So much for my prognosticatory powers.
Before the start of Fall semester, I predicted Penn State would shut down by Oct. 1. I wasn’t being contrarian. Hardly anyone I knew expected undergraduates to heed administration warnings to “Mask Up or Pack Up.”
Reports were pouring in from around the country of students doing exactly what the decision makers hoped they would not do: clumping and spreading the coronavirus. In-person instruction at the University of North Carolina lasted one week. No way this’ll work at Penn State, we said.
On Aug. 19, before classes even started, video of a throng of Penn State freshmen outside the dorms ricocheted around social media.
“You see?” we sages said. “You see?”
From March through most of June, Centre County’s daily new case count remained in single digits. The numbers started rising during the last week in August – the first week of the Fall semester: 20 on Aug. 29. Then: 47 on Sept. 2; 184 on Sept. 9; 212 on Sept. 15.
The next day, the Big Ten called a reverse: There would be a football season after all. No butts on the bleachers at Beaver Stadium, but as you may have noticed, people like to watch televised sporting contests together. Surely if the local caseload wasn’t out of control before the first game, on Oct. 24, things would get scary after it.
Well, the numbers rose in late October and on into November, but not high enough, apparently, to convince Old Main to shutter the residence halls and end in-person instruction before the scheduled pivot to online learning after Thanksgiving.
Maybe the brass realized that it wouldn’t make much difference. Students with leases on off-campus apartments wouldn’t automatically go home to Mom and Dad just because they no longer needed to show their faces in the Willard Building every couple of days.
So now here we are in the last week of class. Was the semester a success? As Bill Clinton might say, that depends on what your definition of success is. We got through it.
From the hybrid trenches came reports that in-person attendance plummeted as the semester wore on. Though students taking online classes said they missed being in the classroom, those who could choose between coming to campus and attending via Zoom began staying home. Probably the onset of chilly weather was a factor.
I stayed out of classrooms altogether. I met my students outside on the first day of class in balmy August and Zoomed thereafter. I told them last week that I doubt I would recognize any of them if I saw them on the street, which is a sad thing.
I didn’t hate teaching online as much as I thought I would, though. It was rarely a joyful experience, but it wasn’t miserable, either. For better or worse, online Professor Frank wasn’t all that different from live Professor Frank – same jokes no one laughs at, same old “war stories” from my own career as a reporter, same exhortations to sweat the small stuff.
As for my students, the word that best describes the prevailing mood was morose. Who can blame them? Fall 2020 was college life without the life, just the college.
Consider this comment from a junior interviewed by Rachel Elms, a student in my news writing class:
“We take classes in the same spot and every class looks the same, as it is a professor with their screen shared and a black sea of student names…School…just…doesn’t have the same feel as walking to classes, talking to new students, and communicating and connecting live and in-person with the professor.”
I, too, missed these things. Working at home can be pleasant – I especially liked teaching barefoot — but there is almost no chance that anything surprising will happen. More than I missed going to talks, performances, gatherings, I missed the element of serendipity in daily life.
Now, it all gets even tougher. Winter looms. So does another semester of teaching online. With no plans to travel or see anyone over the holidays, or even do anything fun on the weekends, it feels like there’s nothing to look forward to.
Just before Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law in Dallas came down with COVID-19. He was hospitalized for two weeks. This was the first time someone close to me was laid low. As happens when the news gets personal, awareness of the dangerousness of the disease sank in at a deeper level.
Now that Marty’s home, though, and regaining strength day by day, reasons for gratitude have also sunk in at a deeper level. He’s getting better. Everyone else in my life remains healthy. Then there are the mainstays: love, work, food, shelter. Check, check, check and check.
In winter, I make myself take walks every day. For the first 10 minutes, I’m cold and cranky. Then I warm up. By the time I get home, I’m mildly euphoric.
These days, mild euphoria may be as good as it gets.
