I’m planning to do my coronavirus semester posting here rather than on FB, even though the latter is the more usual space for academic discussion. (Although maybe there’s a chance that the current crisis will breathe some life back into the academic blogging community?) This feels like a singular moment, and so I don’t want my posts to disappear down into the bowels of the FB juggernaut once this is over. So:
I’m teaching a lecture course in NYU’s core curriculum this semester: Cultures and Contexts: Muslim Spain. I have 45 students (which is on the small end of this kind of course, which typically enroll 60-120, although spring enrollments are often smaller) who, as of last week, have been scattered to the four corners of the planet.
I’ve adapted my course (as well as my upper division seminar) to accommodate the new situation, which has students in many time zones and with new family and work responsibilities; but also, in honestly, I was interested in adapting the course in such a way as to allow myself to maximize my writing time for the rest of the semester. (The first half of this semester wasn’t as productive as I would have liked, both because of an early-morning teaching schedule that wasn’t great for my night owl self’s circadian rhythm and because of family and student-related challenges that were taking up a lot of of headspace.)
I had my students fill out a short questionnaire to make sure that they would all be able to attend the adapted lectures and discussion sections. The final question was: “Are there any particular challenges you are facing as a result of the coronavirus situation that you would like your professor and TA to be aware of?”
I have multiple students returning home to China, facing a two-week quarantine upon arrival in-country, in which they have no guarantee of internet access. I responded to the first student who flagged that situation in their questionnaire and asked what to do to keep up as follows:
The student responded and asked whether I could just record my lectures instead so that they could watch them once they’re out of quarantine.
So here’s my question: Do I have to record my lectures? I’m super uncomfortable with it. Because these are lectures from notes given in a fluid situation that I don’t really control rather than prepared, read papers given in a more staid conference context, I’m worried that if I say something really stupid or misspeak or make a mistake, that it’ll be out there on the internet forever. But given the current situation, do I just need to get over myself and record the lectures?
I recorded a bit of lecture on The King of Tars and was super aware of how permanent this was. It was very awkward and uncomfortable, and I’m apprehensive about some of my off-the-cuff comments (based on loose notes, of course) coming back to bite me. But ah well. I think it’s necessary, even for my students who are all in NY.
Yeah… as much as I’m hoping that somebody will tell me that, no, I don’t have to do it, I’m pretty sure that I do. I haven’t yet had a student in any of my classes who had audio recording as a disability accommodation, but I have colleagues who have, and they said that they were just clear with those students that the recordings were for their own use and that’s it — more for the privacy of the other students in the class than their own — and the students have respected that. So here’s hoping that they’ll just delete the files once they’re done.