Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2021

Although connecting through such conversation is at the heart of the SU experience, many professors are also learning more about their students’ lives than they did pre-COVID. Sometimes, it’s because family members will make appearances while students are in class or office hours. Other times, it’s because students are sharing more about the tribulations they’re facing. Zewail-Foote describes how “students have had some more time to engage and talk to me about their lives and their goals. I feel like I have gotten to know some of my students better.” The commitment of SU’s resilient faculty is yielding stronger bonds not just between faculty and students but also between colleagues. “There is a sense that we all had to come together and figure all this out: how to help students transition to being at home and learning online, how to get our seniors to graduate, how to help students who need internships,” Crockett recounts. “I’ve really appreciated how we’ve been able to problem- solve and troubleshoot some of these things through teambuilding.” Technology has facilitated similar connections between community members near and far. Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth observes that when three of her students presented their capstone projects last spring, the audience included “parents, grandparents, friends, alumni, teachers—an audience that would never have been able to come together like this in person.” She adds that her “students did a stellar job engaging the audience and sharing their excitement about their proj- ects” even through videoconferencing. But the ability to preserve that celebration is an additional reward. “Google Meet lets me have a recording,” she says happily. “What a treasure.” IN FACULTY WE TRUST Zewail-Foote attributes the SU faculty’s success in moving their classes online to their interactive, student- centered teaching approach. “People picture webinars, but a remote class at Southwestern is good,” she asserts. “The Southwestern Experience is engaging, and even when the students are online, they’re creative, they’re inquisitive, and they’re reaching out to the community. None of that is taken away.” Not all educations are held equal: the student (and faculty) experience can differ wildly between K–12 and higher education, between community colleges and four-year universities, between large state schools and private colleges, and even within individual institutions. Indeed, as those of us who have studied and taught in a variety of educational settings can say from experience, the quality of instruction and learning varies regard- less of where or how it takes place. Any class’s success instead depends on such factors as careful course design, the instructor’s depth and breadth of knowledge, their ability to engage students, the students’ level of moti- vation and participation, the assignment of meaningful activities, and mutual respect among classmates and between students and their teacher. Luckily, as this past year has demonstrated, SU students can rely on their professors to fulfill their commitment to providing meaningful and memorable educational experiences regardless of whether classes take place in person, online, or somewhere in the middle. SOUTHWE S T E RN | 2 1 Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth had success using Google Meet to teach synchronous class sessions. Photo by Erika Berroth.