College, Supposedly the Great Equalizer, is Much Less Equal Online
At least since the G. I. Bill passed after World War II, higher education has held the promise of delivering upward mobility and continues to be cited as one of the most important factors empowering students and their families to move from one class bracket into a higher one. But long before the coronavirus, access to college for the poorest Americans, many of whom are disproportionately are Black and Latinx, was already on shaky ground. Within this current extended context of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic — which is likely to re-materialize in some form this coming Fall — college is in danger failing spectacularly if silently at this core mission.
I teach at a private, liberal arts college in Pennsylvania where, in mid-March, we moved to remote instruction for the Spring semester. Like my colleagues, I recognized that students in my classes were struggling with the transition. Attendance was spotty and I worried about them falling through the cracks. Setting up a group chat early helped me reach out to those who had been unresponsive but as the weeks wore on, students were harder to reach. I created optional synchronous meetings which allowed us to rebuild our fragile class community and students talked about the challenges they faced, with me, and with their peers. I also, with their help was able to see blind spots in my hastily-constructed online syllabus. The asynchronous option was flexible for students who worked or were unable to join online.
During our classes, I worried particularly about the black rectangles on our video conferences, black screens signifying students who muted themselves and their image. Not being able to see their faces or obtain bodily clues, I had limited feedback about their progress and had to find other ways to reach out.
As the weeks went on, I realized we needed to spend more time on check-ins. I hoped that being transparent about my own situation; single-parenting my 11 and 13-year-olds while caring for my 81 year-old mother, and interrupted occasionally by a barky dog, would give them an opening to talk about their own challenges. But the black screens stayed with me long after our conference times ended. What realities were embedded in those silent black rectangles? What details were invisible, yet imperative I see?
I heard from students who had lost grandparents, parents who were out of work, students who worked at the local grocery store or cared for young siblings while their parents did “essential work.” With limited and competing access to laptops and printers, spotty to non-existent WiFi, and absent a quiet space to work, many struggled in their enforced isolation. One of my students told me that unlike others in his class he didn’t have a separate desk, just a bed and his small room which doubled as a storage space. If video was enabled, differences in personal space became hypervisible. So did other invisible factors.
Because being on a computer all day made it hard to focus, students recovering from concussions or recurring migraines struggled with the additional screen time. Mental health threats, already a spiraling challenge on most college campuses, were exacerbated by the sudden dislocation. A Black student told me he didn’t feel safe outside his home, another needed to stay on campus due to ongoing family struggles. With his father in the hospital from a stroke, there was no home to return to. For undocumented and international students, travel became unsafe. The challenges of mental health, abuse, poverty, disabilities, illness and death are highly attenuated for students of color, many of whom are first-generation college students. We typically see only some of the lived details that make many of our students’ educations so precarious. Paradoxically, I began to see more in those black screens.
One of the classes I had been teaching for the college at the local jail was a course that combined “outside” college students and “inside” incarcerated students. Once the pandemic hit, all visits to the jail were stopped and the incarcerated students were hobbled from participation. While my “outside” students were able to continue with remote instruction, the men at the jail had no such option. I continued to communicate with them through letters and readings until their unit became a quarantine zone and the men previously in my class were reshuffled across the jail. For most, the course had been their first college-level class. I worry it might have been their last.
Colleges have historically been spaces built and reserved for white, male, upper-class, cisgender, heteronormative students. In Higher Ed diversityspeak we tout community, wallpapering college websites with BIPOC images, performing and projecting images of inclusion to round out diversity agendas at predominantly white institutions. For me, there is deeper eloquence in the black video screens of my students. Surely, we must ask, how can we keep our promise to these students to create a viable learning environment as their struggles multiply? If we have made any small steps toward equity and inclusivity, this crisis has laid bare the fragility of this progress.
While decisions about future semesters loom large on every campus, we have to work harder than ever. We must begin by centering our students who labor under the burdens of the least access and the shakiest equity. Although, we are seeing many examples of creative pedagogy, if such innovation is inaccessible for those already disadvantaged, then we will continue to replicate and even accelerate structural inequities.
Our well-intentioned use of cell phone technology, workarounds for readings, access to hotspots, free course materials, teaching workshops to faculty are a good start, but may have disastrous consequences if we do not fully grasp what our most vulnerable students really need. Online learning is a human endeavor before it is a technological one, and a commitment to anti-racist practice, equity and inclusion requires deep care and transformation at the core. We need to read the black screens before us. Our institutions, educational and carceral, will be better for it.
Nandini Sikand is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Lafayette College, PA. Twitter @nandini_sikand
