(137c) Interventions to Mitigate Loss of Community during COVID-19

The switch to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic caught everyone by surprise, but faculty worked together to quickly transition. The administration worked to help student set up home learning stations by loaning them equipment and providing IT assistance. In terms of mechanics, everything seemed to be working. Students quickly learned, however, that webcams were overrated. Live-streaming video destabilized their already weak internet connections. Coupled with Wi-fi frustration is the requirement that you and your roommates must be dressed and the room be some semblance of clean. Students rarely turned on their cameras. For faculty this meant talking to a bunch of black squares with names. For students, they lost their peers.

In Spring of 2020, the loss of community was overlooked. Students’ established study groups and communication channels for the semester were challenged by the campus closure. Though functional, academic life had become strange and unsatisfying. The Fall 2020 classes were a different experience. Although there were still technology challenges, support systems were in place to provide lectures, host discussions and even to perform lab experiments safely. The university was most concerned about the social interactions amongst the freshmen and worked vigorously to build relationships among peers. Seniors generally had well-established relationships with their classmates. Sophomores still had their freshman networks but were beginning to branch off into their selected majors. The juniors were most affected by the loss of community. Their friends who were in other majors did not understand the challenges they were facing with transport phenomenon or reactor design. Many juniors dropped their most challenging courses or withdrew from school to wait until in-person classes were available. An unusually large number of students landed on academic probation.

As associate chair for undergraduate studies, I reached out to all students on academic probation and invited them to set up weekly Zoom meetings with me. Two accepted my invitation in Fall 2020. During our 5- to 15-minute sessions they talked about their academic and home lives without judgment from me. I was able to point out resources they may have been unaware of, but generally tried to avoid giving unsolicited advice. I encouraged them to find something to look forward to each week. By the end of the semester, they had both completed all courses successfully and were no longer in academic jeopardy. I repeated this for Spring 2021 and had three students sign on with similar success. In the presentation I will look at common characteristics of those who chose to meet with me and why this was helpful to them.

In Spring of 2021, the lack of community was most noticeable. In one junior-level course, the instructor and course content had not changed, but the number of students struggling with the course had increased dramatically. The number of students complaining about the workload or lack of support in all of our junior-level courses had increased. In conversation with these struggling students it seemed that they were suffering from an absence of people to hold them accountable. Nobody was asking those simple questions like “Where were you last Tuesday?” or “Have you started on the homework yet?”. It was apparent that the juniors had not formed study groups within their major before the pandemic hit. In cooperation with the Omega Chi Epsilon chapter, the department established FLASH sessions (Facilitating Learning Activities with Student Help). Senior members of the honor society open a classroom for an in-person study hall. Occasionally the students who attend are looking for help with homework. More often, they just crave conversation. Although attendance has been small, these sessions have made an impact on the students that attend.

In this presentation, I will discuss these two types of intervention and how we have continued these into Fall 2021.