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VOL. 33, No. 4 The student publication of Washtenaw Community College
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A NATIONAL PACEMAKER AWARD NEWSPAPER
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Ann Arbor, Michigan
www.washtenawvoice.com
Finding the new normal by Grace Crandall
Staff Writer
Several years ago, some had never heard of it. Now it seems difficult to imagine a world without it. Zoom has become a feature in nearly every school across the country, used by grade schools and colleges alike. The video chat company’s stock went up 400% by the end of 2020, proving its major influence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years later, the influence of video chat is still reflected in schools. If not Zoom, then Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams provide a virtual link to the classroom. This leaves many wondering if video chats will become a permanent feature of the average student’s school experience. But this type of question was raised before the pandemic. Online learning has become a prominent feature in the last decade, providing a flexible option for those with busy schedules. WCC has offered what it calls Distance Learning (DL) since the 2010s. Distance learning courses are asynchronous, in which individual students plan when they will work on course material. In Winter 2019, 19.8% of WCC’s courses were offered in the DL mode, ac-
COURTESY OF MARVIN BOLUYT LAURA CHODOROFF | WASHTENAW VOICE
cording to WCC enrollment records. Unlike DL courses, WCC’s synchronous courses, implemented via Zoom, have certain meeting times in which a student must be present to “attend” the class. These synchronous courses, also known as virtual courses, are what began during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shut down the campus, taking all classes online. Faculty and students alike faced an adjustment to learning online, whether that took the form of asynchronous or synchronous. “Everyone was at a different place in terms of technology,” said Julie Kissel, English professor and president of
the faculty union at WCC. “We did what we had to do at that time. But when given the opportunity, having some classes on campus and some classes virtually, you…pick the best approach that fits for that skill.” Some classes returned to campus in Fall 2020 out of necessity, according to Kissel. However, this was a small percentage; 15% of all classes were in-person, with 32.9 % offered in DL. Additionally that semester, virtual classes were introduced, constituting 52.1% of all classes offered that semester. This was a great change from one year prior, when 79.3% of classes were offered in-person, and the world of
Zoom did not exist for WCC. Since the height of the pandemic, the number of virtual classes has slowly dropped each semester. More recently, 18.7% of classes had a virtual option for Fall 2022 enrollment. With this yearly decline, the future of virtual courses is in question. “There will be a use for virtual courses that remains,” said Kissel. “The ability to have office hours virtually is important. Those are things that will forever change, but I think we’ll go back to more classes face-to-face or fully online (DL), and that virtual will be a special case (in the future).”
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Free Press reporter, Voice alum talks to students about journalism industry By Willow Symonds Staff Writer
Chanel Stitt works as a Business Reporter for the Detroit Free Press, but her first step into journalism was here at The Washtenaw Voice. While attending WTMC, WCC’s on campus high school, she worked as a contributor and then a staff writer, winning an award for her feature story about the success of a reading-to-barbers program. However, according to Stitt, quite a few things have changed since her graduation in 2017. The most noticeable difference is the newsroom itself, having moved location to the Student Center almost two years ago. Stitt admired the new room for the first time on Friday, Feb. 17 – especially her Michigan Community College Press Association award hanging on the wall – before giving a talk to the current Voice team. When speaking to current members, she noted another change: how the digital age impacts journalists. Six years ago, Stitt and her fellow Voice colleagues focused on traditional reporting through writing and photos, with the website being their only tech-
Chanel Stitt’s Voice staff photo from 2017
nological engagement. This is no longer true for The Voice or for Stitt. She now updates the Detroit Free Press’ official TikTok account, posting several times a month related to current events and feature stories related to the metro area. Stitt says their viral TikToks are usually “the most bizarre.” As an example, she pulled up the TikTok account on the newsroom’s TV and showed helicopter footage of a man down below shooting at the aircraft, which got two million views. Stitt began her online content creation as a hobby, and she applied these skills to help shift the Detroit Free
VOICE FILE PHOTO
Press into multimedia. She uses the TikTok platform with the purpose of reaching younger generations, who may be less likely to search for their website or print paper. “A lot of media outlets were analyzing who was engaging with their news, and they weren’t including Gen Z at all,” Stitt said. “I definitely wanted to change that.” When not making TikTok videos for a living, she writes about minority-owned businesses in the metro area. These stories range from 50-year-old floral shops to cafes adding flowers to their menu, from independent clothing retailers to vegan soap stores hosting candle-
making classes. A student asked her how much she knew about business before starting this beat, and Stitt answered that she knew “almost nothing,” but this never became an issue. She doesn’t have to understand finances or economical issues to focus on the people behind the business and their impact on the community. One of her favorite aspects of her career is “making an impression on readers.” “I love when more people go to a small business because of what I wrote,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll report on a business somewhere and other [news organizations] come out of the woodworks and report on the same business themselves.” Another student said, while their question might be cliche, they wanted to know Stitt’s number one advice for anyone pursuing the journalism field. “I could just say the cheesy, ‘Always ask questions,’ but I think the better advice is [about] learning new skills,” Stitt responded. “When I was a general reporter and wrote breaking news, I always read a bit about the topic before writing about it. … I often learn as I go.”
WCC biology professor Marvin Boluyt accepts an award from Exercise is Medicine co-founder, Robert Sallis.
Exercise initiative strives for change By Willow Symonds Staff Writer
While on campus, students and staff may notice fliers and human-sized posters promoting “To the Moon.” Students may also notice WCC’s online forms, no matter the main topic, include questions about their exercise habits. What do these two incidents have in common? The simple answer: Biology professor Marvin Boluyt implemented both of these into WCC this school year. The longer answer involves a global organization called Exercise is Medicine on Campus (EIM-OC), though they have less influence on the ‘To the Moon’ exercise initiative than one may think. “We have an opportunity here to have a campus-wide promotion event,” Boluyt said. “It’s a unique opportunity, too, because we can compare [exercise rates among students, staff, and faculty] before and after the promotion and see: did the promotion have an effect?” These fliers include a QR code linked directly to the website, which contains the activity log. Students and faculty can enter the amount of time they spend on physical activities each week. To prevent outside tampering, they must log into their WCC accounts to access it. The activity log offers over 50 activities, such as walking, bicycling, skiing, and even gardening, though the possibilities don’t end here. One pickleball player has been registering their exercise under tennis, but their sport will soon be added to the list. Other activities soon to be available include ice skating, roller skating (though they do have roller blading), and skateboarding. Exercise is Medicine on Campus co-chair Dr. Carrie Davidson encourages students and faculty to engage with To the Moon. However, she believes WCC’s new initiative
could collect data in a more efficient way. “Students need some sort of incentive [to exercise and record the results],” Davidson said. “I’m intrinsically motivated myself [to exercise], but I’m not motivated to record a bunch of stuff manually.” Davidson also works as a fitness manager at the University of Kentucky, where students and faculty can use a platform where anyone’s wrist device – no matter if it’s Apple, Google, or another brand – automatically uploads their exercise data into the system. A downside is the price, as their school pays to use this program. WCC does not use this platform. Instead, Communications Director Rich Rezler and other staff members created the website and activity log over the course of a year. On the other hand, Davidson added that “each registered campus has their own autonomy to run their own programs.” “They know what’s best to work on their college campus,” she explained. “They don’t have to get permission or run it by anyone. They might partner-up with us because they’re after the same mission.” The incentive for students to log their exercise habits in To the Moon may be the prizes. The first tier of prizes are reserved for top performers, while the second tier will be chosen in a random drawing of each and every participant. The prizes will remain unidentified until WCC collectively travels 238,855 miles. Anyone with school spirit will find another reason: earning the Gold award from Exercise is Medicine on Campus. Both four-year and twoyear schools apply for recognition each February in preparation for the May award ceremony. WCC first applied in 2019, after one of Marvin
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