TRANSCRIPT: In Conversation with Dean Melanie Woodin and ASSU President Ikran Jama

September 16, 2020 by A&S News

Video transcript for IN CONVERSATION with Dean Melanie Woodin and Ikran Jama, President of the Arts & Science Students’ Union (ASSU)
Featuring Randy Boyagoda, Vice-Dean Undergraduate
Recorded Sept 16, 2020, St. George Campus

Transcript:

Randy Boyagoda:
Hi there. I'm Randy Boyagoda, a professor in the English department and Vice-Dean undergraduate in the Faculty of Arts & Science. I'm standing between two ferns near Sidney Smith to introduce you to two leaders who are members of our academic community. Dr. Melanie Woodin, and Ikran Jama, president of ASSU, are going to have a conversation now about what's going on on campus these days, and what we can expect in the time ahead.

In-person and online classes

Ikran Jama:
I’m here to ask you a couple of questions that I'm sure a lot of students would like to see your answers to, pertaining to how the Faculty's really dealing with this hybrid switch in-person online mechanism here on campus. And I guess my first question would be, how does the Faculty really deal with that switch from in-person classes in the winter and summer semester to online classes moving forward.

Melanie Woodin:
Great question. And thank you for asking. And I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to ASSU about this. So I just want to make sure that all students know that this has been, of course, a difficult set of decisions we've had to make. And throughout the entire decision-making process, at the forefront of our considerations is what's best for students and what students want. 

So we started our planning process really early on, right back in April. So even only a couple weeks after we made the initial switch to online, we started to meet with chairs and directors to talk about how we would transition back to in-person with a goal of doing so for September. What we realized was that, of course, we couldn't plan for only in-person because it's a pandemic. We don't know the timeline. But we wanted to make sure that we were planning in a really flexible way, so that as the pandemic evolves, we have the opportunity to ship more in-person or more online. And we also wanted students to have choice. 

We know that for some students, they really have the opportunity to be on campus, and they want to be on campus. But for other students for a variety of personal reasons, that might not work well for them. So wherever you're at that you have a really great opportunity to engage. 

The planning process

So we developed this model with our chairs and directors, which we internally called dual delivery, which was for the majority of courses could we offer them both in-person and online. And the size of the in-person would depend upon public health restrictions. 
I should, of course, say all of this is always dependent on public health. 

So if at any point in the planning process, we realized that you couldn't be back on campus, we would simply focus it on the online section. And I was really heartened in our chairs and directors and faculty members that have contributed to that process, really embraced this delivery model. And that's what drove our Online Learning Academy to work so intensively with instructors over the summer to make sure they were ready to deliver this in a high-quality way. 

Then we started to put those plans into action throughout the spring and late spring. And instructors worked really hard on developing those plans. But of course, the pandemic continued. I think for many of us, August rolled around, we looked forward to the fall, and we realize we wouldn't be in the public health situation we had all hoped for. So even in late July, when we were still in stage two, which actually didn't permit any in-person for us, we realized that not all instructors, were ready to come back to the classroom. 

This is actually for some really practical reasons. So it's not just the professor or the instructor that teaches your course. But it's a whole teaching team that has TAs, graduate student TAs that are often with you in the classroom. And for many of them who were actually also coming to the University of Toronto, from other countries for the first time, they were uncertain about their ability to arrive in Canada if they were international students. So instructors were contacting us to ask about the opportunity to reconsider moving their course from that in-person format to online. 

So realizing that we had a large number of these requests for a whole host of reasons, we decided to take a pause in our planning. We went back to departments, chairs, directors and instructors and said, each instructor who is teaching a course, is going to take a few days to reaffirm their decision. And in doing so they need to consult with their teaching team. 

And they need to think about the pedagogical delivery of the course of what's working best for delivering material, their own personal circumstances. So you'll know at this time that plans for public schools were not developed and so many faculty members and instructors have children that they didn't have plans for, and they're teaching team and TAs, and to come back and let us know on how they wanted to deliver that course for the fall and the result of that process was that a large number of courses transition there in-person to online. 

We know that was disappointing for many students. And so I just really want to convey to students that that disappointment was shared by your professors, your TAs, and the entire Faculty. We want to be here with you in-person. We know how excited you were for some of those opportunities. And so it's unfortunate that that number has reduced. But in the end, in my view, the same way we're giving students the choice of how they learn. We also need to make sure our instructors and our teaching teams have the choice and feel comfortable in the decision that they've made. So that's how we got to this point.

Starting the academic year

Melanie Woodin:
So Ikran, now that we’re a few days into the term, I'd love to hear from the students’ perspective. How's it going?

Ikran Jama:
It's going well, so far, there have been some challenges. Some of the challenges that I've seen as a student have been about whether or not some of my courses would actually commit to being in-person. But that information has now been given. So we’re moving forward from then on. 

Another challenge is just trying to navigate this entire, this entire world that we're in right now, I'm sure a lot of students are in the same boat as me, we're feeling anxious. And so at least school does give us some kind of way to move away from that. But at the same time, you know, it's important, I feel like it's important that students recognize we’re all in this together as well. And that the Faculty also recognizes the position we’re being put in as well. It’s going to be a challenging year for all of us.

Melanie Woodin:
It sure is, Ikran, and I just want to follow up on that to say and to make sure students know how much the Faculty of Arts & Science, the dean's office, our chairs, and directors really value that relationship with ASSU. People might not realize that over the last seven months now that you've been in the pandemic, our offices relied really heavily on the feedback from ASSU, representing students. We hear a lot from students, but you know, can often be anecdotal. 
So we don't always have the whole picture. 

I'll admit that sometimes we get focused on what we think this particular problem students might be experiencing, and we'll be bounce it off members of your office, we hear that perhaps it is or isn't a problem. But there's actually something looming much larger for students. And so we're able to make sure we're focusing our attention on where you need it. 

So I guess to your final point, you’re right, we’re all in this together. So a sincere thanks to ASSU all to all the students for your patience. Hindsight is 20/20. When we look back, could we have done certain things differently? Absolutely. But we're all learning in this together. So thank you.

Looking ahead

Melanie Woodin:
So one of the reasons that we held in-person in the timetable up to this point is that again, our objective is to provide students choice for either in-person or online, public health guidelines permitting. And in our view, the best way to do that is to wait until closer to the start of the winter term, so that we'd have a better sense of the public health situation, but also feedback from both students and instructors to learn, how's their teaching and learning going in this new, what we call, pedagogical experiment, where teaching and learning is happening both in-person and online. 
And actually, early indications are that this is a pretty phenomenal teaching tool. But we do know also that case counts are on the rise, and there's uncertainty about the situation for the winter. 
So our current plan is that we're going back to chairs and directors, and we're asking them to consult with our instructors and their teaching teams, to reaffirm again their decision about whether they want to stay in-person or whether they're making a choice to move online.  

Those decisions will be made by instructors over the course of the next month. And then we'll be updating of course timetable and notifying students later in the fall. But I'll reiterate to any students that are currently learning from abroad, that we have a Dean's promise extended in effect that you would have seen earlier this year, which essentially makes a commitment that all graduating students can complete their course requirements from abroad, that they're unable or choose not to be on campus. 

So either way, we're committed to those students graduating and we're committed to all students having a great learning experience in the winter.

Randy Boyagoda:
Well, that was great to hear from two members of our academic community. Dean Woodin and Ikran Jama chatting about courses in campus life here this fall in the Faculty of Arts & Science and looking ahead to the winter. Stay well, everyone and best of luck with your studies.
 

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