DH Dev Report 1: UNL Campus in a Post-COVID World

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The pandemic makes campus feel lonely and changes the ways we engage with people in the classroom. 

Walking outside, with so few people relative to past years, the space feels empty, lonely. The presence of hand sanitizing stations around campus signals the absence of students. These constructions of pvc pipes are ubiquitous, almost monolithic, serving as a constant reminder of the rules and protocols that the pandemic necessitates. They replaced students, making the campus seem clinical and impersonal. The inclusion of these stations, despite occupying space, makes the campus seem more barren than if they were not there. There have always been times when the campus seems empty; if you have late afternoon or evening classes, there are fewer students than around noon. However, the presence of sanitizing stations indicate that the semi-deserted state of campus is the new norm. This emptiness deprives students of one of the key functions that school provided previously: a sense of community and social connection. 

This emptiness is not present in classrooms, however, which have their own peculiarities. In class, you can engage people in conversation, but you cannot see their face while doing so. When I talk to someone, my attention is drawn to the most active part of their body. Typically, this is their face, which shifts and changes expression as they speak. It is much more difficult to pick up on facial expressions through masks, so I divert my attention elsewhere. I focus more on their eyes, their hair, or their clothes rather than their mouth. These forms of physical expression become much more important when someone’s face is no longer the primary characteristic I use to identify them. Instead of forming associations between names and faces, I now form associations between names and clothing. Additionally, the fewer number of students in a classroom makes group discussion easier. It feels like more weight is given to individual contributions; people cannot rely on others to facilitate or maintain discussion as they might have prior to the pandemic, and they are given more opportunities to provide insight into their own interpretations and perspectives.  

By "unmaking" the social function of community, UNL's response to COVID has, in effect, made a learning environment that enables making. Hunter et al. argue that "the process of making begins in thought and imagination, in conversation and debate," and the shift at UNL from communal interactions to interpersonal interactions better facilitates these aspects of the making process. The implicit emphasis on individual interactions encourages students to engage critically with their peers in ways they may not have prior to COVID.