It has now been a month since Auburn University began its fall 2020 semester and started to have a significant number of on-campus classes for the first time since March. Plenty of Auburn staples have also returned to campus including fall sports practices, SGA Senate meetings and long afternoons of brutal sunshine turning concourses into gridels.
However, amid all of this, one thing seems to be missing.
Actually, it seems to be about 20,000 things.
Even though many professors are offering classes either fully or partially in-person, much of campus remains devoid of students.
No one expected concourses, classrooms and dining facilities to be packed to their pre-pandemic levels, but even some professors have been surprised by the dearth of students.
Chris Vickers, associate professor of economics, is one of those professors.
“It mildly surprises me that there isn’t more demand for in-person classes,” Vickers said.
This semester Vickers said he is teaching roughly 70 students split into two HyFlex classes. The HyFlex model has been a common tool used by universities like Auburn who are reopening during the pandemic this fall since they give students the option to attend class either in person or online.
Of the 70 students Vickers is teaching this semester, he said about 15 actually come to campus for class.
“It doesn’t bother me either way — people can do whatever they want — but it is true that, given the option, most people are choosing not to attend in-person classes,” he said.
Vickers also said he believes that his experience isn’t atypical.
Adair Martin, instructor in the department of finance, said she is noticing a similar trend of empty lecture halls.
Martin is teaching a little over 200 students this semester in two separate courses.
“The first week or so, I had more students coming to class, probably like 25 or 30,” she said. “Now, we’re down to between nine and 12 showing up.”
Both Martin and Vickers said they spent time before the start of the semester preparing classrooms and course procedures to allow 50 or 100% of their students to attend in-person class. Both of them also laughed about how unnecessary that planning ended up being.
“I was worried,” Vickers said. “Because, in theory, if everyone wanted to show up in person, I didn’t have enough classroom capacity. Then, it turned out that just didn’t matter at all.”
Both employees expressed that they respect students’ decisions to attend class online, but they still seemed baffled by how few actually turned up on campus.
“For whatever reason, most people have chosen not to come in person,” Vickers said. “I’m not second guessing anyone’s decision; however, I think it does raise slight questions about how demanded really [were] in-person classes.”
Multiple students said that even though they feel like the University’s social distancing and mask policies work, they don’t see a reason to only go on campus for one or two classes.
“If I have three classes and two of them are online, the other is in person or online, I’ll just stay home and do them all online,” said Amber Hallmark, sophomore in anthropology. “I still go to some in person just to get out of the house typically though.”
Hallmark also said she was worried about her fellow students not being honest with the University about a positive test result.
“I also think classes — at least mine — are as safe as they can be without going online,” she said. “But it all still doesn’t work if people don’t report their cases for fear of being forced to move to quarantine dorms.”
These concerns about personal health and academic well-being show that when students have the option to attend class either in person or online, they are being asked to make a risk-reward calculation. In short: is the reward of going to class in person worth the risk of catching COVID-19.
Right now, the answer for most students seems to be no.
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