• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
The campus of The Catholic University of America is seen from the bell tower of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

Coronavirus and ‘Hollywood Squares’

March 16, 2020
By John Garvey
Filed Under: Commentary, Coronavirus, Guest Commentary, Intellect and Virtue

The novel coronavirus that began in Wuhan, China, late last year has affected higher education like nothing I have experienced in my time as a university president.

We have called students home from overseas programs on five continents. We have canceled international spring break trips to Israel, Greece and the Caribbean.

This week, we decided to suspend classes on campus and teach them online, at least for the next few weeks.

We are not alone. Harvard, MIT, Duke, Fordham, Princeton, Stanford, Ohio State, Indiana, Middlebury, Vanderbilt, Loyola University Maryland — colleges and universities large and small, private and public, are telling students to go home. Nearly all of them propose to continue teaching courses online.

As recently as a couple of years ago, this would have been unrealistic.

But today, the ubiquity of laptops, the quality of embedded cameras and good conferencing software have made it the default solution.

Microsoft reports a 500% increase in use of its Teams software in China since the end of January. The stock market has tanked, but stock in Zoom, a popular conferencing product, is up 20% in the last month. Google is offering free Meet usage for users of G Suite for Education.

I teach a very low-tech course (The Virtues) to two dozen freshmen in our honors program. The materials are mostly films, novels, essays and some art.

It’s a seminar, so the students do most of the talking. And to make sure they are prepared, I require them to write 500 words before each class on several questions I pose about that day’s material.

Two weeks ago, anticipating our move to online instruction and wondering what we might be getting ourselves into, I tried doing a class on Zoom.

If I gave lectures, I could have just filmed myself and posted my talk, a kind of third-rate monologue. But I worried about conducting a discussion across 25 laptops.

It worked a lot better than I thought it would. The screen looked like “Hollywood Squares,” but with more people. I could mute everyone except the student I called on. And her square would light up, so people knew where to look.

It’s not the only tool you need to run a class. We have another program called Blackboard, which allows me to post a syllabus, hand out assignments, make announcements, put up documents and post grades. And students can send me their daily reflections and term papers as email attachments.

Of course, this stuff is of no use for teaching dance or chemistry lab. Even in my course on The Virtues, there are things we’ve had to cancel. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was scheduled to teach a class at the court. The chair of our art department often takes my students to the National Gallery of Art.

And students’ ability to learn from one another is significantly diminished. People in the honors program live together in two dorms; they discuss the reflections they write before we meet, and they often continue the class discussion over lunch, which follows.

The “Hollywood Squares” conversation is a bit clipped and stilted, too. You don’t get nonverbal cues, and people on mute can’t talk over one another or communicate laughter or disagreement.

But in-person education of students isn’t confined to three hours a week in class. Faculty still see students at daily Mass, in the dining hall, at performances and at sporting events. Students see faculty in their offices and walking around campus.

As we send the students home, I find myself thinking about what Cardinal Newman said in one of his university sermons — that the most effective means of communicating the beauty of virtue “is holiness embodied in personal form.” Online instruction, however handy, can’t provide that kind of education.

For more information about the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s response to the coronavirus, visit www.archbalt.org/coronavirus

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

John Garvey

John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America, writes the Catholic News Service column "Intellect and Virtue."

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Merciful like the Father

What does it taste like?

4 tips for building a media-smart family

Here is the simplest way to share faith with kids

Let good prevail

| Recent Local News |

Annapolis parish marks historic milestone

Sister Alice Klein, O.S.F., dies at 91

RADIO INTERVIEW: Black Catholic Nuns

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things: Archdiocesan Gala to return

Clarksville school shapes educators in faith formation

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Russia poses ‘biggest threat to religious freedom in Ukraine,’ says archbishop
  • Pope, church leaders draw attention to victims of violence
  • Gregory: World needs African Americans’ ‘strength of character’; it ‘resides within the souls of our people’
  • Annapolis parish marks historic milestone
  • Sister Alice Klein, O.S.F., dies at 91
  • Pope saddened by ‘huge loss of life’ after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
  • RADIO INTERVIEW: Black Catholic Nuns
  • Catholic lawmaker calls for ‘frank and sober’ security conversation after Chinese balloon shot down
  • Arms trade is a ‘plague,’ pope says on flight back from Africa

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED