Scenes from the post-covid university (I)
Another series of indefinite length. Originating from this post here but mostly a harmless bit of fun.
September 2025. I go back to my office on the first day of the academic year. The building is half-empty, as is always the case now: after some rather acerbic disputes between the Union (who led with the slogan “online teaching is teaching”) and university senior management (who worryingly observed international student numbers drying up), a compromise was reached: 50% of classes face-to-face, with masks and 1m social distancing; vaccination heavily encouraged. This led to some re-shuffling of teaching spaces but we’ve now reached some sort of equilibrium. There are rumours that our building will be sold next year and we’ll be given a wing in the Engineering one — which I am actually kind of looking forward to, since Engineering have like 70% classes face-to-face and seem to be a fun bunch.
I am at the university about 4 times a week (the same as I was pre-Covid), because I have volunteered to do all of my teaching in person. It wasn’t a problem to get a yes, because it means other people can do more teaching from home, which they prefer. There’s a sizeable minority who don’t mind doing the odd bit of face-to-face teaching here and there and secretly think that the “online teaching is teaching” line is bonkers, but they don’t speak too loudly, don’t put themselves on the line, because it’s easier like that. It’s just a few people like me who volunteer for everything face to face and even talk (gasp!) about opening up more: we are, by now, well known. The earlier years were harder: it must have been like being a Brexiteer, or a card-carrying Tory, in A&H academia; now we’re more like known eccentrics, kind of like being a Lib-Dem. Now it is mostly the “online teaching is teaching” camp subtweeting about colleagues who “do not think twice about putting their families, their students and others at risk” and who “fool themselves into thinking that they care about our students because they, for some weird reason, believe that face-to-face teaching is superior or something”.
The students are engaged and responsive. A few would rather do everything online and this is always allowed to them; in fact, it is a requirement for us to do so. Most keep saying in their feedback: “More face-to-face sessions, please”. They party and live in crowded flats and spend hours in poorly ventilated libraries: after all, they are students. At most they start closing their e-mails with a “stay safe”, “I hope you are safe”, as is now de rigueur among the professoriat. They only really start to absorb the “safer at home” message if they stay for a masters or, even more so, for a PhD — after all, a PhD in the Humanities is by definition a solitary pursuit.
(tbc)
