SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Coronavirus "What A Situation Here And Globally"

By Karl Grossman

The signs on Route 27 that usually warn of an accident up ahead or tell people not to text while driving were announcing alternatively “Stay Home” and “Stop The Spread.” Along Montauk Highway restaurant after restaurant were shut down—many with hand-drawn signs posted about take-out being available. At a supermarket, people were wearing face masks.

In front of a grocery store in Westhampton Beach a crowd had gathered and there were items being sold, one customer at a time, from a table outside. 

Driving home, I passed the Southampton Full Gospel Church with a sign in front of it: “Fear Not, Nor Be Dismayed, Be Strong And Of Good Courage.” 

In sum, what a scene out there—it would have been unbelievable a few weeks ago.

 What a dramatic, mammoth change for us all—like nothing in my lifetime. The only thing, I think, in modern times comparable in the U.S. to the coronavirus pandemic were the huge changes after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

I’ve been a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury and early on all classes were moved to “alternate instructional delivery,” as they were at every SUNY and CUNY campus. This includes Suffolk County Community College, part of SUNY. Before the order came down from Governor Cuomo, we prepared for online teaching.

“You’ll be engaging students virtually,” said Virek Ramgopal, a representative of Blackboard. He was opening a webinar that I participated in, one of many that Blackboard was holding. There were more than 300 teachers from around the globe on it. Blackboard is based in Washington, D.C. and on its website describes itself as “the largest” company “in the world” specializing in “distance learning.” 

Edgar Gonzalez, who noted he came to Blackboard from the University of Texas where he had been director of distance education, said what was involved was us “transitioning from face-to-face to online” instruction. As he spoke, an acronym for “face-to-face” came up on the computer screen: “F2F.”

The webinar included presentations about “looking at automation options,” establishing a “live chat,” putting a video online—“keep the video short”—and ways to “create teacher presence.” The idea regarding the latter is that students shouldn’t feel they’re being subject to robotized education. It was suggested the teacher put up her or his photo to help humanize the lesson.

At the college, Old Westbury professors were given Blackboard training in groups and individually. I so much more prefer “face-to-face” teaching. For instance, in my Environmental Journalism course just before this all happened, I devoted two classes to the nature writing of essayists and poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, writer, conservationist and crusader for national parks John Muir, and Walt Whitman. I changed teaching gears when from the facial expressions of students and answers to my questions, it was clear most weren’t familiar with Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. They knew about Whitman, but he was a Long Islander, after all, his birthplace in West Hills, 10 miles from the college. I shifted immediately to more extensive presentations about Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. 

Online instruction has become a necessary alternative now. But it’s no real substitute for the personal interaction of teaching face-to-face, despite the big push in academia in recent years to give courses online. 

Because of coronavirus, a hospital is to be built on an emergency basis on the SUNY/Old Westbury campus—and the second on Long Island on the Stony Brook University campus.

Sabbath services at our Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, were also held online. “This is different,” said Rabbi Dan Geffen from the pulpit at Long Island’s oldest synagogue: “We are all adopting and changing and trying to bring out the best in each other.” He said the situation was “an opportunity for us to each reinvigorate our spirituality.” The rabbi said “we have lost control over many things we had just weeks ago,” and that: “We are all connected one way or the other. We are all suffering.” The traditional “Prayer for Healing”—normally devoted to ill members of the congregation, relatives and friends—was broadened to all those struck by the virus pandemic.

Religious services—all over Long Island and world—were being streamed online.

As a teacher, you get close to students. My wonderful A-student from Vietnam was having trouble booking a ticket home. Suddenly, due to a last-minute cancellation, she got a seat on Japan Airlines. She telephoned from Kennedy Airport waiting for her flight and emailed upon arriving in Vietnam to first spend, she said, 14 days of quarantine “in the countryside.” 

What a situation here and globally!

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.