PLEASE HOLD. In other words: stay on the line and wait. Patience has been essential during this time of Covid-19 as most people’s lives were put on hold. This is certainly the case for students, for whom their computer has become their classroom, their bedroom their world. For academic staff too, the pandemic has radically altered teaching styles, with the forced shift to online instruction significantly impacting higher education practices and pedagogies. As an educational researcher, I spent my time during the pandemic talking to students and staff, to better understand: how do they feel? What do they miss? What do they hope for in the future, and which fears prevail for education after Covid-19? To capture the current zeitgeist and convey the emotions behind the data I collected in this project, I decided to present my research outcomes in an entirely novel way: in the form of a spoken word music album, titled ‘PLEASE HOLD’.

PLEASE HOLD is the artistic outcome of a sound-based research methodology involving a variety of spoken word practices, which I developed as a direct response to the Corona crisis. I was undertaking a master’s degree at Cambridge University when the pandemic also turned my (student) life upside down. To document the crisis rapidly evolving around me in real time, I started a weekly podcast in which I interviewed students and professors about the impact of the coronavirus on their lives and perceptions of higher education. These ‘Cambridge Quaranchats’ were so well received by the Cambridge community that I decided to develop podcasting as a new research method. By using podcasting as a sonic elicitation device in research interviews, I began collecting data on the ways in which students and staff at Cambridge reimagine the future of the university after Covid-19. This is what I also refer to as the ‘post-coronial university’.
 
In these interviews, I asked students and staff to imagine their most fearful dystopian visions as well as their most hopeful utopian visions for the future of higher education. I then transcribed, analysed and coded these interviews before selecting the most meaningful fragments to write ‘data poetry’ with. In these poems, a wide range of emotions emerges, from nostalgia about the things we miss (such as hugs, serendipitous encounters, cafe ambience) to dystopian scenarios that would not misfit a Black Mirror script. Above all, the poetry evokes a sense of recognition: from Zoom fatigue to frustration about disrupted video calls, from loneliness and alienation to hopes for a more connected academic community

For my album PLEASE HOLD, I composed original arrangements and set the poems to music, thereby turning the data into music (‘data music’). These musical interpretations of the poetry are informed by the data analysis that preceded the music composition stage, as I took note of the emotions and the rhetorical and vocal qualities with which participants shared their hopes and fears: where they laughed, sniffed, or sounded upset, where they fell silent, were searching for words or raised their voice, which words received emphasis and which ones had undertones of sarcasm, frustration, humor or questioning doubt. 

The result of this work is a moving spoken word performance which takes the listener on an auditory journey, made available not just to other researchers and academics but also to diverse non-academic audiences, in line with my own vision for the post-coronial university to create and share knowledge in more accessible and creative ways. Simultaneously, this work represents a new form of sonically informed research methods and communication formats, from podcasting (data collection) to spoken word poetry (data analysis) and the music album itself (research communication). 

As an additional stage to this project, I am organising an international ‘album tour’ consisting of talks, performances, seminars, and workshops for students and faculty at universities within the UK and abroad. You can read more about this on my website and are warmly invited to get in touch with me. 

PLEASE HOLD can be streamed, downloaded, or purchased on all major platforms including Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple, YouTube and Deezer. Visit the album webpage on HearNow for all the platform links in one place. 

Simone Eringfeld is an educational researcher, artist and musician who uses sound-based methods such as podcasting and spoken word poetry in her academic work. She holds an MPhil in Education from the University of Cambridge and released her first research-based music album PLEASE HOLD in April 2021. For her MPhil thesis on hopes and fears for the post-coronial university, she received the BERA Masters Dissertation Award (2021).

The lockdown has increased my propensity for introspection. Of the many synapses of memories through my encephalon of late, one particularly stands out, i.e. teaching students through Zoom during the lockdown. While I have lived through the SARS epidemic and was in secondary 1 when it struck in 2003, the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly been on an unprecedented scale. Hence, if I were to crystal ball gaze back then, it would still never have occurred to me that something so straightforward as teaching a face-to-face class would turn out to be such a precious affair many years later. 

During the first semester of 2020, I taught two law subjects, one 10-credit subject, LAW305 Contract & Civil Litigation (LAW305), with about 18 students in that tutor group, and another 5-credit subject, LAW301 Legal Methods & Singapore Legal System (LAW301), with about 26 students in that tutor group. LAW305 was taught over two terms while LAW301 commenced in term 2 and I had my first class on 12 March 2020. 

The second-year students I taught in the LAW305 program were not new to me. I had taught them previously when they enrolled for my 5-credit subject, LAW303 Law of Business Organisations (LAW303), in their first years. I had built up the rapport with them earlier on when they were first-year students and they were familiar with my teaching expectations. However, I had not taught the students in LAW301 before as they were first-year law students. Hence, my face-to-face interactions with the LAW301 students were extremely limited as I had only met them once for a face-to-face session on 12 March 2020. After that first and only face-to-face session, the remaining 5 other sessions were all conducted on the Zoom platform. Yet it was also one batch of students that I particularly enjoyed teaching as many remained steadfast in the face of adversity. To build rapport and maintain a line of communication during this trying period, I utilised the Whastapp for Business platform. The tutor-group student leader added my direct office line to their tutor group chats. Through these group chats, I shared many recent updates in the law with the students and discussed wide-ranging issues from course content and COVID-19, to the future of legal education.

In a previous post on the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) Facebook page, I explained how I used a range of technological tools to enhance the learning experience for LAW303, including the use of Kahoot!, Nearpod and Study.com video resources. For instance, I utilised the platform, ‘Nearpod’ for my teaching subjects to interact with students. Through an application on the platform, known as ‘Time to Climb’ (this is a highly interactive gamified activity that increases engagement with friendly classroom competition), I was able to achieve my learning objectives in an engaging manner. The platform also allowed me to deliver content directly to the students’ screens for a more interactive learning experience.

I also made use of another platform, ‘Kahoot!’, to design and deliver interactive timed-online quizzes for students on the LAW303 course. Kahoot! enabled me to add content after every quiz question to explain key concepts and relevant legal principles to students. I also made use of a range of relevant video materials from ‘Study.com’ to facilitate the teaching of LAW303. The videos with its illustrations and diagrams helped to further crystallise the students’ understanding of the course content. These were some of my teaching approaches before the onset of COVID-19. Through teaching and course evaluations, students have consistently rated these learning tools very highly and praised its effectiveness in enhancing their learning journey, since some of these law courses can be challenging. To adapt to the dynamics of online learning during the lockdown, I created YouTube videos for the remaining classes on the Zoom platform. I also anticipated that online learning would continue for the second semester of 2020 (I teach LAW303 during the second semester). Hence, I converted the didactic segments of the live online teaching sessions to pre-prepared lecture recordings (which I have hosted on the YouTube platform, on an access by link-only basis, for students’ convenience).

To facilitate this process and to make the videos more interactive, I have supplemented the creation of some of these ‘PowerPoint’ slides with the use of ‘Camtasia’, a video editing software. This freed up the time for a more interactive discussion during the Zoom sessions, which was better at captivating students’ attention as compared to a chalk-and-talk method of teaching. The challenge with using a myriad of technological interfaces on the Zoom platform was that it added slightly more complexity for the less technologically savvy student to toggle through the different screens (users of Nearpod and Kahoot! would understand) and less technologically inclined students might find it slightly discombobulating. Hence, creating YouTube lectures that are longer in duration than the usual chunk lectures do help students in their quietude to adjust to the pace of online learning.

Teaching entirely online with no face-to-face sessions has also become a modus vivendi which one would not have thought possible just a semester ago. While there is a push towards entirely online learning for many years now, COVID-19 has increased the pace of this development. I would never have imagined that it would be possible to teach from home had I actually not taught students this semester on Zoom. Yet, the Zoom platform has been facilitative. It has enabled students who would not normally speak up in class to speak up. While we are all far apart, it has actually brought the classroom closer into the students’ homes. If COVID-19 had happened when video conferencing technology was not as advanced as present, the circumstances would have been very different. It would have brought interactions necessary for business and education to a complete standstill.  That is the silver lining to be grateful for. 

The lockdown has increased the pace of uncertainty in our lives. Many students I taught have recounted their personal stories and resolute aspirations to become a lawyer. They are extremely determined and relentless in their pursuit to practice community law for the betterment of society. Yet one acknowledges the anxieties and struggles these students face as they live through a very challenging milieu. 

One student related to me how as a police officer he had to perform essential duties during the circuit breaker. This meant extended shifts. On 21 April 2020, he shared with his fellow students on his WhatsApp group that he had not seen his wife and his son in more than a month due to the need for social distancing in his line of work. In spite of this, he submitted his tutor-marked assignments on time and tried his level best to attend all my Zoom classes. He even recounted how he was functioning on little sleep in order to juggle work, university and family. The law programme is indeed a rigorous program. Yet, a majority of the students persevere and manage in spite of their challenges and struggles. COVID-19 has increased the stress on our students, especially those at the frontline performing essential services. 

To those who constantly experience a nagging feeling of whether the choices they have made would end up being the right ones many years later especially in light of COVID-19, I encourage them to read the poem, ‘Desiderata’ by Max Ehrmann. I have also shared this with all my students that I teach. The poem really stuck a chord with me, especially the words in the final stanza, ‘And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.’ This has definitely been one of the better advices amidst the gloom of COVID-19.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Ben Chester Cheong is a Lecturer, Law Programmes at the School of Law, Singapore University of Social Sciences. He also serves as an Of Counsel with RHTLaw Asia LLP. 

This is the first in a new series of Lockdown Diaries. If you’d like to write about what Covid-19 restrictions means for your day-to-day working life then please get in touch.

November 5^th marked the start of the second national lockdown in England. Lockdown 2 shouldn’t be particularly inconvenient as far as my household is concerned, given that schools and universities are still running, that we have more space, and that our way of life changed since last March (meaning that it doesn’t represent such a drastic change in our daily routines). Still, it is a sad occasion, and it is a scary time at the national level. On a side note, this date also marks the 13^th anniversary of my PhD viva.

In the spirit of staying in control in the middle of the chaos caused by something 0.125 microns in diameter, and of making something good out of a bad situation, I decided to schedule a “writing hour”, first thing on Thursday mornings – starting on the first day of lockdown, and running until the lockdown ends. By “first thing” I mean 6-7 am. Yes, it’s early, but it means that I can get it done before I need to step into the mum role, the teacher role, and so on. Plus, whatever the day throws at me, I will have that small victory under my belt. 

So, I set the alarm for 5h45m. I got out of bed, washed my face and got dressed quickly, made myself a coffee and sat down to work on a paper’s revisions. I had invited my colleagues to join me, though, unsurprisingly no one did. But that’s fine. I am doing this for my benefit, really.

At 7 am the alarm goes off. It’s time for the kiddo to get out of bed, and ready for his school day. My writing session wasn’t as productive as it should have been because I spent a lot of time hunting for the right file. You would think that after so many years of working with digital files I would know that spending a few seconds deciding in which folder to save my work, and how to name it would save me many, many, many minutes later! But, apparently, it’s a lesson I have yet to learn. Argh…

I had breakfast with the kiddo. After he left for school, I went for a walk. It’s my commute, these days. A sort of transition from the mother & home roles into work mode, and an opportunity to listen to some podcasts. 

In my walk, this morning, I caught up on the US elections. My favourite coverage of the US elections is by this Portuguese source (from journalists at the flagship newspaper, Expresso). It provides more contextual information and explanations than US based sources; and is less bland than the BBC, with their focus on balance.

Back at home, I tidy up the kitchen, get another espresso, and seat at my desk (this photo makes me realise that I need better lightening, plus something interesting on the walls).

I should move on to working on a report that is due, soon, but I decided to continue working on the paper revisions, from this morning instead.

10h44m: I finished the revisions, uploaded all files to Dropbox, and texted my co-author to let her know that the files are ready for a final read-through, and to be proof-read before they are submitted. Time for a comfort / tea / stretch-the-legs break. Ten minutes later, I was back at my desk. I decide to spend some time on admin tasks. This included entering workload allocations in the system, and replying to various e-mails.

11h34m: Time to work the on next task: The final report from the Techne doctoral bootcamp that I hosted with Mark Carrigan, in September. It was meant to be a one-day, face to face workshop at Brunel. But, then, Covid-19 happened. We were faced with two options: indefinitely postponing the event until face-to-face meetings became viable, or moving the training session online. We decided to go for the latter. So, instead of the face-to-face, day long event on Brunel campus, we offered an online bootcamp consisting of four weekly sessions of 2 hours each, with a break in the middle, on Zoom. That turned out to be a great decision. In our view, it resulted in a much better learning (and teaching) experience, it was more inclusive (e.g., for those living far, or working part-time, or with caring responsibilities), and it allowed for more networking and mutual support for the participants. Mark and I penned a post for the LSE Impact blog about our experience, which should be published very soon.

At 12h47m I had finished the draft for the report, and sent it to my co-author. Then, time for lunch. While munching on some leftovers, I watched a little bit of this really interesting – if depressing – documentary of the role of white-male identity in US politics.

At 1pm, I had a meeting relating to a grant proposal looking at the use of digital technology to access local government services during the Covid-19 crisis. My Internet was not cooperating, so I had to quickly relocate to another part of the house.

At 1h30m, another meeting. This time with student who is considering pausing their studies because they can’t find any part-time work at the moment to supplement their finances. We discussed several options and sources of support, but, eventually, concluded that, all things considered, this would be the best option for the student. Getting further into debt would not be good long-term, and it is hard to focus on your studies when you are worrying about finances.

At 2 pm, another meeting with a student. This time, I was reminded of the challenges of spending long stretches of time in isolation, and trying to balance studies with worries about the wellbeing of older relatives, and worries about the state of the job market when they finish their degree. It is so, so sad to see how this crisis is ruining the lives of young people.

I was struggling to focus after these meetings, so I decide to take a short break to gather my thoughts before the next meeting. I just sat outside for a few minutes, gathering my thoughts.

At 2h40m I started preparing for my next meeting. The internet was even worse than earlier in the day. Thank god I did not have any teaching today, or it would have been a disaster!!!! I started walking around the house trying to find a corner with suitable WIFI. It reminded me of the opening scene of the movie Parasite. Anyway, I found a good enough corner, and sat down for the next meeting, at 2h45m, to talk about plans for a new paper with someone at another institution.

The meeting finished at 3h15m. I looked at my e-mail, and saw that my co-author had sent me comments on the Techne report. I checked the comments, did some minor edits, and sent it off. One more item off my to do list. Yay.

A few more e-mails dealt with, and then I left to pick up my son from school. There was noticeably less car traffic than the same time last week. When we got back home, we decided to take advantage of the last bit of day light, and went to the back garden. I did some cardio, while the kiddo practiced his shots.

After snacks and showers, I pottered about in the kitchen. I decided to make some soup to use the pumpkin left from Halloween. And, then, things snowballed and I ended up baking chocolate and pear cake, and bread, too. Bizarre!

The bread was from a recipe in the Co-Op’s shop magazine, and it was super easy and delicious! I loved it, and will be making it again, for sure.

I dealt with e-mails while things were baking, and dinner was cooking. We had dinner at 8ish, and then caught up with The Apprentice. After that, I looked at my diary and planned my work for the day after. Then, off to bed.

Before preparing this post, I looked at the previous DITL one and realised that it had been written during lockdown, too. This day certainly felt a lot more accomplished than the previous one. A sign that human beings really can get used to most things. 

Originally published on Ana’s blog. Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash.

Dr Ana Canhoto is a Reader in Marketing at Brunel University London. Her research focuses on the use of digital technology in interactions between firms and their customers. She is particularly interested in the use and consequences of algorithmic decision making, and the development of digital footprints. She is also interested in the pedagogical use of new technologies, and was part of the academic team that founded the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

The Covid-19 pandemic has undeniably led to a crisis in education and given rise to an urgent need to rethink the University and its post-pandemic future. As Hannah Arendt wrote in her essay The Crisis in Education, a crisis “forces us back to the questions themselves” and demands a direct response from us. For Arendt, what distinguishes a disaster from a crisis is our ability to avoid answering with prejudices, and to pause and reflect instead. The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed returned us to some of the key existential questions underpinning HE, encompassing the ontological nature of universities as institutions, and their epistemological attitudes: what kind of space is the university, and does it depend on its physical infrastructure to survive? What about the university as a community of people? Can we maintain a sense of proximity and belonging when we are physically apart? How does the university produce and share its knowledges? Will the pandemic increase the privileging of some forms of knowing over others?

A crisis constitutes a disruption of the status quo, and within that disruption lies an opportunity for redirection. As Arendt reminds us, people have agency to intervene and take action – especially in times of crisis. This is no less than our responsibility, she points out in her essay. The act of reimagining thus becomes a political act with a moral imperative, a responsible response to the crisis that opens up pathways towards new possible futures for a better, more equitable post-pandemic world. Such an exercise of utopian thinking stands within a tradition of radical rethinkers like Paulo Freire and bell hooks, who re-envisioned education towards liberation, through pedagogies of hope and teaching to transgress. During this Covid-19 crisis, it is crucial to revisit this tradition of utopian thinking and critically reimagine what kind of space we want the university to be, how it produces knowledge and who this space belongs to. The next question then becomes: how can we methodologically approach this task to reimagine, and do so in a way that democratically embraces a diversity of voices? 

As a student, currently completing an MPhil at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, I experienced the disruption of the pandemic firsthand. Colleges sent most of their students home, classes and events were called off, social life came to a halt and fieldwork got cancelled. In this Cambridge feature profile I recount these challenges. For to be a student in Education, at a time when the entire sector is going through an existential crisis, proved to be a distressing, yet simultaneously educational experience, itself. To make sense of this time, I created a podcast, Cambridge Quaranchats. On this podcast, I have been hosting weekly conversations with guests from the Cambridge community, from undergrads and college porters to post-docs and senior professors. Each episode forms part of a communal effort to re-envision the future of HE. Cambridge Quaranchats became a platform for critical and reflexive thinking, designed to stimulate collaborative knowledge making through its open-access format. I have found that podcasting is uniquely able to break with the academic tradition of privileging written word over spoken word and disrupt academic hierarchies in ways that peer-reviewed journals, for instance, do not.

In my MPhil thesis, I reflect on methodological approaches to the act of reimagination and propose podcasting as a research method to fulfil that task. To collect narratives and imageries about possible utopian and dystopian futures for the post-Covid university, I conducted a series of private, anonymized interviews with students and academics at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education. My podcast formed part of my methodology as an elicitation device, whereby I sent research participants a compilation episode of selected podcast fragments, to which they listened in advance of our interview. This resulted in powerfully intertextual interviews, where participants built on the multi-vocal podcast dialogues and used it as a sonic device to elicit their own imaginative thinking. As a sound-based medium for oral storytelling, podcasts allow the listener to create their own ‘images’ on the inner canvas of the mind – leading to creative, revealing results.

From the data I collected, many fears emerged around the university becoming more closed-off, inaccessible and elitist as a consequence of Covid-19. In an imagined dystopian future, the university could become fully disconnected from society, the ‘Cambridge Bubble’ would grow only tighter, and interdisciplinary collaborations would disappear. The university would be strengthened in its neoliberal tendencies, increase its surveillance over students and staff, and reduce education down to isolated ‘sellable experiences’, where even a visit to the library or the college buttery would be marketized. Perhaps the most striking image that came up in an interview with a postgraduate student, was her fear that education would become ‘just another tab open on my computer’. Next to your Netflix, online shopping and Facebook feed, a distant lecturer would be talking to an invisible classroom on Zoom, devoid of any personal interaction. Others too, spoke about virtual reality-like scenarios, where in the future, ‘going to class’ would mean putting one’s VR headset on. Why is this so frightening? Because, as one participant put it, education would feel like a lonely undertaking and no longer be ‘really real’. The prospect of a fully online university was consistently described in dystopian terms, deemed unreal, dehumanizing and disembodied. The real reality of education, taking place in the ‘real world’, seems to require physicality. As I argue in my thesis, utopian visions for the post-pandemic university remain overwhelmingly grounded not in virtual but in corpo-reality.

This exercise of imagination helps to clarify how we might engage with the philosophical questions I posed earlier, including what universities are for. When imagining utopian futures, many research participants stressed that HE is not just for gaining skill sets and preparing for the job market; it is also about becoming better human beings. Online instruction endangers the ideal of education as a humanizing experience, by threatening to remove some of the things we attach most value to: community and belonging, dialogue and conversation, connection and proximity, and yes, the bodies we inhabit. Approaching these themes from a phenomenological angle, Merleau-Ponty reminds us of the onto-epistemological connections between body, mind and perception: our Being-in-the-World is defined by our existence-as-bodies, and this embodied Being in turn informs embodied Knowing.

If online education threatens our ability to exist, teach and learn as embodied social beings in community with each other, we must start to think creatively about how we can counter this disconnect. The post-pandemic university might need to embrace a mixed economy approach, that combines both on-and offline learning, including a mix of face-to-face and remote formats. This will require considerable flexibility built into course structures and learning material. As the Cambridge Head of Faculty Susan Robertson points out in episode 13 of Cambridge Quaranchats, this offers an opportunity to develop more creative pedagogies, including the use of more multi-media formats like video, blogging, podcasts and social media, in ways that encourage students to be actively engaged.

When starting to design these alternatives for multi-media teaching on- and offline, it is worthwhile to keep in mind the above highlighted concerns with corporeality and community. This brings me back to the practice of podcasting, which I have found to be a valuable tool for educational practices. Podcasts offer much flexibility to the learner, as its resources can be accessed from anywhere and at any time, making this an ideal format for the ‘self-scheduling consumer’. In addition, podcasting differs from radio in its distinguished capacity for corporeal intimacy: they are mostly listened to through in-ear headphones, bringing other voices quite literally into the body. This arguably makes podcasting a re-embodying medium, which is uniquely positioned to promote embodied listening and learning. Furthermore, podcasts have been observed to grow tight-knit audience communities, that encourage active participation through social media, voice message responses, and (in-person) live listening events or discussion groups.

Finally, in returning to the issues I opened this blog with, I believe that podcasts themselves can be seen as new ‘spaces’ within universities, which extend beyond academia through its free and open access format within the public domain. They are spaces where institutional hierarchies can be overturned, and where students themselves (such as in my own case), can have their voices heard and partake in processes of innovative knowledge production. Thinking along with Mark Carrigan’s ideas about the ‘platform university’, podcasts too can be seen as platforms which may contribute to shaping the identity, structure of, and engagement within, universities themselves. Podcasts are public, political spaces where the neoliberal University, or what Darren Webb calls the ‘corporate-imperial University’, can be resisted, challenged and continually questioned, all from a place of critical self-reflexivity and radical reimagination.

Podcasting then, is both a valuable research method for taking us into the space of the sonic imagination, as well as a re-embodying medium for creative forms of post-pandemic teaching, all whilst being itself a political space that democratically facilitates a radical rethinking of the university itself, and all its utopian possibilities. In any case, podcasting will make a valuable contribution to the post-pandemic university.

Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash

Simone Eringfeld is an MPhil student in ‘Education, Globalisation and International Development’ at the University of Cambridge. She also produces and hosts the podcast Cambridge Quaranchats, which explores possible futures of post-Covid HE.