Colleges tighten purse-strings, while students and faculty doubt value of online instruction.

Amidst a global pandemic caused by COVID-19, the future of academia is a hot topic and a sector of the economy that may never be the same. Students and faculty alike have had to adjust to unprecedented circumstances to continue learning and teaching. But while some have welcomed the new “normal,” others are quick to point out its flaws.

Dr. Nasir Ahmed, a professor in the Public Administration department at Louisiana State University, isn’t very fond of online instruction. “There are fewer networking opportunities. If everything becomes online, it will adversely affect people of lower income households in their pursuit of knowledge.”

“For some students, a school might be the only place for them to learn. Situation at home might not be the best and ideal for learning. I think it gives people who come from a financially sound background more of an advantage.”

However, for Dr. Ahmed, although he isn’t enamored with online teaching, the adjustment has not been terrible. The in-person lectures have essentially been replaced with more reading and writing assignments. Discussions have been moved online to Canvas, a learning management system that’s increasingly being adopted by schools across the board. Due to only teaching graduate level students, who he considers to be more mature, Dr. Ahmed admits his transition is probably easier than other professors at his school.

LSU has administered an optional Pass/Fail grading system like many other colleges nationwide. A key difference between life pre-pandemic and now, Dr. Ahmed says, is that he finds himself spending a lot more time working due to students calling, emailing, texting at all times, whereas previously he would just do his 3-hour classes and be done with all questions and concerns then and there. Flexibility, however, is an issue stressed by his university as a lot of people who attend the school have financial difficulties. In addition to the other flaws Dr. Ahmed has pointed out, he also believes that motivation is a more important factor in a world with online instruction.

Nishil Condoor, a sophomore at Saint Louis University, would probably agree with Dr. Ahmed on more than one point. “Online classes are worse in my opinion. I used to take 3-4 pages of notes in all my classes and now I rarely take over a page of notes per class.”

However, Condoor, who’s part of SLU’s engineering school, believes that online instruction still holds value. “I still see the same value — more in fact because we get to use our notes and resources which is applicable to the real world.”

Indeed, it is hard to envision a scenario where an engineer has to perform difficult math operations without the use of online tools, such as the multivariate calculators available at the click of a button. And yet that is the scenario for students come exam time in a math class.

For Chris Burns, an accounting major at Loyola University in Chicago, even the value falls subpar to expectations. “I think that the value I am receiving now with online classes is not as great compared to in-person classes because my teachers aren’t as accessible compared to when I’m on campus.”

“My classes that are based on discussion, like philosophy and ethics, aren’t quite as good while the other ones aren’t too different,” Burns added.

With the world in its current situation, uncertain times are ahead for higher education institutions. The CARES Act passed by Congress designates about $14 billion to higher education, which provides badly needed stabilization. Still, schools have started to take measures to protect their finances. Duke University, for instance, has pushed the freeze button on all new hires, expenditures, and raises for anyone earning more than $50,000. Many other institutions have taken similar precautions. Yale University even froze any new hiring until June 2021. 

And as if the uncertainty wasn’t enough, questions of value for the mandatory alternative, online instruction, should strike more fear into colleges. About 1 in 6 high-school seniors who were expecting to enroll full-time into a college this fall are now taking a different route, a survey by the Arts & Science Group, a consulting firm for higher education, found. 

Aly Lakhani, who attends Drexel University in Philadelphia, says that online classes are “easier in terms of completing the class, but it’s more difficult to learn the material since there’s hardly any structure.” Although many schools started to use Zoom as a tool for live lectures, the lack of uniformity and perhaps infrastructure has hurt the transition for college students.

Lakhani also doesn’t see the “same value” in online instruction because “it’s much easier to reply to other people on the internet for knowledge instead of learning it on your own.”With companies like Chegg, who provide digital services and resources for education, and Zoom, a mass and not-so-mass video conferencing company, spiking in user growth due to the pandemic, and Chegg’s CEO Dan Rosensweig advocating for online education on repeat, colleges and other academic institutions will be liable to make decisions in the next few months with significant, lasting impact on higher education.

When most people are out hunting for jobs after college, they don’t immediately think of applying somewhere in Iowa. And yet, for my sister, Mehnaz Afrin, that soon became the reality as she moved to the Hawkeye state in March of 2019.

Earlier this year, she moved back “home” to Kansas. Asked to compare the two states, she dives right in:

“Landscape-wise it’s not too different. But I guess [Cedar Rapids] was uphill and downhill, and Kansas is pretty flat, I think.”

Physical differences aside, what did she think of the people in both states?

[Dishwasher roars in background]

“I think in Kansas people are more warm. When I was in Salina, during my college years, a stranger would stop by and say “hello”. In Iowa I did not face it that much. But in Kansas everybody will stop and say hello.”

And finally, the questions gets posed. Would she rather live in Iowa than Kansas?

“It depends. For me, personally, my job was excellent. But I didn’t have my family with me, so it was not that great. But if I had my family with me, it probably wouldn’t be that bad.”

“American is definitely the worst.”

As an individual who has visited and lived in multitudes of places all over the world, from Columbia, Missouri to unpronounceable parts of Indonesia, Isabel Colyer is certain of the airline she’s had the worst experience in. “I can’t…I can’t handle American,” she says, in what is possibly one of the least scathing reviews the airline has received over the years.

A well-traveled student, Colyer is pursuing a political science major at Saint Louis University. Her plans are to eventually become a lawyer, following in the footsteps of her mom and step-dad. She highlights her analytical tendencies that make her an ideal fit for a career in law.

“Say your friend comes to you with a problem. There are the people that will be a shoulder to cry on, and then there are the people who give you a Google Doc with steps on how to fix your problem. And I’m person number 2 for sure.” 

And a Google Doc in multiple languages at that. With fluency in French and English, Colyer is fast expanding her grasp for new languages.

“I self-studied Portuguese for a few years, so I’m at an intermediate level with that. But I can’t speak very well, I can only read and write. This summer I’m taking intensive Polish courses, so I’m hoping to learn that language.”

Colyer explains that the spontaneity of the experiences she had abroad, for someone like herself who is very detailed and organized, helped expand her personality as well as making her more independent. “I lived in Indonesia for three months for a study abroad in high-school during the summer. That’s probably the most extreme example of the nomadic experience I had because I really didn’t know the language.

“I just had to constantly sit back and let other people make decisions for me because I had no idea what was going on. That is a very difficult experience when you’re young.”

Indeed, she believes that encounters with people from all sorts of different backgrounds has made her more open-minded. She even picked up on the different ways she was treated depending on where she was.

“Indonesia, the culture was very different, everyone was really warm. And I looked really different so when I got lost someone would come up to me and ask me “are you okay”. But in France I blended in enough [that] people think I’m French and the culture is also a little more distant, so people who didn’t know me wouldn’t just talk to me.”

Colyer recalls an early experience she had where she felt lost while studying abroad.

“My school in France, when I first got there, they had never had an exchange student before. They didn’t give me a schedule, they didn’t give me a tour of the building, they didn’t send anyone to help me…I didn’t even know what grade I was supposed to be in. They didn’t tell me anything.

“It was rough, but I gained a lot of problem solving skills and I definitely gained a lot of independence.”

There are countless more examples where Colyer has had to fend for herself, and where someone else could’ve been unsettled by the slew of changes and movements, she instead grew up to love the life she had, and since high-school, has been advocating to her parents for study abroad experiences using PowerPoint presentations. 

Currently a junior, Colyer plans to go to Poland next year for her next study abroad experience. Although she doesn’t see herself moving around forever, she is certain she wants to emulate the nomadic pattern enriching her life so far for at least a few more years.

SLU women’s basketball won by a margin of 59-49 on Wednesday in front of a record crowd in Chaifetz Arena

Saint Louis University’s women’s basketball team came into the game against Fordham with a 7-5 conference record, and could not afford to lose with only three more conference games remaining in the season. A historically split rivalry, the match would have been an intense affair during any part of the season. However, it was set to be played as the Books and Basketball game on February 19th as part of Education Day — a day out for the elementary school-children around SLU. With festivities planned before, during, and after the game, Chaifetz Arena is as loud as it ever is during the season.

Saint Louis lost its meeting earlier in the season at Fordham when junior Bre Cavanaugh lifted the Bronx team with a huge 27 points and 7 rebounds. As a player widely renowned by coaches as one of the best in A-10, it was pivotal that SLU had an effective defensive measure in place to stop her exploits.

An enticing first half on the court meant that SLU and Fordham were tied 29-29 at the half. Cavanaugh was restricted to 12 points for the half, while Billikens’ sophomore guard Ciaja Harbison led the team with 9 points.

The Bills started strong in the second half with a three from freshman guard Rachel Kent. The screams became louder as the game progressed, the back-and-forth nature doing little to subdue the K-12 attendees’ excitement. The third quarter ended with SLU boasting a slender lead of 4 points.

It was in the fourth quarter that Saint Louis came to life with a dominant performance on the floor. Particularly influential was senior forward Kendra Wilken, who consistently battled her way to the net for points. Two back-to-back threes from Jaidah Stewart, a St. Louis local, sent the home crowd into delirium and SLU into a massive 8 point lead.

Fordham could not reduce that deficit sufficiently and the Bills claimed victory with the final score reading 59-49. Former Billiken Kerri McMahan, now the video coordinator for Fordham, said after the game, “Every single SLU-Fordham game [it] doesn’t matter how many people are here, if it’s 10,000 or 100, the game’s going to come down to the wire and it came down to the wire again today.”

With official attendance announced as 9,873, it was the second largest attendance for a women’s basketball game in SLU’s history. Petey Cautilli, the marketing and fan engagement manager for SLU, said the following about a record-breaking Education Day, “We start preparing for this game once the schedule comes out in October, and to see the kids screaming and having a good time, makes all the effort worth it.”

“About 68 schools came this year and it’s a big challenge getting them all in and out safely, but we have a great staff working to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible.”

The 10th year anniversary of Education Day, which Cautilli said is “becoming a standard” around the nation for universities, could not have gone better from a Saint Louis perspective.

Sarah Fentem, a reporter for the St. Louis Public Radio covering health, and Lauren Trager, an investigative reporter with KMOV, attended Jean Whatley’s journalism class at SLU on the 13th of February to offer students advice and answer questions about being reporters.

“If you lose sight of the fact that you have very big impact on people’s lives, you’re dead inside,” said Trager, when asked about the ethical considerations behind investigative reporting. 

Further questions allowed the reporters to express their concerns with the “fake news” phenomenon, provide career advice for potential investigative journalists, and comment on what comes as baggage for journalists. Trager said her responsibilities included interviewing, writing and voicing her stories, while Fentem noted that she had to record and edit her stories herself. Both reporters highlighted the difficult nature of the industry, and that as a career interest, it may not be the best decision for students to go headfirst into journalism.

A Saint Louis University student was hit by a speeding white SUV while crossing the road near campus yesterday evening around 8 p.m. The driver, who remains unidentified, fled the scene, leaving the student severely injured.

Witnesses to the event on Grand Blvd. between the Marchetti Towers and Laclede intersection rushed to help the injured student. One witness, Colin Thierry,  said that the SUV was traveling “60, maybe 70 mph” when it clipped the student.

Authorities are still putting the details together on the driver and the SUV, but Thierry said he believed that the car was stolen, which he noted could explain its involvement in the accident.

Thierry added that the SLU student was not responsive after the incident, and it was not long before both the Metropolitan police and SLU’s Department of Public Safety officers were at the scene. The student was immediately taken to a hospital.

Thierry further claimed the driver “possibly” did not see the pedestrian crossing the road, but regardless slated the erratic nature of the driving in a road that has posted speed limits of 35 mph.

After the incident, Saint Louis University sent out an alert to all its students and staff, saying that DPS has increased patrols in the area of the incident. The number for the University Counseling Center was also provided in the email for those who need counseling services. The email also asked for everyone to remain alert and aware of their surroundings, and scan for persons or activity of suspicion at all times.