Students debate merit of on-campus classes

Registration for the spring semester is approaching fast for Chapman students, who will have to decide whether to attend classes on campus or remain tied to their computer. Panther Archives

Registering for classes has always been a frantic nightmare for Chapman students. From the dreaded scheduled enrollment time to anxiously finding a different class when the original plan falls to pieces, students know the feeling of panic well. Add in the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and virtual instruction, and students are finding registration and enrolling in classes more troublesome than previous years.

Due to the coronavirus continuing to impede the functionality of in-person classes in the spring, students may continue to keep their schedules light with remote-friendly courses. In an Oct. 23 email to all students, President Daniele Struppa wrote that Chapman would continue to provide hybrid courses for the remainder of the academic year, giving students the option to continue remotely if they wished.

Students who live in the area, then, are forced to weigh the benefits of returning to campus. As The Clash once said: “Should I stay or should I go?”

Kendra Olson, sophomore television and writing and production major, feels health should be the main priority in making the decision.

“I’m not quite sure what I will decide to do,” Olson said, who is living off-campus in Orange. “I’m more inclined to stay remote because of safety. Chapman does a pretty good job of regulating, but also allowing students the flexibility to choose.”

The one thing that is missing from her remote learning experience, Olson said, is her ability to take labs and apply the concepts she learns in class to the real world. Olson told The Panther she struggles to come to terms with the full price of tuition while not being able to access the equipment she is paying for, especially in her film classes in Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

“For something like cinematography, I don’t feel that the price is as worth it,” Olson said. “I’m lucky to have a great professor who is great at online teaching, but if part of tuition all goes towards the equipment and the resources that are available to us, not being able to access them but still paying as we do is a little disappointing.”

However, Provost Glenn Pfeiffer said a cut in tuition or lab fees in the spring semester would not allow for continued advancements in hybrid teaching, as well as continuing to educate faculty on how to best apply this technology. Progress has been made towards those goals in the fall, he said. The drastic changes to remote learning back in March may not have been pretty, Pfeiffer said, but the administration has gained a better understanding on how to handle this new environment since then.

“When we went remote last spring, we did it in the flip of a switch,” Pfeiffer said. “But now we have had the time to learn from that and improve on the online instruction. In many cases, we have done that.”

While Olson may end up staying remote, sophomore biology major Sydney Carlson, who also lives off-campus in Orange, hopes to return to in-class instruction in the spring. She praised Chapman’s handling of a difficult situation.

“I wish I could be in-person for labs and lectures because I would learn much better,” Carlson said. “Every day is a learning experience and while it took a bit to adapt and figure out how to keep going, we’re doing it despite the difficulties.”

Pfeiffer said a student’s decision as to whether to continue their education online or return back to campus for the spring semester should be entirely up to them; the administration would support them either way. However, they shouldn’t be excessively worried over the health risk of COVID-19 to a potential campus return, Pfeiffer said. 

“I don’t think students should be fearful as much as I would just say cautious,” Pfeiffer said. “Our students have been doing the right things: keeping our gatherings small, wearing masks, social distancing, being careful. If Chapman gets through the semester with those kinds of numbers, we can really brag about that because other universities haven’t done that well.”