Tutoring in the Time of Coronavirus

It turns out, we weren’t coming back after Spring Break after all—at least not in the ways we had schemed.

This semester would prove to be so unlike the academic years that stretched behind me, this first year I was no longer a Ph.D. student but a fully matriculated professional entering the work world.

Quickly after I had lightheartedly (but sincerely) suggested a student take all her books home to Ohio so she had them in case, the verdict came. We would still have work, thank goodness, but our students were going home, wherever home was.

It came in increments of dawning awarenesses that we wouldn’t be welcome on campus for a time either. We tried so hard at first to retain some sense of normalcy, cheerfully coming to the office each day and dutifully scrubbing every surface each time we thought of it, a ritual that assured us that we were in this together. A sense of completeness or finality subdued me as I walked desk to desk in rooms lit only by the early-March afternoon speckled sunlight and carefully wiped the places where students had sat with tutors just two days before, their images still fresh before me. Traces of half a semester of loss.

One week, the university granted we could hold a meeting of five and the next, we had to prove that we had the space and resources not to work together, limiting contact to six feet, or ten to be safe. Each day, the number of our staff who elected to stay home increased. Inevitably, we were told to quickly pack up our things, take what we needed for the semester, and do the unthinkable: work remotely. Until further notice.

The next two weeks were a blur of transitioning fully online and virtual meetings. After an eerily silent Spring Break, I cherished each opportunity to see students’ faces on screen, silently cursing the times the screens froze. Many of them came just to check in, to see a familiar face under the pretext of writing work, or to ask myriads of questions I could never know answers to.

This joy of meeting students increased as the cases closed in to our state, our region, our families, friends and colleagues. I slept each night in a soft cocoon of gratitude that I felt well enough to work that day. The absence of sickness was itself a pleasure, but boy did each sneeze or twinge weigh heavily as the seasons warred and spring blithely announced its presence. I called my friends still having to leave their houses to work and begged them to quit their jobs, knowing very well the conversation couldn’t go anywhere, so I quietly went back to working from home.

Refusing to be stymied, I put everything into my work, which structured my time at the same time that it demanded submission to a larger goal, and one that granted steadying purpose in a chaotic corridor.

Small inconveniences were overshadowed by awe-inspiring dedication daily on the part of my colleagues. Even if I felt there was no way to reciprocate, I had to show my gratitude in the only way I could muster and hope they understood, feigning strength even on days I could easily be overtaken by grim reports. These colleagues were my reserves on the darkest days when even yoga poses were a matter of going through the motions, a practice which ended abruptly when I repurposed my yoga mat for home improvement. Learning to focus on breathing and posture on my own, I muted the news and carefully recruited appointments and fostered relationships with students and colleagues.

My staff challenged me, telling me what they needed from me to transition online effectively and in return, delivering the thoughtful comments we needed to have a successful semester. I had to learn to listen in a way that's different from the many informal passing conversations that go along with tutoring and professional development and to think about how these informal practices best translate online. And yes, it’s true that we held over 1200 appointments this semester but I count the successes too in the personal connections tutors developed with students who themselves were learning to navigate a new online terrain for learning. The students were brave in ways we never knew they would have to be.

Much like those times before when personally grieving, work was a salvation for me, and a grace. But it's possible, perhaps, even to overdo grace. Some days were physically staggering as we experienced a doubling of weekly appointments.

As I feared for those around me, I learned to work through the tears of anger and fear that isolation can bring. I had to learn to temper the enduring enthusiasm to strike out and live with the existential threat that it could all end tomorrow. My purpose in those weeks was to keep tutoring going. And it did. I wondered, obliquely, how to continue and thrive when everyday survival was a question, no longer something to take for granted. But in the meantime, I worked.

A lot of my side projects that had fallen by the wayside I was able to pick back up in the long evenings once I found my pace and enforced a routine. I finished the first round of editing a book. I submitted an article for peer review. I forced myself to learn the new APA changes. I re-organized a closet. I had full conversations with family where we both only pretended to listen and had to repeat everything when we were less distracted. I made roast chicken for lunch and boiled broth for dinner. I handmade Christmas presents for 8 months later and instead of putting them in the immaculate closet, mailed them to friends and family. Living moment by moment, time passed, with pregnancies, births, and yes, illnesses and deaths. Soon we were planning Finals Week and Summer sessions.

Although I missed the comforts of our building, a converted nineteenth-century house, I learned to even love meetings in a way I never could anticipate. Each familiar face and brief moment of laughter returned a sense of okayness working separately never can. Our sense of community stretched beyond our campuses as the boundaries between private and public blurred. Our smiles were wizened and anxious, but we still smiled through the talk of New Student Orientations and Welcome Week, futures we could name but not quite conceptualize.

A Quiet Campus Path