As classes settled into their online format, some professors decided to hold their live meetings on Zoom outside of the originally scheduled time and upload recorded demos for students that missed them.
Vice President of Academic Affairs Sheri Berger made multiple announcements regarding the change in “schedule” so to speak because Zoom conferences outside of the designated class times can force students to choose between an interactive experience and a recording.
Aimee Perez, a student in Angela Kirwin’s Anthropology class, said that her professor was doing zooms that were overlapping with other classes more than once, and it was becoming an issue.
“I think the only way this situation could be productive would be if the teachers did their Zooms on weekends as well as their assigned days,” Perez said. “By changing days it doesn’t give us an opportunity to do every Zoom in a timely manner and not feel rushed to get into your next assigned class Zoom.”
In an email sent out to her Anthropology 111 class, Professor Angela Kirwin, who had been holding Zoom meetings outside of the scheduled time, told her students that she created another optional Zoom office hour meeting to take place during the regular lab class meeting time for when the lab was still face-to-face.
“Zoom meetings are optional (for her class),” Kirwin wrote in her email to her class. “Attendance to any of them is not required to get an A in this class.”
When asked to comment, Kirwin said, “I currently have been scheduling my optional Zoom meetings during class hours and outside class hours. If you write that I schedule my Zoom meetings only outside of class hours, that would be false. It’s not true.”
No other classes reported unauthorized Zoom meetings.
“I hope to see more than anything, compassion from the teachers and students as we all join this strange journey together and ride it out,” Perez said when reflecting on what she hopes to come in the future of online education. “I feel as if online comes off as easier but in reality it is not. In person education is what is easiest for me.”
