Core classes interrupted by strike to require makeup work, summer school

Upper West Side NY

15 February, 2022

3:13 PM

Description

Columbia Daily Spectator BY ELIANA GOLDIN FEBRUARY 14, 2022, 11:04 PM After spending two years at Sciences Po in France, Malaika Tayi, GS '23, was ready to start her time at Columbia, take Core Curriculum classes, and focus on her human rights major with a concentration in African studies. But two months into her time on campus, the Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers strike interrupted classes across the University, including Tayi's required University Writing course. "At first, we thought it would be two weeks," Tayi said of the strike. "[The class] did not come back ... It was quite disappointing." Now, Tayi will have to take a summer course to make up for lost class time. Tayi's situation is not uncommon. When the SWC-UAW began its strike on Nov. 3, most community members did not anticipate it would last as long as it did. Harvard's graduate student strike lasted only three days before the union and university reached a contract. Yet, it took 10 weeks for the University and the SWC-UAW to come to an agreement and ratify a contract that brought with it health benefits and improved workplace protections for student-workers, but also over half a semester's worth of lost class time for many undergraduates. For many students, particularly those in Core classes, this meant receiving a grade of "CP," or "credit pending," for fall coursework and having to make up assignments after the semester ended. According to the New York State Education Department, three-point classes are required to include 126 hours of teaching and learning per semester. Classes whose instructors went on strike on Nov. 3 did not meet this minimum requirement, thus requiring makeup work and, in some cases, additional instructional time. Most students in this situation were assigned makeup essays in the last few days of winter break. Others are required to take summer courses to compensate for missed instructional hours. [Read more: 'It's hard to do both': The SWC-UAW strike's disruption of Core classes leaves undergraduates stuck between learning loss and solidarity] Sam Klein, CC '25, deferred admission before his first year and spent two years abroad before coming to Columbia last fall, allowing him to avoid taking classes online due to the pandemic. In his first semester, two of his classes were interrupted by the strike. "I feel lucky that I dodged the corona nonsense because I was on gap years for all of corona," he said. "But this very much felt like I was being shortchanged in a different way." Notably, Klein's Literature Humanities class only met for about half the semester before interruptions began. With the strike underway, his professor stopped showing up to class and communication was unclear. At one point, Klein said that "she sent an email … that seemed like we were gonna have to be tested on even the texts that we hadn't reviewed in class." While expectations were confusing for Klein's Lit Hum class, other classes were more straightforward. Arieh Bright, GS '23, received an email from his Music Humanities professor saying that there was "no expectation for you to keep up with the class." Danelle Tuchman, CC '25, received a similar communication about her UW class, explaining that "it was clear that we weren't expected to do anything." However, Tuchman recalled texts in her UW group chat every so often wondering whether or not they had class that day. Students were "hoping for instruction," she said. "I wish I would've just gotten another email being like 'there's no class today.'" Eventually, students in strike-disrupted Core classes received assignments to make up for their missed class time, both via email and via class Canvas pages. Bright's class was able to choose between two final projects, which he believed "had a little more flexibility" than the original assignment that they would have completed had the strike not occurred. Bright's makeup assignment was posted via Canvas on a new class page titled "Music Humanities Fall 2021 Special Project." The assignment consisted of writing 1,500 words about four musicians students found to be influential: two from the pre-strike class content and two who would have otherwise been covered after Nov. 3. Even in the absence of weeks of instruction, "the expectation was for us to make up the work," Bright said. "The one thing I wish they did differently is post the makeup assignment at the beginning of winter break, so I wouldn't have to worry about it," Bright said. "But I didn't receive the instructions for it until there were a couple of days left of break." Klein's makeup work for Lit Hum consisted of a five to seven page paper due on Feb. 13, which would have been assigned during Lit Hum had the strike not occurred. While Klein does think the assignment is a fair makeup assessment, he does not believe that this adequately compensated for the missed class time. "Specifically, the Gospels were texts I wasn't familiar with and that I was really looking forward to discussing in class," he said. "Some of the more subtle elements of instruction, like the fact that our teacher gave us historical background to each text that we're reading—that really felt lacking in the last half of the semester," Klein said. "I felt like I was kind of flying blind with a lot of these readings." Bright expressed that he missed an integral part of the Core as a result of both the pandemic and the strike. "I really didn't have half of Music Hum, and then I didn't have half of Art Humanities [because of the pandemic]," he said. "I felt like I've missed out on a chunk of the Columbia Core." Klein felt similarly. Lit Hum, he said, is "no pun intended, 'core' to the Columbia experience. … It's a bummer." Tuchman was also given the last weekend over winter break to complete her Progression 2, the second writing assignment out of four "progressions" comprising the UW curriculum. Tuchman was originally "supposed to have turned in the essay the day of the strike." However, she said, "I feel like my personal choice of not having done [P2] was very much just in anticipation of the strike." Other students who missed a significant portion of UW class time due to the strike will have to make up work online over the summer with either a compressed version of the course, offered in three and six-week versions, or with an alternative two-week class called Public Writing, according to an email sent by Nicole Wallack, director of University Writing, and Jenny Davidson, chair of the department of English and comparative literature. Tayi, whose family lives in Rwanda, said she was frustrated by this decision because of her unique circumstances as an international student. "I'm an international student, so if I don't find an internship here in New York in the U.S. over the summer, I'm going back home because I can't afford to live here over the summer and just be idle," she said. "That's [a seven] hour difference, so taking summer courses with [a seven] hour difference on top of having to do other stuff at home—that's what was really frustrating for me." Rebekah Cornish, GS '23, echoed Tayi's sentiments about having a required summer course sprung on students, pointing out that taking the mandatory summer class could "negatively affect career outcomes if it hinders performance during competitive summer internships." Tayi believes that forcing students to take a summer course could have been avoided by the University. "They could have anticipated this earlier," she said. "[They could have] ceded to the union's demands earlier just to save us this pain and frustration." The University could not be reached for comment at the time of publication. Staff writer Eliana Goldin can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.