Students, professors struggle with sudden switch to remote learning

By James Bell III
Student Correspondent

Jesse Downing, a senior majoring in creative writing at Millsaps who was already grappling with mental health issues, found the sudden transition from in-class to online instruction after the college closed due to the coronavirus pandemic overwhelming.
Photo courtesy of Jesse Downing

As if trying to finish the school year in the middle of a pandemic was not stressful enough, students across the nation were forced to continue their education online, which added to their anxiety and had an adverse effect on some students’ mental health and academic performance.

For Jesse Downing, a creative writing major at Millsaps College, the rapid transition alongside the pressure of completing his senior year was overwhelming.

“I think I may have completed two, three, four at most assignments once the online classes began. I was kind of okay for the first week, and then after that I completely shut down, (and) was not able to work,” Downing said.

Downing shared that he “had a nervous breakdown” after the first week of working remotely, and even requested a medical withdrawal as things gradually piled up. The 21-year-old said he was already grappling with mental health issues before the pandemic, and the stress of the college closing and having to move off campus in addition to falling behind on his reading assignments and a heated exchange with one of his professors took an emotional toll on him.

“Of course, the (home) environment didn’t help, and it made it much harder than even just being at Millsaps where I was already struggling, but at least I was in an environment that I had set up for this and had been receiving treatment for it,” said Downing.

Rather than withdrawing, Millsaps officials gave Downing permission to complete his final assignments by the end of the fall semester. This will allow him to graduate.

Eden Collins, a biology major, said he also battled with mental health issues prior to the pandemic and had difficulty adjusting to online instruction, which caused him to fall behind in his schoolwork as well. Being confined to his house was also unpleasant, said Collins, who will complete his sophomore year this week.

“My depression was really bad because I don't do well with being stuck in the house. I need to be able to go out and be around people even if I don't interact with them,” said Collins, explaining that it was hard to stay motivated and complete assignments. “And not really having somebody to talk to about what’s been going on has been rough.”

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, individuals between the ages of 18 and 25, had the highest prevalence of mental illness among adults in the United States in 2017. Additionally, college clinicians stated in the Center for Collegiate Mental Health 2017 Annual Report that anxiety and depression are the most common concerns identified by college students seeking treatment.

“The growing prevalence of anxiety and depression represents a substantial challenge for colleges and universities,” the report said.

Students living in areas with poor internet access or unreliable service faced special challenges after the switch to online instruction.

Collins, a resident of Georgia, struggled to get through the first week. “Unfortunately, I have the pleasure of having AT&T as our network, so the moment there’s any kind of storm or rain my internet is not working,” he said.

Millsaps established a Concern, Assessment, Response, Evaluation (CARE) team to provide support for students in distress and “address concerns about student behavior, academic progress and personal issues including mental health concerns,” Demitrius Brown, dean of Student Life, said in a statement.

The CARE team is composed of faculty and staff from Academic Advising, Student Life, Financial Aid, Athletics, the Business Office and the Chaplain’s Office.

The team also provided assistance to students who did not have adequate internet service or a computer at home. “Because under normal circumstances we would never ask (students) to do their work from home but from a well-equipped campus, we bridged that divide with loaner equipment,” Jennifer Lewton-Yates, director of Academic Advising and Student Success, said in a separate statement.

The transition to online instruction has also been taxing for Millsaps faculty.

“I was fortunate enough to have a few of my friends that teach at other schools who have more experience than me teaching online, so I was able to trade emails and text messages with them to get some ideas as to what they'd do and what works and what doesn’t,” said Nathan Shrader, assistant professor of Government and Politics.

Shrader conducted half of his weekly courses live through Microsoft Teams, provided pre-recorded lectures, and conducted private sessions for international students in different time zones. However, not all faculty members were able to make this seamless transition to online instruction.

Although the college extended spring break by one week to train inexperienced faculty, adjusting was still a challenge for those unfamiliar with online teaching, especially if their courses depended on personal interaction with students.

Dr. Eric Griffin, who chairs the English Department and teaches American Exceptionalism, said teaching students remotely is difficult “because I'm not there to sort of mediate between the students and the disciplines, which I try to foreground at various moments during our in-class sessions.”

Griffin and other professors mostly relied on Course Connect, an online teaching platform that allows professors to upload assignments for students. Griffin said the program is “all set up in ways that I would never teach.”

“It’s set up toward short answers, multiple choice, and true or false. And by ‘short answer’ we’re not talking about essay questions, we’re talking about a sentence,” he said.

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Elizabeth Egan, who had prior online teaching experience at another college, used the metaphor of a rocket launch to describe her experience.

“If you think about all the fuel and combustible energy that goes into a rocket launch, 99 percent of that fuel gets burned just getting the rocket up off the ground,” she said. “Once it clears the atmosphere, gravity goes away, things do their thing, and it more or less propels itself, and I think online teaching is the rocket in this metaphor.”

Egan added that now that the shock of putting everything together quickly has faded, teaching will become easier.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, the college plans to continue its summer courses online. Students experiencing mental health issues are advised to reach out to the CARE team at care@millsaps.edu.

This story was produced by MCIR's Journalism Lab at Millsaps College, part of a public service project initiated by Report for American and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, nonprofit news organizations dedicated to community journalism and empowering Mississippians in their communities through the use of investigative journalism. MCIR Investigative Reporter and Report for America corps member Shirley L. Smith is the lab instructor.

Sign up for our newsletter. The COVID-19 virus is moving rapidly. We will continue to investigate Mississippi's handling of this pandemic as well as sharing what kinds of steps you can take.