Every morning, around the world, University of Richmond students wake up to a new reality from the one they fell asleep to. More infections. More deaths. Longer lockdowns. More fear and uncertainty. Yet, we also exist within another dichotomous reality. One of consistency and familiarity. We still wake up to the newest SpiderBytes email on our phone screen. We still drag ourselves out of bed to attend our 9 a.m. class. We are still barraged with work from our classes and still have the opportunity to participate in enlightening discussions about topics we are passionate about. Despite the added hindrance of having to communicate with our teachers and classmates through a screen and minor adjustments to our class assignment timelines, we still perceive the same offering of opportunities to learn and grow intellectually as we were had before we left campus before Spring Break. Yet, as our new reality slowly becomes more and more likely to become our new normal, we are forced to interrogate what gaps are being left unfilled with this sudden transformation to online learning. The University of Richmond is left with the looming question of what they can do to ensure that the unique aspects of their education, which has brought students across the world to them, remain in place even in the face of virtual learning. Therefore, throughout this paper, I will provide three changes that should be made by the University to ensure effective remote consulting, and ensure that in the face of uncertainty, the quality of the Spider education remains unwavering.

Firstly, it is essential to ensure that students’ basic educational needs are met through the provision of computer hardware, software, internet access, and any other accommodations. The shift to virtual learning was made under the assumption that all students have access to the internet in their home, as well as a computer to access Zoom or another video conferencing app. Although there does not appear to be an alternative aside from virtual learning to allow education to continue in the midst of this pandemic, accommodations need to be made to make sure that all students have access to the necessary utilities in order to successfully engage in virtual learning.

Colleges throughout the country that have a large number of students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds have been the most severely impacted by the lack of resources that their students have in order to participate in online learning. Therefore, in the face of this challenge, colleges such as Hazard Community and Technical College in eastern Kentucky have spent close to $25,000 on computers, mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, headsets for instructors, and simulation-lab software for chemistry courses for their students to assist with remote learning. The college also did a calling campaign to determine what each student's individual needs were (McMurtrie). A campaign of similar caliber should be conducted by the University of Richmond to determine what type of barriers their students are having to overcome in order to participate in online learning. Although the “Spiders Helping Spiders” fund has raised over $250,000 dollars for the reasons stated above, without a solid understanding of the situation that each student faces at home, it may not be possible to allocate the donations in a manner that ensures all students can participate in remote learning equally.

Although such a campaign would be costly - especially in the face of decreases in endowments, drops in charitable giving, and international and national enrollment declines as Bryan Alexander predicts - and it is unclear whether the Spiders Helping Spiders charitable fund will raise enough to fully meet the financial needs of all the students, the campaign is a necessary step for the University to take in order to ensure the continued provision of an exceptional education to all of its students (Alexander). Equal access to the internet and computers would not only allow all UR students to be able to participate within their classes virtually, but it would also allow them to continue to have access to the resources to succeed in class. Although the University has continued to provide virtual tutoring and access to resources provided by the Writing Center, without access to a computer or the internet, those resources continue to remain out of the reach for the students who often need them the most. Therefore, in the face of the possible continuation of remote learning for the Fall 2020 semester at UR, the University needs to begin preparing for the necessary steps that they will need to take to ensure that all students have equal access to the resources within their homes to allow for another successful semester of online tutoring.

Secondly, Writing Consultants and writers should be provided with a portal for communication during conferences that involves minimal opportunity for technical problems. As reported by the Collegian, on March 31st, a UR class was the victim of a “Zoombombing”, which is “a cyberattack where outside users enter a Zoom meeting and disrupt it with racist, sexist, homophobic or other offensive language” (Pomeroy). The occurrence of Zoombombings during UR’s online classes speaks to a larger lack of security and lack of efficiency that occur during online classes. Based upon personal experience, it is not uncommon for professors to spend 5-10 minutes trying to figure out how to let students into their class meetings over Zoom, nor is it uncommon for students to lose 5-10 minutes of their class time waiting helplessly for their professor to let them into the meeting. Although these problems currently have only affected larger Zoom meetings and UR faculty have quickly learned how to better secure their Zoom meetings, that is not to say that Writing Consultants will not face similar cyber-attacks or technological struggles in the midst of a conference with students. These problems have the potential to disincentivize students from reaching out to the Writing Center at UR for help, as well as leave Writing Consultants unmotivated and frustrated by the added technological barriers associated with remote consulting.

Furthermore, a study led by the Online Writing Center at the University of Minnesota discovered issues both chronological and technological. The online tutoring sessions typically lasted 93.4 minutes long, compared to in-person appointments that lasted approximately 54.9 minutes long, and 13.6% of the online tutoring time was spent fixing technological issues (Breuch & Racine 11,13). One way to reduce the potential for technological issues during online writing conferences and decrease the time disparity between in-person and online writing conferences would be to provide Writing Consultants with secure online conferencing sites. Writing Consultants should be provided with the resources to help them conduct secure and efficient online conferences, similar to the training that the professors were provided with during the transition week to online classes following Spring Break; these resources might include the provision of pre-secured Zoom meetings to Writing Consultants for their weekly conferences, or simply receiving the same level of instruction and training that teachers received during the online-transition period. Also, similar to in-person appointments, it is important to ensure that online appointment times are being respected by both the Writing Consultant and the writer in order to reduce an over-expenditure of time on a single conference. Imposing strict time slots would incentivize students to come to the online meetings prepared and ensure that the meeting time is maximized, despite it being virtual. An additional incentive would be to set up a two-tier system; students with appointments have direct access to Writing Consultants during their meetings time, and those who have not set up meetings can wait within Zoom waiting rooms until a consultant becomes available.

Through decreasing the potential for technological problems during virtual conferences, the gap in differences between in-person and virtual learning can be reduced, which will ideally hold off the potential for enrollment drop-offs as students contemplate “down-shifting”, as Alexander calls it, from the University of Richmond to a cheaper college (Alexander). Ultimately, by providing Writing Consultants and writers with a portal for communication that involves minimal opportunity for technical problems, students will continue to be able to feel as though the one-on-one attention, unique to UR, that they are still able to receive is not a burden or an inconvenience but rather an opportunity to continue to grow as students and as writers.

Thirdly, Writing Consultants should be provided with specific training to help minimize miscommunications and misinterpretations during virtual conferencing. One of the main shortcomings of virtual conferencing or conferencing via email is the lack of face-to-face interactions. Voice intonations that indicate certain emotions are lost through an email, and body language or facial expressions are no longer able to be utilized to set a positive tone for the meeting. With video conferencing only being optional for virtual writing conferences, many students will opt for the more comfortable method of virtual communication, which is through email. Communicating through email leaves writing consultants with little ability to see how students are receiving and internalizing their comments and recommendations, and thus leaves their conference much more vulnerable to miscommunications and misinterpretations. Although misinterpretations are possible within any mode of communication, within writing conferences, they risk sacrificing the efficiency of the conference as well as potentially reducing the chances that the writer continues to seek out help from the Writing Center in the future.

These problems could be corrected with two possible solutions. One is to make video conferencing mandatory to allow for writers and Writing Consultants to be able to see each other's face, albeit through a screen, and be able to utilize facial expressions and voice intonation to reduce the risk of miscommunication. The other option is to provide Writing Consultants with specific training about how to communicate effectively and utilize word choice and punctuation to limit possibilities of miscommunication. The former option is not ideal given that students might be less likely to reach out for help from the Writing Center if they worry they will have to engage in a potentially awkward video conference with a Writing Consultant they may have never met before. Thus, I believe the best solution to improve virtual communication between writing consultants and writers would be the latter option.

A chapter in A Tutor’s Guide, “Protocols and Process of Online Tutoring” emphasizes the importance of effective and clear communication between tutors and writers. The authors write, “The writer's first encounter with the online tutor sets the tone for everything that follows” (Cooper et. al.,130). This emphasis on the first moments of online communication further stresses how initial email correspondences between the tutor and the writer are vital for establishing a comfortable and friendly rapport throughout the conference. The authors describe the importance of word choice during virtual correspondences by saying, “It is what stands in place of a smile, eye contact, or a pleasant voice” (Cooper et. al., 131). Therefore, in order to reduce misinterpretations during virtual conferencing, Writing Consultants should receive templates or sample formats for their initial correspondences to ensure that they begin the conference on a positive note. Although Writing Consultants are taught the importance of tone during their semester of training in their ENGL 383 class, additional training to consultants would only further benefit the Writing Center, given the success of remote consulting is almost entirely dependent upon proper, efficient consultant-writer interactions. A template might include opening the email off with a friendly greeting such as:

Hello John,

My name is Julia and I will be your writing consultant helping you with your paper. I hope you are doing well, and your semester is off to a good start. [...]

Following a friendly greeting, Writing Consultants could begin with an affirmative comment about the writer's paper, or the topic the writer wrote on. Through complimenting the writer early on in the conference, the writer will be less inclined to interpret the feedback that will be provided later on in the conference in a negative way. Additionally, when concluding the correspondence with the writer, the Writing Consultant’s final comment should leave the writer with “feelings of empowerment, providing them with the confidence to take the insights that they have gained and apply them to new writing situations” (Cooper et. al., 137). In these circumstances, Writing Consultants may need to become the surrogates of support and care that students otherwise would have received from in-person office hours with their professors while on campus. Through providing Writing Consultants with specific training about how to communicate with writers in an efficient, clear, and friendly manner, writers will not only be able to walk away from virtual conferences feeling excited to continue working on their papers, but also feeling confident in the quality of education that they continue to receive virtually from the University.

As Alexander described in his article, COVID-19 will impact higher education extensively, especially if his “Peak higher-education scenario” projection is correct. Alexander describes how funding towards public higher education, endowments, American family’s spending on education, and enrollment numbers will all be affected by COVID-19 (Alexander). Essentially, this scholar worries that high-education is teetering at the edge of a cliff right now- a cliff leading down into the grasps of acquisition, closure, and layoffs. This cliff is not one that many institutions are safe from and therefore the University of Richmond needs to be preparing for what they will do if the Fall Semester is held remotely and we are dragged even closer to the brink.

In preparation, it is imperative that the University asks itself how it can avoid a painful fall. And, although easier said than done, one surefire way to avoid the cliff is to ensure that the Spider education remains as unchanged as possible, despite being held remotely. There might not be a singular reason for why students from around the world come to the University of Richmond, but there is a reason for why they stay. At the University of Richmond, students feel special. We feel special when our teachers know our names after just a few days of class in the beginning of the semester. We feel special when our teachers make time to meet with us whenever we ask. We feel special when we are always greeted with a smile by the employees in the Dining Hall. We feel special when we share our dreams and aspirations and we are consistently met with both support and funding from the University. We feel special because the University of Richmond is a home rather than just an institution to us.

Through ensuring that these feelings of care, support, and irreplaceability provided by the University can be felt throughout our Web, even as it is stretched thin across the world, the University can have a better shot at avoiding the cliff until we are all finally able to return again to our home in Richmond. Through catering to the needs of students, providing Writing Consultants and writers with an efficient and secure method for communication, and preparing Writing Consultants with a specific training to minimize miscommunications and misinterpretations, the Writing Center will be able to contribute instrumentally towards the University-wide effort of ensuring that the Spider education continues to remain unchanged. Although equipping the Writing Center for another semester of remote learning is only one small step that the University will have to take in order to avoid the cliff Alexander describes, it can serve as an example for other departments and centers throughout the University for the necessary changes that need to occur if UR holds their fall semester remotely. In the same way that hugs, handshakes, and friends have become things we now cherish most in the midst of the isolation and chaos, it will be the small things that the University can replicate within online learning that will keep students steadfast in their belief that their education is not something that they need to abandon, even as everything else around them changes.

Works Cited

Alexander , Bryan. “COVID-19 versus Higher Ed: the Downhill Slide Becomes an Avalanche.” Bryan Alexander, 31 Mar. 2020, bryanalexander.org/future-of-education/covid-versus-higher-ed-the-downhill-slide-becomes-an-avalanche/

Breuch, L. and Racine, S. "Tutor Time Commitment in Online Writing Centers." Writing Lab Newsletter 26.9 (May 2002): 10-13.

Cooper, George, et al. “Protocols & Process in Online Tutoring.” Tutors' Guide: Helping Writers One to One, by Bennett A. Rafoth, Boynton/Cook Publishers, 2005, pp. 129–139.

McMurtrie, Beth. “Students Without Laptops, Instructors Without Internet: How Struggling Colleges Move Online During Covid-19.” Chronicle.com, 6 Apr. 2020, www.chronicle.com/article/Students-Without-Laptops/248436.

Pomeroy, Eileen. “UR Class Faces a 90-Person Zoom Cyber-Attack.” The Collegian, University of Richmond , 8 Apr. 2020, www.thecollegianur.com/article/2020/04/ur-remote-learning-class-faces-a-90-person-zoom-cyber-attack.