Looking back on a year of COVID-19
Plus, how CC professors have dealt with larger class sizes during a pandemic
Good morning, and happy Wednesday. On this pandemic date last year, Colorado College Communications sent out the email announcing that Block 7 would be delivered via distance learning and possibly (ha!) for the rest of the academic year. (Exactly one year later, the majority of classes remain online and students are still Zooming in from across the globe.)
Today, we recap the last year of COVID-related announcements and resources the CC community received. Plus, some professors talk about their pandemic-sized classes.
➡️ICYMI: On Monday, our resident microbiologist Phoebe Lostroh gave her weekly forecast for El Paso County. She also explained the variant from Brazil.
✉️In Your Inbox:
On Friday, a faculty member not currently teaching a block received a positive test for COVID-19, after recently being in Armstrong Hall.
On Saturday, a student living off campus, who was recently in Worner Campus Center, received a positive test result.
🦠 A year of the coronavirus
With CC now officially being a year into the pandemic, we wanted to take a look back at everything that’s changed for us so far. So, here are some of the most important updates the college released over the past year:
😞 March 2020
March 10: The CC community received the announcement from former president Jill Tiefenthaler and former provost Alan Townsend saying Block 7 was going to be delivered in an online format and the changes to the schedule for the rest of the semester. How naive we were to think we were simply getting an extra week for Spring Break.
March 17: Information regarding campus operations was released by college leadership regarding building usage and working remotely. Employees were told to anticipate doing so until at least April 17.
March 19: CC changed up block break and Blocks 7-8. A full week was added between Blocks 7 and 8, and each block was shortened to only three weeks. Additionally, students would have until the last Wednesday of the block to switch grading track options.
March 30: Block 7 began and the college sent out their first email update about a campus community-related COVID-19 case. Updates about further positive tests for the virus would became common after this one.
March 31: Commencement for the class of 2020 was postponed.
🎓🙅April 2020
April 7: The college announced Blocks A and B would be taught remotely. Also, several programs were cancelled for the summer, including Global Scholars, Athletics, and study-abroad courses.
April 21: CC responded to Gov. Polis moving Colorado from the “Stay At Home” public health order to the “Safer At Home” public health order. The college said it would continue its work-from-home policy until the end of Block 8.
April 28: The date for the class of 2020’s commencement was set for May 22, 2021.
🚫✈ May 2020
May 27: Fall study away was cancelled by the Center for Global Education and Field Study.
May 28: The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project released its first newsletter!
📆June 2020
June 26: College leadership announced their plan for the fall of 2020.
🏫July 2020
July 7: CC released three dates for town halls about returning to campus for the fall semester.
July 9: The college held its online town hall for safety and testing. The CCRP recapped it here.
July 10: Online town hall on academics and student support.
July 13: Online town hall for housing and meals.
July 16: The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference President’s Council said intercollegiate competition would not take place during the fall due to health and safety concerns.
😷August 2020
August 3: CC held an online town hall about its updated testing procedures.
August 6: The college released an update to their previous arrival protocols, and held an online town hall on tuition and billing.
August 13: Online town hall on the arts.
August 15: First reported student COVID-19 case, which led to the entirety of the Loomis Residence Hall being placed under quarantine. Read our coverage on the quarantine here.
🔀🖥️September 2020
September 1: Acting Co-Presidents Mike Edmonds and Robert Moore announced that the remainder of Block 1 would be remote, and shared who would be eligible to be on campus starting Block 2.
September 3: Residential Experience team released move-out procedures. Also, the college hosted a virtual information session for Blocks 2, 3, and 4.
September 9: CC held a virtual information session for First-Year students and families.
September 10: The college hosted another virtual information session on housing.
September 16: Tutt Library staff revealed the resources that would be available to the CC community in Block 2, which included printing, study space, and a book pick-up program for people on and off campus.
September 26: CC introduced policies for students to access, which included COVID-19 screening tests.
🔬🚰October 2020
October 1: CC explained their wastewater testing program, and stated that a small concentration of viral particles had been found by the program in wastewater from Mathias Hall that week.
October 20: The college released its plan for spring 2021. Read our coverage on the plan here.
🚨November 2020
November 3: CC employees were added to the random testing pool.
November 10: The college hosted a virtual information session on housing and move-in procedures.
November 11: CC launched the CC Alert Levels as a way to guide risk mitigation and operations across campus. On this day CC was at “Alert Level 1,” the “risk mitigation” and “new normal” level.
November 18: The college moved to “Alert Level 2,” meaning “increased adherence to everyday measures” were necessary.
🔂December 2020
December 2: CC explained what would happen if the college moved to “Alert Level 4.”
December 4: CC announced the switch to remote learning for J-Block and Half Block, and released information regarding move-in for the spring semester.
🚛📦January 2021
January 13: Move-in details and new protocols for the spring semester were announced.
January 26: CC said that testing is voluntary but strongly encouraged for faculty and staff, and provided a link to a survey for those who wished to be included in the testing pool.
January 28: CC established a new, temporary travel policy for community members who need to travel during the pandemic.
🗓February 2021
February 2: College leadership announced che academic calendar for 2021-2022, which brought back some things that were lost the year before, such as Spring Break and a Block 4 that will take place after Fall Break. Read our coverage on the calendar here.
February 5: CC emphasized that the school’s comprehensive testing program had made it possible for more students to be invited back for the spring semester, and that participation in the program was “critical” to CC’s success in reducing the spread.
February 17: CC moved to “Alert Level 1” again, stating that despite the reduced alert level, weekly testing would continue.
🌼March 2021
March 2: Acting Co-Presidents Mike Edmonds and Robert Moore released a statement condemning recent hate crimes against Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders that have stemmed from anxiety about COVID-19.
‘Classing it up’: larger class sizes during a pandemic
Among the many complications the coronavirus pandemic wrought on institutions of higher education last spring, increased workloads for professors were not anticipated.
But as courses were converted into virtual formats, students were crammed into larger classes, which multiplied the work required of professors.
“Instead of 25 students, I’ve got 50,” Stefan Erickson, associate professor of mathematics and computer science, told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project. “So that means twice as long to do the grading, and I’m already a slow grader, so grading for 50 made it much, much harder to give timely feedback.”
For some professors at CC, like Erickson, class sizes have increased in the year since the pandemic started, oftentimes as a result of high demand from students for certain classes and the space advantages remote learning brings.
So far, Erickson has compensated for increased class sizes in two ways — one, he split the class into two sections and met with them separately at different times in the day to keep to the 25-person experience, and two, he increased the numbers of learning assistants for the class to three.
“Because there were more learning assistants, there was more availability in the afternoons for problem sessions for other opportunities to meet with somebody if you’re struggling with material,” Erickson said.
The bigger, the better?
Jessica Hoel, associate professor of economics, said that after teaching the same class, Economic Theory 1, four times since the pandemic began, the difference between having 25 and 32 students was negligible.
“I think I can still deliver very high quality education at that scale,” Hoel told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project.
To maintain her standard of education, Hoel has increased her office hours to ensure students could still receive individualized attention on their own time. She also said she started bringing in guest speakers throughout the block, which she saw as an opportunity that she might not get with smaller class sizes.
“Frankly, I’m able to attract guest speakers to come more when I say, ‘oh there’s going to be 35 students who are going to come and listen to what you have to say instead of only 18 or only 20,” Hoel said. “Students in my evaluations report that that was hands-down their favorite part of the class because they got to see what a wide range of interesting things that economists do.”
Keeping students on track to graduate
A big factor in both Erickson and Hoel’s decisions to teach more students was that some their courses, like Erickson’s Calculus 1 and Hoel’s Economic Theory 1, are classes that are needed to complete several majors at CC.
Erickson’s first class that included more students took place during Block 8 last year, for which he said there were still at least 20 students on the waitlist by the middle of Block 7.
“I had a decision to make — either deny 20 students the opportunity to take Calculus 1, when it might have been critical for them to moving on in their majors, or increasing the class size,” Erickson said.
Hoel said she was specifically concerned about Environmental Studies seniors, who need Economic Theory 1 in order to graduate, that might not be able to rearrange their schedule after the class was cancelled for other blocks.
“I really want to make sure that everybody graduates on time,” Hoel said. “Nobody needs to be paying more money for their college education because things got confusing because of pandemic.”
Another professor who found herself taking on more students during the pandemic was Lori Driscoll ‘94, a professor in the psychology department. Unlike Hoel and Erickson, who intentionally increased their class capacity limits to accommodate students, Driscoll’s decision was a response to students in need of a last-minute course to take.
“I think what happened was we started getting emails from students saying, ‘I just got kicked out of my class,’ or ‘this class isn’t being taught, the person can’t do it because it was supposed to be in person, it can’ be taught remotely,’” Driscoll told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project. “It was kind of just a discussion of whether or not it would be okay for everyone if we took on extra students.”
While the psychology department did decide to take on some extra students, Driscoll said they were also sure to not take on too many.
While Driscoll initially took on around five extra students, she said that amount has decreased as the pandemic evolved to only one or two.
A trend that will continue?
This semester, there are no classes exceeding 32 students, and only a couple classes of that size are being taught by one professor. Over the summer, one class will have a capacity of 50 students. The usual limit on class sizes for one teacher is 25.
For Erickson, reduced class sizes from what they have been isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing.
“It’s also tempting to say that ‘25 is good and 50 is bad,’ but it is, I would say, more nuanced than that,” Erickson said. “I think you can be in an outstanding 50-person class, and then be in a very mediocre 25-person class.”
About the CC COVID-19 Reporting Project
The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project is created by Colorado College student journalists Esteban Candelaria, Lorea Zabaleta, and Cameron Howell in partnership with The Catalyst, Colorado College’s student newspaper. Work by Phoebe Lostroh, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at CC and National Science Foundation Program Director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, will appear every Monday.
The project seeks to provide frequent updates about CC and other higher education institutions during the pandemic by providing original reporting, analysis, interviews with campus leaders, and context about what state and national headlines mean for the CC community.
📬 Enter your email address to subscribe and get the newsletter in your inbox each time it comes out. You can reach us with questions, feedback, or news tips by emailing ccreportingproject@gmail.com.