Wofford’s adjustments to the academic calendar due to COVID-19
One of the best things about choosing a school like Wofford is getting the opportunity to leave it. Let me explain.
As much students can learn and grow with professors here and in the town of Spartanburg, there is a certain romantic appeal to moving beyond the typical classroom setting and rounding out our education with a new environment and courses that can engage and challenge us. Perhaps this appeal also includes the fact that traveling abroad at Wofford can include safari rides in the Serengeti or the chance to leave during our cold January in the US for a month in the Galapagos doing “school” on the beach.
Studying abroad is also a requirement of many majors, and for languages in particular, it provides a kind of immersive and realistic dimension to the study that allows conjugations and tenses to come alive. Wofford also allows travel abroad to be as short and sweet as an interim, or more in depth experience options as long as one year.
These things that draw us towards travel and a more global education among students and faculty alike has allowed our International Programs department to grow to the point of national recognition, and to become a key factor in the average Wofford student’s four-year stint here in one way or another.
Wofford has ranked 12th in the nation for percentage of students studying abroad for credit in the 2018 Open Doors report. Since 2007, more than 3,000 students have studied abroad in 70 countries on all seven continents. With such status as a school that allows you to move beyond our campus, what does it look like to plan and participate in such activities during a global pandemic?
Well, it looks like our answer is an upending of the usual academic calendar per the campus wide email received on Thursday September 10, 2020 from the college’s Provost Mike Sosulski. Spring semester will now begin in January, and everyone’s long-awaited interim trips will be postponed after the college’s spring break in mid-April. According to the email, “This schedule gives the college the best opportunity for preserving the integrity of Interim.” But, what does this actually mean?
It means that interim opportunities will now be pushed until right before graduation, potentially too late for the events, internships and research opportunities to be included on some job applications and/or graduate programs. It means some interim trips could simply no longer be offered. It means that professors will now be saddled with preparing for an entire semester instead of a shorter, four week course during their holiday break. It means, for our seniors, that the last month of their college experience could be spent apart from each other and away from the place where they will soon say goodbye.
When asking Rivers Clarke ‘21, a senior who planned to go on an interim trip to New Zealand, she reflected more fondly than some others. She stated, “I see this as a time for reflection and one last go round together before we all go our separate ways. I have already been told my New Zealand trip will not be happening, however I do have a small hope that now Interim is in May there could be a possibility that we could go. If not, I am excited for a final semester in the senior village surrounded by friends that I have spent the last 4 years with and time together before we must all depart.”
Clarke provides an insight into one side of the divide that appears to be present on campus these days, which is to either choose standing by the rules and smiling through each adjustment thrown our way, or to become more indifferent and disheartened. After speaking with various other students intending to pursue both on and off campus interim trips, a phrase rings out in the mumbles concerning this and various other changes to our on campus experience this academic year. “What’s the point”?
Executive Director of the Space, Curt McPhail, provided an answer to such apathy, both as a member of the staff and as a Wofford parent. He stated that, “This year’s seniors have the opportunity to do something that I believe no other Wofford class has done, which is to end their college career with one of the most iconic programs Wofford offers.”
This call to embrace the monumental time we are in adds hope to the long list of emotions felt during this time. It also rings true in the sense that this graduating class, the rest of Wofford’s students and professors will need to brace themselves for being the guinea pigs for this and many other alterations to come as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
It is clear now that “Where thought leads” will no longer include an airport during January 2021. All that’s left to say is, COVID-19, leave graduation alone!