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Last semester, Sophia Martino, a final year at the University of Missouri who has spinal muscular atrophy and uses a wheelchair, chose to attend two lab-based classes in person. Despite being vaccinated in May, he caught Covid-19.
Even after that difficult year, she plans to take classes in person this fall. But knowing that the university has allowed a handful of students to attend distance classes this year makes her feel better about attending in-person classes because they have accommodations if she needs it.
“The idea of distance education is something newer than the pandemic,” said Ashley Brickley, director of the university’s disability centre.
In fact, online classes are not a panacea, as Cory Lewis, a biology major at Georgia Military College, discovered last year. Mr. Lewis has sickle cell disease, which can cause fatigue, chronic pain and organ damage, leaving him particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases. He was hospitalized four times in the past year, including one with kidney failure, and spent months with ongoing pain.
If it had been a normal academic year, he might have had to withdraw from classes, he said. Instead, it managed to stay registered. An enterprising biology professor even mailed her home lab kits filled with all the supplies she needed to run a variety of hands-on experiments.
But Mr. Lewis struggled to focus on his other distance classes and said his grades had plummeted. Therefore, she plans to return to face-to-face training this fall, although she is concerned about her health.
“I learn much better when I’m in front of the teacher,” said Mr Lewis, who was fully instilled but lacked some of his classmates. “But knowing that my health might be at risk, especially with the Delta variant, I don’t know what’s going to happen at school now.”
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