Teaching from Home: The Uncertainties of Faculty Life During a Pandemic
As summer 2020 drew to a close, I found myself quickly preparing for the onslaught of the fall semester. It’s a song I’ve had on repeat for a few years now: make a week-to-week plan, design or update a syllabus, maybe start lesson planning the first week or two of classes. That song sounded a bit different this year. Making a week-to-week plan meant that I was preparing both synchronous and asynchronous content for each week. Designing the syllabus meant I had to clearly delineate what would be delivered live on Zoom and what students were responsible for learning via guided tutorials on Canvas. Lesson planning meant that I was writing a script and getting dressed to record those very tutorials from my bedroom. The uncertainty of planning an entirely remote semester, combined with the ever-so precarious nature of adjuncting presented a unique and unforeseen challenge in the era of COVID-19.
Conversations with peers in the field held over many a Zoom call showed me that I wasn’t alone in my feelings of dissatisfaction with the current state of academia, especially in light of the coronavirus. In addition to the uncertainty that normally accompanies life as a part-time faculty member, over the last eight months, we have had to master an entirely new skill-set: teaching online. We had to learn how to use various course management systems. And we had to navigate all of the above simultaneously while dealing with a global pandemic.
Just as the fall semester was under way, I reached out to a number of educators to ask them about their experiences in the transition to online instruction, uncertainties they had about their job security, and how they were attempting to prioritize their own sanity and wellbeing in the face of it all. As the semester nears its end and preparations have begun for what appears to be an equally challenging spring 2021, I revisit some of the most striking responses that I received.
The participants of my survey included seven fashion studies educators located at universities around the world. While one was a tenure-track professor, the other six were part-time, adjunct, or sessional faculty. Read what they had to say below!
[Editor’s note: All of the responses have been kept anonymous at the request of the participants.]
What is your university’s current reopening plan? Do you anticipate it changing?
“A mix of in-person, hybrid, and remote instruction. I’m not confident that we will be able to sustain this. I imagine that by mid-October we will be fully online; however the college doesn’t seem to have a firm idea of what the ‘tipping point’ for closure is, nor what happens once we have to go back fully online.”
“The university works within local government mandates and advice, so while there were plans to partially open for the second semester of 2020, these have now been put on hold thanks to the second lockdown in Melbourne. Who knows what 2021 will bring!”
“My university has decided to open completely remote for the fall semester. There is (extremely) limited access to studio spaces, but since I only teach seminar courses, I will be teaching remotely from far outside of New York.”
What are you feeling most uncertain or concerned about right now?
“I’m concerned about job security.”
“It seems deeply irresponsible for schools to play with the lives of both students and teachers. Being a caretaker for two parents who are considered high-risk, the potential of having a spring semester in person means that I am considering taking a semester’s leave so I can do what is required of me at home with no back-up plan to recoup any loss in income. As an instructor, preparing for and maintaining an online course has been challenging […] I am not only taking on the role of the teacher, but in many ways, I have to also maintain an active website for each course on Canvas, which is incredibly time-consuming. […] My university announced that the entire fall semester would be online in mid-June, and class appointments were not assigned to instructors until mid-August, only two weeks before the semester was set to begin. Those three months of summer break would have been an incredibly valuable time to prepare for the challenge of translating an in-person class to a remote format. For me, this all comes back to the experience students are getting. How are students expected to get a holistic, complete educational experience if teachers have no guarantee of courses, of no stability or idea of what they are teaching until just weeks before the start of the semester? What quality of education will these students receive when the teachers themselves have to scramble to put everything together?”
“I am most concerned about whether there will be future teaching positions. There is already so much uncertainty with casual teaching contracts, but now there is a hiring freeze on the precious few full-time positions available. As someone who wants to teach and have a career in academia, this makes thinking about the future stressful.”
“I find that I get ‘Zoom fatigued’ very, very easily and I simply worry that I won’t have the stamina to spend hours upon hours in front of my laptop lecturing and leading discussions […] I’m afraid of contacting the virus. I’m afraid of getting very sick and passing along the virus to my loved ones. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to physically complete the semester […] I’m also afraid for the future of the fashion industry. Our curriculum hasn’t adapted quick enough to encompass the incredible events that have rocked our industry over the last few months. It makes me wonder if we will be able to adequately prepare students for this uncertain fashion future. You asked what I’m feeling concerned or uncertain about, but I find that it’s really fear that’s coursing through my veins at the moment.”
How does your uncertainty this semester compare to last semester?
“My uncertainty this semester compared to last semester is off the charts. I don’t feel confident about anything really.”
“I am slightly concerned about having fewer paid additional duties as universities shrink their budgets, but I’ve made contingency plans to offset possible losses. I recognize that I am fortunate to be able to do so.”
“I feel like the spring semester felt more uncertain, due to the changing nature of the pandemic. These days, I feel bitterly resigned to reality of remote instruction.”
“The uncertainty of my semester course-load is par for the course. On more than one occasion, courses have been offered to me less than 48 hours before the start of the semester – and on one occasion, a course was offered to me after the semester had officially begun. […] This semester, the uncertainty was compounded by a global pandemic, a shift in physical space since I left New York, an entirely new format of teaching remotely – the sense of uncertainty was deafening. In the past I’ve at least had an idea of what to expect, but this semester broke all of the already low expectations I had.”
How is this uncertainty affecting your mental health and wellbeing?
“The amount of anxiety I experience these days is truly beyond. I spend the entire day mentally preparing myself and gearing up to teach class remotely, and then it takes hours for me to ‘come down’ from it. What’s more, there is little to no satisfaction in lecturing to an empty void…and the result is that I am left feeling completely drained and uninspired.”
“I’ve noticed that I’ve been exhibiting some of the symptoms of depression including a lack of energy, a loss of interest in most enjoyable activities, a persistent sensation of brain fog and irritability. […] I feel like most of my energy is being expended on simply being vigilant…on surviving.”
“When I do not feel committed to an institution, I feel less committed to its students. I’m not willing to bend over backwards if I’m getting paid the minimum.”
“My sense is that many of us have stabilized or adjusted somewhat from the initial shock of the pandemic, though of course everyone’s readjustment and processing will take a long time to fully bear out. So I guess I feel…okay? That’s about as good as it gets right now, right?”
If you had to teach remotely last semester, how did your transition go? What did you learn from the transition and what challenges do you anticipate moving forward?
“I feel like the students were more gracious about the circumstances this spring than they will be this fall. In my course evaluations, students noted that I seemed to take a genuine interest in their wellbeing. Indeed, my priorities as an educator shifted as I watched so many of my students get displaced, lose jobs, or experience the trauma of the virus in their own homes. This fall, I won’t be able to ‘get by’ by being empathetic. There is a clear expectation that we deliver a quality product to our students in order to reduce student melt and bring in much needed revenue.”
“Institutions of higher education are capitalistic enterprises masquerading as non-profits geared toward public service.”
“In the spring semester when we went remote unexpectedly, it went as smoothly as the situation would allow. Fostering relationships with my students was simple because I already had them from the first half of the semester. A great challenge in the fall is how to continue being able to foster those same relationships when I am teaching remotely from the start. How do you recreate that sense of ‘I am here to help you. I am here to teach you how to learn. And I am accessible to you,’ when you’ve never been in the same room – when you’ve sometimes never even seen their face in real time? It’s an incredible challenge.”
