VYING FOR CLASSES, 3
RESIDENT REVIEWS, 2
BU GIGS TO GO BIGGER, 7
SANTA IS REAL, 11
Spring registration left more students out of luck than usual.
Local Bostonians survived a semester of students in the city.
The student-run Instagram marketplace will become an app.
He exists, but not quite in the way we expect.
CE LE B RATIN G
THURSDAY, DEC. 10, 2020
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THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY
YEAR L. VOLUME XCIX. ISSUE V
Faculty, students say BUâs hybrid classes donât work Kate Sandage Daily Free Press Staff
AMANDA SCHNEIDER | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
ILLUSTRATION BY HANNAH YOSHINAGA | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
For those having difficulties during remote learning, the morality of cheating on online exams is far from black-and-white.
Online resources facilitate cheating in remote exams Angela Yang Daily Free Press Staff When Gus Betts-OâRourke received a mass email from his professor announcing the entirety of his classâs second midterm had been posted to the online tutoring service Chegg, he wasnât too surprised. For the College of Engineering sophomore and his peers, the incident felt like a repeat of another Chegg scandal that occurred in the Spring after Boston University first pivoted to remote learning. âAfter so many people got in trouble last semester for using Chegg and
other services, why do people keep doing it?â Betts-OâRourke said. âBut itâs expected that something like that is going to happen when you have online tests.â His professor, Selim ĂnlĂŒ, had discovered the unauthorized posting over Thanksgiving break. ĂnlĂŒ said his first reaction was disappointment, likening the situation to betrayal in a romantic relationship. âYou think you have a good connection with the students, and you trust them,â ĂnlĂŒ said. âAnd they cheat on you.â ĂnlĂŒâs exam was open-note and open-textbook, and students had up to 110 minutes to finish the test once they began working.
âThe only thing I told them is donât get help from other people, do not get help online,â ĂnlĂŒ said. âI think thatâs fair.â Betts-OâRourke said he felt the exam was âvery, very fair,â and that many questions were similar to ones the class reviewed during lecture. Students at BU generally demonstrate high levels of integrity, ĂnlĂŒ said, which makes him inclined to trust them enough to walk out of the room during a typical exam. ĂnlĂŒ said he caught the cheating in his Electric Circuits class accidentally: a colleague teaching the same course alerted him to possible cheatCONTINUED ON PAGE 4
As Boston Universityâs first-ever hybrid learning experiment comes to a close, students and faculty have seen the successes and failures of Learn from Anywhere. A range of community members expressed thoughts on how the system can improve for the semester to come. For some faculty members, one positive aspect of LfA was the greater collaboration it fostered among professors â which helped improve the educational experience for students, said Paul Hutchinson, a senior lecturer in the Questrom School of Business. âIâve never had so many conversations with faculty colleagues about the art of teaching,â Hutchinson said, âand really thinking through, âWhy do we do this?ââ After experiencing the high level of student interactivity displayed over Zoom, Hutchinson said, there is no reason to return to in-person large lectures. Breakout rooms are another benefit of remote learning, he said, because students who were once scattered inside one lecture hall can now be easily broken into small groups for discussion. LfA lectures also foster the ability to host guest speakers from anywhere in the world. Hutchinson said the issue of academic integrity during online examinations challenged him to
strategize ways he could ask more complex questions that require students to apply skills rather than memorize answers. âItâs easier to write those lowlevel questions,â Hutchinson said, âbut itâs also a lot easier to cheat.â Hutchinson likened LfA to a new teacherâs first semester: there is a learning curve, he said, so the Spring brings another chance to make tweaks and implement new ideas. âWeâre not rewriting everything from square one,â Hutchinson said. âWeâre refining and honing down what weâve done. And thatâs a huge advantage.â Robert Buchwaldt, a research assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he has also discovered creative solutions to problems presented by LfA. Buchwaldt taught a hybrid class of in-person and remote students, so the question he faced concerns how to make class engaging for both parties. He said he installed a multi-camera setup inside lab spaces, and asked remote students to use household materials in experiments. âI try to be as creative as possible,â Buchwaldt said. â[Thereâs] nothing more boring than sitting, actually, at home ⊠and watching other people do things. I think itâs really, really hard for everybody.â But managing both the in-person and digital components of his class simultaneously has been difficult, Buchwaldt said, adding that BU CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Cold weather, âCOVID fatigueâ to blame for rising cases Aaron Velasco Daily Free Press Staff An approaching winter and increasing leniency among residents in holding each other to public health guidelines have contributed to Massachusettsâ recent uptick in COVID-19 cases, according to experts. Daily cases have increased dramatically since the summer, when Massachusetts reported fewer than 500 cases most days. The Commonwealth reported 5,675 cases and 89 deaths Wednesday, according to the stateâs Department of Public Health, with an average positivity rate of 5.86 percent in the last seven days. Informal social interactions are the driving force behind growing case numbers statewide, said Philip Landrigan, director of Boston Collegeâs global public health program. âWhenever thereâs a gathering ⊠if thereâs somebody there whoâs shedding the virus and whoâs not masked and whoâs not at a distance from other people,â Landrigan said, âthen thereâs a risk that infected person will pass the virus to other people and propagate the epidemic.â Those celebrating winter holidays
should avoid parties and large gatherings, he said. More people are gathering indoors because of cold weather, Landrigan added, making the virus more likely to spread. He said the Commonwealth has done a âreasonable jobâ in its COVID-19 response, but that the state and its residents should remain cautious because the winter months tend to bring holidays and other incentives for people to mingle in groups. âMy strong advice is that people not confuse personal freedom with the unrestricted right to infect other people,â Landrigan said. âTo say it more bluntly, people have to behave responsibly.â Massachusetts will roll back its reopening process starting Sunday in the face of soaring COVID-19 case numbers, which spiked more severely after Thanksgiving. Returning to Phase Three, Step One, the rollback will mandate mask-wearing at gyms, offices and restaurants, as well as reduce outdoor gatherings from 100 to 50 people and several indoor locations from 50 to 40 percent capacity. Gov. Charlie Baker said at a press conference Tuesday that cases have CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
AMANDA SCHNEIDER | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
Cold weather and increasing âCOVID fatigueâ among residents have contributed to Massachusettsâ rising COVID-19 cases.