A couple weeks ago, NC State sent an email to all students announcing changes to the method of instruction for many fall classes. Many previously in-person classes are likely to be shifted to online or hybrid versions in order to protect students from the spread of COVID-19. For those who haven’t checked, many classes have already been updated with this information in the Planning and Enrollment > Class Schedule section on their MyPack Portal.
While I agree with my colleague that this was a wise decision by the administration, the University must continue to be lenient with students in the coming semester, allowing us to make changes that advance our success without the normal penalties associated with them.
For instance, last semester students were given the option to switch to a pass/fail grading system in all of their courses and still have them count towards their degree requirements. The time scale on this was remarkably generous as well, with the deadline actually ending just last week, well after everyone could see their final grades.
This semester, our return to campus will allow students to communicate more effectively with their professors and teaching assistants, which will surely help with students’ success in the classroom. Additionally, everyone who enrolled for the fall semester could easily have assumed even before the University’s email that several of their classes might be conducted online.
That said, an online environment is not ideal for all students, myself included. It’s difficult to adhere to schedules when you have to stay in one location all day and not being counted absent is as simple as muting and blanking your screen on a Zoom call. The structure of meeting at a set time and place for a class helps with focusing on the specific subject that we associate with that location.
For this reason, the University should continue to offer some leniency in the grading system, even if it is not as generous in scope as that offered last semester. Zoom classes don’t necessarily demonstrate our real potential as students, and our transcripts shouldn’t suffer as a result.
Online classes do have one considerable upside though, in that one can participate wherever they have internet access and a quiet environment, enabling students with many online classes to head home for an extended weekend or to care for a family member. This semester, students who only have online classes — again a category I find myself in — have the opportunity to simply stay home, where they can dodge dining hall food and an expensive meal plan in favor of a home-cooked meal.
Unfortunately, students who signed up for housing back in February, well before COVID-19 was on any average person’s radar, might be stuck with their assignment. Normally, a fairly hefty cancellation fee is assessed on any student who cancels their housing agreement after signing on. This fee increased to $400 on June 1, several days before we received the email from the University which informed us that classes may switch online, and certainly well before any students knew that they had all online classes.
The administration should waive this fee, as well as any others related to cancelling on-campus services that a student may no longer wish to use in the fall. There are any number of reasons why a student would want to remain home, but while in an ideal world the Wolfpack would be all together in our Raleigh den, the world of 2020 is not ideal, and the administration should be sympathetic to its students’ needs.
NC State showed excellent leadership last semester by moving quickly to close down campus and comply with social distancing guidelines, likely saving thousands of students from illness. In addition, empathetic policies enabled students dealing with a stressful time not to suffer in the long run for this unprecedented situation. The University should continue that model in the coming semester to ensure that every student can move forward successfully.
