If you’ve been following the Impact Blog over the past few days, by now you have learned that classes have moved completely online and that BC Law has switched to a pass/fail grading system. Professors and students used last week to adjust to our new “normal,” but here is what I have learned so far.
Distance Learning in the COVID-19 Era: A Reflection From Governor Swift
Today I am hosting a guest blog post from Governor Jane Swift, who is currently the Rappaport Center for Law & Public Policy Distinguished Visiting Professor.
The ironies abound. First, the course I am teaching at Boston College Law School is titled, “Governing in the Era of Facebook: Privacy, Propaganda & the Public Good.” The entire course is premised on the speed of innovation and how it is rapidly changing the nature of work and learning and challenging the legal and regulatory sectors. Second, I have been an executive in the Education Technology industry for nearly two decades. I have run online learning companies and sold and delivered online courses to schools and colleges. So, if anyone should have been ready to quickly pivot their face-to-face teaching as a Rappaport visiting professor from traditional delivery to online, that guest professor should have been me. If I could play a guitar or sing, however, I would have written and tried to get this video to trend.
One thing is really important to put in perspective from the get-go. What is happening this spring semester, where schools are continuing to deliver coursework to college and university students, is decidedly NOT online learning. True online courses, like the ones my colleagues and I built at Middlebury Interactive Languages, take months and sometimes years to build. They depend on professionals with specific expertise in course design to translate pedagogy from in-person to online. Even in online learning, there is huge variation in the degree of features and functionality, the use of video and audio, whether assessments are embedded in the course, and how those are proctored. None of that can happen at scale, securely in a three day or two week period. Instead, what you see now would more fairly be categorized as distance learning or – and even this is a stretch – as blended learning.
Equitable Grading in Times of Crisis?
Dear BC Law Community,
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has created a widespread public health crisis, larger than what most of us have seen before in our lifetimes. This is not, however, the first-time members of our community have faced an unprecedented life circumstance. Your classmates deal with issues such as food insecurity, homelessness, chronic physical and mental illness, family tragedies, and much more, on a daily basis. When members of our community face these issues, absent a pandemic, we tell them to suck it up. We tell them the curve is what it is and they just need to find a way to solider through, or we contritely tell them “hey, B’s are still passing,” when we all know full well that in a tight job market, the arbitrary difference between a B and a B+ can be the difference between employment and unemployment. An overly competitive curve is all well and good when it only effects the have-nots, but when it starts to affect the “haves” as well, then we start paying attention.
A Call for Compassion and Understanding
Today, I am hosting a guest blog post by Robert Lydon, a first-year student at BC Law.
I cannot describe the relief I felt when I received the Dean’s email about the grading policy change. Relief because I would not have to choose between my family, my health, and my academic career. Relief because I now have the flexibility to be there for those who need me.
I am just one of the students the administration probably had in mind when they rendered this decision. As of last week, I’ve learned that my brother, father, and brother-in-law are now unemployed after construction was shut down in Boston. They are all concerned about how they are going to pay their bills. My mother is a disabled two-time cancer survivor, and I cannot express how dangerous this illness could be for her. Despite this, she continues to help care for my grandmother, who is recovering from a recent hip fracture and is also extremely vulnerable. I live at home with my parents and am worried about their health, economic well-being, and housing security. I am far from the only one in our community affected, nor am I the most adversely affected by this global upheaval.
We Are Human Beings First And Law Students Second
Editor’s note: due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, Boston College has moved all classes online and sent students home for the semester. The BC Law Impact blog has suspended its normal posting schedule, and bloggers are now focused on writing about the impact of the shutdown and the current state of the world on their academic and social experiences as law students. We are all in this together; let’s find our way through together.
I am a law student who, like everyone else at BC Law (and literally everywhere else on Earth), wishes this wasn’t happening.
I am a student attorney trying to figure out how to help my clients, since the courts have all but shut down.
I am a millennial who has grown up in endless war, and I probably have a lot of residual trauma from multiple mass shootings in my community.
I am a teacher whose first grade Hebrew students are going stir-crazy in their homes while I try to teach them on Zoom.
I am a daughter of parents whose small business has been shuttered in this crisis.
I am a sister worrying about my siblings who are suddenly out of work without a safety net to fall back on.
I am a partner of a full-time graduate student, who is also doing his learning and his part-time teaching jobs from our apartment.
But before all of those things, I am a human being living in a community that is being tested like never before, in ways large and small.
Why the Pass/Fail Policy Matters
I’ll be honest. When I first read the email about the pass/fail policy this semester, I was upset. I have been working really hard this semester to boost my GPA, and I was looking forward to the chance to improve my performance during finals. I’ve been pretty anxious about this whole COVID-19 situation, and I felt like this was not the news I wanted to hear.
And then I took a deep breath and counted my blessings. After putting everything into perspective, I realized how much this pass/fail policy might mean to someone who is facing more difficulties than me right now. Throughout my time at law school, I have gotten involved in various diversity initiatives because I’m a woman of color and I know this puts me at a systemic disadvantage. I fight for these causes because they personally affect me. If I am so quick to stand up for causes that personally affect me, I should also be as committed to standing up even when my own interests might not be at stake.
We Are Stronger Than We Think
Editor’s note: due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, Boston College has moved all classes online and sent students home for the semester. The BC Law Impact blog has suspended its normal posting schedule, and bloggers are now focused on writing about the impact of the shutdown and the current state of the world on their academic and social experiences as law students. We are all in this together; let’s find our way through together.
The day after spring break, when the name “coronavirus” was barely on my radar, I received an email that my ballet classes were cancelled for the rest of the semester. “This is such an overreaction,” I thought, “hopefully I can get my money back.” I was disappointed because dance had been one creative outlet I’d relied on during tough academic semesters. I thought that as young and healthy dancers we could have easily worn masks or broken the class into smaller groups to limit the spread of germs. But I knew those in charge simply wanted to protect us from the spreading virus, so I comforted myself with “better safe than sorry.”
I heard “coronavirus” again the next day when my law school professors gently warned students that classes may be moved online if things get worse. “That seems extreme. Should that really be the first step?” I asked a classmate who then joked that we should have extended our spring vacation. Meanwhile the apocalyptic headlines rolled in: “Massachusetts Governor Declares State of Emergency,” “U.S. Cases of Coronavirus Surpass 1,000,” “Prepare for the Inevitable.” Facebook and Instagram posts from individuals pleading with people to “wash their hands” (people needed a reminder?!) and to “stay home if sick” (wise words) saturated my news feeds. But still, I was in denial of how serious the situation was. It had to mainly be media dramatization, right? BC would never cancel classes – certainly not for the whole semester.
What Do Bats and Viruses Teach Us About American Government?
Editor’s note: due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, Boston College has moved all classes online and sent students home for the semester. The BC Law Impact blog has suspended its normal posting schedule, and bloggers are now focused on writing about the impact of the shutdown and the current state of the world on their academic and social experiences as law students. We are all in this together; let’s find our way through together.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about a night I spent in Panama trapping bats. More precisely, I was taking pictures of a team of German scientists who were trapping bats. I had been traveling in Latin America when a journalist friend asked me to meet him in Panama and tag along on a story he was doing for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, which studies tropical ecosystems and their impact on human well-being. As the virulence of the coronavirus has shown, bats are especially potent and prolific reservoirs of disease due to their strong immune systems. So every night, this team of scientists would head out into the tropical forest, put nets up between trees, and catalog and take samples from all the captured bats.
The goal was to understand the dilution effect, which refers to the way that biodiversity in the natural world helps prevent the spread of disease from animals to humans. The theory is that when an ecosystem has high levels of biodiversity, it is more difficult for a disease to take hold in any one species. Without any species becoming a potent reservoir for that disease, it is more difficult for it to spill over into human populations. When biodiversity is low, however, a single species can serve as host to a critical mass of disease, facilitating its transmission to humans.
Impact Update: BC Campus Shutdown
The coronavirus has impacted life around the globe, and it’s now hit Boston College where we live: the University has moved to online learning for all classes and students are required to leave campus (unless you file for an exemption due to travel restrictions, serious personal reasons, or university obligations). Here’s the official BC announcement.
We’re not alone in this: as most of our readers already know, universities are shutting their doors around the country for weeks, or in some cases (as with BC) for the rest of the semester. It’s the right thing to do to try to limit the spread of the virus and keep people safe, but we’re going to miss our daily BC Law routines, professors, and friends!
That said, the Impact blog isn’t shutting down. So keep checking back for more posts from us on all sorts of subjects, including our recent spring break service trip experiences. We’re all still here (at least on a virtual basis), and ready to bring more content your way. Stay safe everyone!
Moot Court: Mock Trial’s Nerdy But Cool Older Sibling
Note: The 60th Annual Wendell F. Grimes Moot Court Competition Finals will be held at BC Law on Wednesday, March 11 at 4:00 pm in East Wing Room 120.
Television shows like Judge Judy prepare every person in the English-speaking world for what could possibly go on at a mock trial competition: there are opening statements, directs, crosses, redirects, closing arguments, and certainly tons of objections and shocking witness impeachments. These are all aimed at typically convincing a jury that your side has better evidence to prove your point, or in the alternative, that the other side simply lacks sufficient evidence to prove theirs.
While this is, I am sure, one of the many cool things about grade school, college, and yes indeed law school, I have found mock trial’s lesser known appellate sibling to be much more entertaining.
Picture this: you, your moot court partner, your opposing counsel and their partner, a panel of typically three judges (often actual judges and high powered successful attorneys), and a fascinating point of law. Your job in a fifteen minute span is to engage in an eloquent and respectful conversation with the judges about the issue at hand. Opposing counsel cannot object to your argument. In fact, the only people who can interrupt you at all are the judges who, if you’re lucky, are peppering you with questions about holes in your arguments and points raised by your opposing counsel. Or they’re asking you about circuit courts that disagree with your theory of the case. Because there’s no jury for whom you must translate the law into something a lay (read normal) person can understand, you just have a bunch of highly intelligent, legally trained people discussing the nuances of our legal system. It’s a total nerd party!
BC Law: Impact 