Chair's Corner
Stephanie Medley-Rath, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
Indiana University, Kokomo
There is not enough space to adequately write about how hard it is to teach during these trying times. And if we are having a hard time teaching, imagine how hard it is for our students who are trying to learn.
The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Day is in a few long days. I am hopeful that we have strong, overwhelming results on Election Day, but I'm preparing for whatever Election Day brings.
After the 2016 election, I planned to give my students Election Day off from class the next time Election Day fell on a class day. I learned that even though early voting exists, first-time voters do not realize this. Due to Covid-19 changes to my fall schedule, I am not holding any classes on Election Day. Instead, I did voting outreach via my weekly announcements to my students. I gave my students information on registering to vote and information about early voting and finding information about all of the candidates. This is the first presidential election for many of our students, and they do look to us for help learning how to do things like voting. Some of us may shy away from providing any information about voting for fear of being seen as political or because we want to avoid conversations about how you are personally voting.
This time of year, I also start to see well-intentioned instructors mentioning offering extra credit for voting. Do not do this. It is against the law to provide credit for voting. You could offer credit for an assignment about voting, the debates, or some other election issue, but not for voting itself. Before giving that assignment, ask yourself how it helps students meet the learning objectives of the course. If it does not, then skip it.
Our students may also look to us to help process whatever the outcome might be. I was an undergraduate during the 2000 Bush/Gore election. I do not recall any of my instructors, helping me understand what was happening. Election results seemed to be this thing that happened somewhere else and had no impact on any of us. Perhaps most elections do not have any impact on a majority of the white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian members of the U.S. population. Keep in mind, however,
that even students that lean in the same political direction as yourself may be experiencing the election results very differently as a result of their race, gender, sexual identity, or other identities. Previous administrations have promoted policies resulting in mass incarceration, the denial of marriage to same-sex couples, and the break-up of mixed-status families through deportation. The current administration’s policies include separating families at the border and a lack of a meaningful federal response to Covid-19, with the virus disproportionately harming Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people. Not talking about the election is a choice -- a choice that denies the impact of presidential policies on individuals and their families (and is arguably non-sociological).
And finally, what about you? I recall distress among sociology instructors after the 2016 election with concerns about how to teach after the election. So what will we do after Election Day 2020? We will teach sociology. We will use the tools and thinking of sociology to help students make sense of the outcome and how to find a way out of the global catastrophes we are living through. Even if the election results in an optimistic outlook on the future, we are still very much living through multiple and related global catastrophes.
We will show up for our students. We will give students what they need to learn. We will also give ourselves a break. This has been a long year/semester/day/presidency. Be kind to yourself.
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My Chair’s Corner was written before the election. While the result seems certain, there is still tremendous uncertainty regarding not only the White House but also Covid-19. Personally, I thought we would at least make it to Thanksgiving before things got as bad as they are right now. Instead, it is as if we learned absolutely nothing over the past few months. This wasn’t inevitable.
I’m grateful that I made the end of the semester lighter for my students and increased the number of assignments they can drop as the semester progressed. Last spring, I decided that no student in my courses would earn a grade lower than what they had when our world fell apart. I’ll likely make the same decision next Friday. We have one more week before our delayed fall break and shift to 100% remote instruction. While students know that shift is happening (and no change is happening for my courses as they are all already 100% online or remote), it is an incredibly difficult time to try to learn.
I am also planning my spring courses to be lighter than my fall courses. I tried to do too much this fall. This is not business as usual. Decreasing the workload in a course is not the same as decreasing the learning that occurs. Even if the situation is improved in time for the start of the spring semester, we will still be teaching through trauma. We have all experienced a number of losses in 2020. Be kind to yourself and give yourself a break.
November 13, 2020