As the pandemic continues to shape society and as tensions continue to rise for the election, the problem of Covid-19 is still as strong as ever. It was just recently that I had the pleasure, to speak to Professor Bailiff, that teaches a great deal of the visual and performing arts at Gulf Coast State College. He had many great things to say about how the pandemic has affected the visual and performing arts on campus.
Dealing with Online Learning
One of the first questions I asked was just how has the drama department been affected by the virus. He responded by saying that he mainly teaches the technical side of visual arts. So, the more hands-on fields like carpentry, painting, lighting design, and drafting. He had an easy time converting his drafting class and a lighting class to online but had problems with certain classes like painting for example. When he would teach in person, he would show students the pressure of a brushstroke by painting on the underside of someone’s arm, so that they could understand the different pressure changes. When switching to online, he wasn’t able to teach this like he was able to before.
Along with navigating zoom, he also had to figure out how to make it where his students could do remote painting for projects from their house. He solved this by making paint kits using empty baby food containers to put paint in. The students would quickly get the materials at the college and then leave immediately after.
The next thing I asked Professor Bailiff was on if it was harder for him to teach because of the pandemic. He responded with “Absolutely but there is also a positive side to that. It’s actually forced us to rethink things and to use different technology. I always try to find the positive side of something and the positive side is that I was able to change classroom techniques for the better that I never had time to explore before the pandemic.” He also elaborated on this further by telling me that recording himself on zoom teaching his virtual class has started to help him teach by giving himself his own personal teacher assistant to remind him of things within his in-person class.
Should Colleges stay open after Thanksgiving Break?
For the next question, I brought up the debate on whether colleges should close for only online classes after Thanksgiving because of worries over students traveling and getting Covid-19. When I asked for his thoughts on this issue, he told me that with many things, you have to take it on an individual basis under what the area is and what the conditions of the area are like. He then continued by saying that he would support big populated universities’ choice to go online after thanksgiving because he agrees that it would present a danger to students.
He continued by talking about how since we are a community college that they don’t have students traveling too far for the Thanksgiving holiday and that it would probably be better for our college to resume normally after Thanksgiving break. He mentioned that many of the students at Gulf Coast were more responsible and wouldn’t be going to crazy college parties that big university students would go to. He would believe in safety precautions though, like reduced class sizes and taking temperatures of students to keep the safety of students a priority still.
The Act Continues On
To close with, I asked how the War of the Worlds Production went and if there were any more upcoming drama productions planned. He said that the War of the Worlds from a technical standpoint went really well but that he hasn’t been able to look at the numbers quite yet on how many people turned in to watch it. As for the next question, he wasn’t able to give me too many details but he did tell me that they are in the beginning stage of planning something for Spring. Even with the pandemic going on, the visual and performing arts seems to still be going as strong as ever before.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jakob Monroe
Student Author - Fall 2020
