Editorial: Online classes should still be offered in all courses
Online options for attendance should still be available to students.
COVID-19 is still rampant at the global and local level, with cases in Aiken currently at an average 320 cases per day and considered a COVID “hotspot” according to data compiled by The New York Times. While staggering and still a major concern, this is not the only reason online options are beneficial.
Students who have an option to attend online will not miss content from other circumstances, whether it be other illness or extenuating events, such as an inability to get to campus. It would also allow students a place to refer back to, with the infrastructure built into Blackboard, in order to re-experience the lecture of the class. This presents students with the ability, if they find necessary, the option to fully review content and not be reliant on PowerPoints or their notes.
Living through a pandemic has highlighted the need for empathy, understanding of all circumstances. People have lives, students happen to involve college in it. Students have other obligations, including family, themselves, jobs and more that ought to be as respected as academic obligations. COVID has made it the norm to treat symptoms with a greater community conscience, like staying home for a fever in the case that mild symptoms may be indicative of the virus. Thus, staying home when one is sick, regardless of knowing if one has COVID, is expected. This lowers the possibility for other viruses, like the flu or common cold, to circulate campus and allows the student to properly rest and treat themselves.
Online classes allow for a more dynamic learning, one that accommodates for the daily events in peoples lives. Students should have the option to attend in person regardless of sickness; if the resources are available for off-campus learning, and they are, then how one attends class or learns the material should not be deemed lazy or ineffective.
Students struggling with mental and physical fatigue should not be slighted by ableist policies when alternative methods are accessible. Should students have to miss a class, whether that be personal or health reasons, there is no need for additional anxiety for attendance when lectures can easily be streamed and recorded.
The best way a university can advocate for its students and their needs is to make every feature of academia accessible, and optional online attendance is an easily adoptable policy that is one step in a positive direction for USC Aiken.
