Thanks to the advent of telecommunications (namely email) and web-based classroom management tools (namely Blackboard), professors and students can – and do – contact each other at all hours of the day and week.
The deadline is set at midnight on a Friday. Assignments emailed at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Comments on essays returned at 2 a.m. on Wednesday – it’s a sure bet that many college students can relate to the stress and frustration that comes with school-related communications from professors well outside of normal work hours. Likewise, many professors probably have experiences with a flurry of late night and weekend emails from students with questions and concerns before a big test or presentation is due.
College has always blurred the lines between life in and out of school: homework, by design, is supposed to be completed outside of normal work hours. Studying has taken generations of students into the wee hours of the morning. Even living arrangements often mean that students rarely physically leave the places where they study. But the rise of electronic communications between students and professors has added a troubling new layer to that phenomenon, and it is now more pronounced than ever thanks to the remote learning engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But just because we can contact each other at all hours of the day does not necessarily mean we should. In the professional sphere, it is taken for granted that the ability to disconnect from work during evenings and weekends is crucial to mental health and wellbeing. The same assumption should hold for college. However, constantly open and utilized channels of communication between professors and students mean that no time during the week – not evenings, not nights, not weekends – is guaranteed as a time in which students and professors with families and social lives can truly remove themselves from school.
Students and professors, therefore, are constantly on alert for the possibility of a new communication, assignment, or deadline. This eternal vigilance and inability to disconnect from school takes a toll: mental health problems are increasingly prevalent on college campuses. Clearly, this increased blurring of school with personal and social lives is problematic.
A common retort to students and faculty who wish to be left alone outside of work hours is that they could just turn off their notifications on their phones. Doing so, however, fails to get to the root of the problem: ignorance is not bliss, and just because one cannot see that a student or professor has communicated with them does not mitigate the subtle but constant stress caused by the notion that a new communication may be there.
More sustainable solutions would be to limit when assignments can be made due, when professors can assign them in the first place and when students could contact professors with course-related inquiries: ideally, during normal work hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday).
For those students and professors who prefer working outside normal work hours, these solutions wouldn’t necessarily alter the nature of our work or even when we work – just when we communicate. Emails, for example, can be sent with delays or saved in drafts, so emails written at 7 p.m. on Saturday could be scheduled to send at 9 a.m. on Monday.
That way, students and professors have more control over when they think about college (or not). Ultimately, for those students and professors who rely on evenings and weekends to recharge, this solution would offer a greater chance to disconnect from school, regroup, and return fresher and more bright-eyed than before.
Sam Smith is a rising senior studying geography at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Sam know by tweeting him @sambobsmith_.
