While Ohio University professors are trying to keep remote learning normal for students, they are struggling to remain sane themselves.
Professors were given two weeks to prepare their classes to be online the remainder of the semester leaving them as frazzled as students.
“The thought had never even occurred to me that the particular classes that I teach in the spring might have to move online. I was actually on one of the last cruise ships that was out over spring break,” Mary Rogus, an associate journalism professor, said. “I didn’t even learn that it was a possibility for a couple of days after the announcement was made that we would do online learning for at least two weeks. Once they extended spring break I was pretty sure we weren’t coming back.”
Some professors feel they weren’t given enough time to prepare, but they have all found different ways to teach online. George Eberts, an astronomy lab instructor and outreach specialist, is having a hard time teaching his class because he teaches Astronomy 1400 and does not feel like his students are learning the curriculum.
Eberts normally teaches a class that meets once a week. Having everyone able to meet for a Zoom meeting at the hour that they would be able to see the sky is unrealistic. He finds it difficult to find movies or slideshows that show exactly what he wants to be teaching his students to continue with his curriculum.
“When you’re teaching a class, you don’t realize how much information the students get just from being in class and asking questions and things like that. You don’t realize how many different issues that might come up that just get taken care of by that in class experience. It really was brought up to me the first time I taught the ethics class online,” Rogus said.
As of now, professor’s salaries have not changed. Rogus does not think that their salaries will be changed because professors are still doing the same work that they would still be doing at school.
Loren Lybarger, president of the OU-AAUP and an associate professor of classics and world religion, says that the OU-AAUP has been concerned about professor salaries for years.
“At other campuses, universities with unions, faculty are able to negotiate cost of living increases that help them and help their salaries to keep the pace of inflation. What we have seen at OU is years where we recently never got a raise,” Lybarger said.
One concern that professors have spoken about is OU making more classes available online because they now know they can do it. This would save the university money by cutting staff that are important to students’ experience. The OU-AAUP is also concerned about this because of the school taking financial hits from remote learning.
Rogus’ classes are still following the traditional A-F grading system. They are core classes that need to be passed in order for students to continue with their journalism degree. Professors have not heard what courses will be exempt from the traditional grading system, and Eberts wants his class to be pass-fail. Eberts said it would be unfair to the students because they are not getting taught in person and therefore maybe not getting all information.
Professors are also finding sources of comfort at home during this global pandemic. Rogus is living with her dachshund, Frankie, who is great company, but not much of a conversationalist. In order to try and make day to day life seem more normal, Rogus gets up and gets ready for the day like she would if she were going to campus.
Eberts is taking walks with his wife along the bike path and has cleaned out a shed and mudroom that have never been cleaned out before. The sky has also been clear so Eberts is able to go out and do personal astronomy without any coronavirus concern because he is alone.
“We’re getting a little bit of a flash forward look at what retirement will ultimately be like. I can’t say I’m hurting any. When you binge watch TV until three in the morning and sleep until noon, that’s not a bad lifestyle,” Eberts said.
