchronous modes of assessment and instruction while others have little to no regard for it. “I have only seen a few teachers use Moodle to the fullest extent it can be used. In one of my classes, my professor is using the feature that allows students to essentially create their own Wikipedia pages within the class Moodle so we can look at each other’s work. Given how much money we pay to use Moodle, it feels like a missed opportunity not to use it more,” Pitcher continued.
Watt echoed this point raised by Pitcher about the inept and insufficient use of and access to technology and said, “I believe the College also needs to do a better job in providing professors with the resources to offer hybrid options, as in some of my classes last year we simply did not have the technology to do so. In some cases the classroom computers did not have a camera or there was no microphone to pick up audio from the class. The Wi-Fi also presented several connection issues that still pose challenges to conducting work in class [and] even in regular life.”
For a hybrid system to function, the College needs to actively work on creating and maintaining an infrastructure that supports the usage of technology and the internet to facilitate remote and asynchronous instruction. The lack of initiative taken by administrators grossly assumes that faculty members are proficient at using the necessary technology to conduct hybrid modes of instruction and abandons them, and students, to take on new ways of teaching and learning by themselves.
Without a clear chain of command in terms of who has access to what kind of resources and who professors and students can turn to in need for advice on alternate modes of instruction, students and professors might experience isolation from the institution. This can prove to be detrimental to the relationship these groups of people have to the College, endangering school-made promises made regarding the welfare of its faculty and students and encouraging and ensuring academic rigor.
Students and professors have been navigating COVID-19 in the classroom on their own, and the College administration must do better in mandating some degree of a hybrid model for professors to follow to ease student concerns and support professors.
With the currently limited resources and support through COVID-19 policies from the Mount Holyoke administration, the support offered to students in classes may be more limited, thereby affecting their involvement and engagement with course material. There is a need for the College to deliver on their responsibility to students’ classroom experience.