Online Summers

I miss students.

I don’t mean “enrollment”—our summer enrollment is up. I mean students.

Most of our summer classes are online, reflecting student demand.

That means there aren’t many students on campus in the summer, despite increased enrollment. They’re at home, or at work, or wherever, taking classes virtually. There are exceptions, such as some allied health programs, but most of our summer enrollments are online.

I can’t begrudge students making the best choices for themselves. Many of them are working jobs for pay, often with hours that vary from week to week, making regular attendance difficult. Others are “visiting”—in other words, matriculated elsewhere but picking up a course or two with us to save money—and may or may not even be in the area consistently. Still others might simply prefer skipping the time and expense of driving to campus, especially at current gas prices. I get that.

But a campus without lots of students around just doesn’t feel right.

I’ve been in this business long enough to remember relatively healthy in-person summer enrollments. (I say “relatively” because they were never great on Fridays.) The campus wasn’t as lively as in the spring or fall semesters, but there was still a certain energy.

The mix of “visiting” students with “native” students made for fascinating class dynamics. The single best class I ever taught was a summer class that combined a few traditional college students with a cluster of honors-level high school students. They were wonderful. They were excited to be there, eager to prove themselves and not jaded yet.

Later, my favorite classes were usually evening sections. They were populated heavily by working adults who knew exactly why they were there. Now, that group is much more likely to go online than to attend in person. I get it; I’m tired after work, too. But there was a rapport that was so much easier to build in person, particularly among the students with each other.

When students are around, they bring an energy to campus. Sometimes they get caught up in each other’s enthusiasms, for better or worse. Sometimes they form friendships or start dating. I like it when they form quirky or unusual clubs to pursue interests that don’t always have institutional homes off campus. They bring an element of idealism that never gets old. Sometimes it’s a bit rough around the edges, but that’s OK in a campus setting. The idea of “the old college try” exists for a reason.

Part of the appeal of an open-admissions institution is the prospect of extending that experience to all who want it. Online courses can deliver content quite well—better, in certain ways—but they can’t deliver the campus experience. And the relative few who still show up in search of the campus experience are deprived of the critical mass of enthusiasts to form the unusual club or decide to save the world. That’s a real loss, even if it doesn’t show up in the usual assessment data.

The campus will come back to life in the fall, as it should. But for now, I just miss students.