Bryce Jordan Center turned into a COVID-era classroom
Peggy Van Meter enters through what she calls the rock star tunnel, crossing the arena floor and slipping on her “Britney Spears microphone” as those above her settle into reserved blue seats. She scans her audience spread out in the 16,000seat Bryce Jordan Center — the same Penn State venue where Bruce Springsteen and Metallica have played to thunderous applause.
Only this is no concert. She and those opening laptops and getting set to take notes are there for a course in educational psychology. Van Meter, an associate education professor, and her 100 students occupy one of the more unusual classrooms to be found in a fall when a pandemic has reshaped what in-person instruction looks like on college campuses nationwide. Her Tuesday and Thursday introductory class is one of eight that rotate in and out of the cavernous Jordan Center, repurposed this semester for instruction.
Staff move in to clean and disinfect as one class lets out and another arrives in a different part of the arena. Sure, it’s an adjustment lecturing to undergraduates seated level with her head and extending single-file up the arena bowl. Vinyl strips or “seatbelts” wrapped around all but assigned spots keep students from sitting too close, adding to the surreal scene.
“l’ll be honest. It’s odd standing on center court,” Van Meter said. “My slides are on a scoreboard. That’s weird.”
It was strange for students, too, some initially unaware of exactly what the Jordan Center reference on their class schedules meant.
“I didn’t think it would be in the arena,” said freshman Julia Hornick, 18, of McDonald, near Pittsburgh, recalling her reaction the first day of class.”I thought it would be like a separate classroom, maybe outside. I took out my phone and immediately started sending my friends and family pictures, saying, ‘Hey, check this out,’ “she said. “My dad was probably the most excited.”
Novelty aside, the 75-minute class represents a hint of normalcy when so much else about residential college life is experienced these days through a computer screen, thanks to COVID-19. It’s harder meeting people on campus with so many wearing masks and taking classes in their rooms, wary of getting too close in public spaces, said Hornick, an education major.
It would be easy to just stay in her residence.
“I try to force myself out of my room, usually to go to the HUB,” she said of the Hetzel Union Building, the student center on the main University Park campus of about 47,000 students. “There are no student clubs meeting in person. You’re really forced to make friends in your own way.”
Payton Fremer, 20, a sophomore from Washington County who is also in the educational psychology class, said face-toface learning works better for her.
“It helps me retain the material better,” she said. Classes delivered on a computer screen in her room must compete with a myriad of home distractions, and there’s less opportunity to interact with professors. “You’re kind of teaching yourself.”
High school graduates — already deprived of a normal senior year at home — wondered all summer: Will I get a real residential experience my freshman year or be stuck taking classes remotely? The answer, it turns out, was anything but simple in Pennsylvania and beyond. Of nearly 3,000 colleges, only 10% were operating fully online as of Oct. 1 and 4% were completely in-person, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The rest — more than eight in 10 — employ varying degrees of in-person, remote or a hybrid of both.
According to a recent survey from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 34% of all private and public colleges in Pennsylvania are operating with a hybrid model, which allows professors to decide how to teach their courses — some weeks/days online and some weeks/days in person. Only 3% of colleges in the state are operating with fully in-person classes.
Colleges’ infection rates on and near campuses have influenced what in-person instruction looks like. Penn State, for instance, has seen 3,400-plus cases since August, but new infections have slowed.
Another factor is enrollment size, given expense and logistics of spreading students out in classes and in dorms. Along with modifying building layouts, some campuses hold classes in large tents, or outside around picnic tables or on lawns. But classes of 100, 200 or more students were a bigger challenge, since those required a larger indoor space.
At Penn State, the Jordan Center suddenly was available, given national music tour cancellations, athletic postponements and state-imposed crowd size limits to curb the virus, said Al Karosas, the center’s general manager. Though schedules were not yet firmfor fall 2020, the center had announced performances by The Killers on Oct. 6 and Chris Stapleton two days later. The center — the largest indoor arena between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — has sophisticated sound and visual systems and a staff seasoned in accommodating large crowds, such as the 13,000-plus who attended a men’s basketball game against Michigan State in early March.
The arena is a 15-minute or so walk from Old Main and the heart of campus. Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and some former members of the Grateful Dead have appeared there, and Aerosmith recorded part of its 1998 album, “A little South of Sanity,” within the center’s walls. In fact, three seconds into the classic hit “Love in an Elevator,” a band member is heard shouting “State College!” as the crowd roars.
Monster Trucks have taken over the Jordan Center. Pro wrestlers have brawled there, too. Given that history of spectacle, one could hardly blame a professor for wanting to grab a microphone inside the arena and yell, “Let’s get ready to L-E-C-TU-R-E!!!!”
Van Meter did no such thing. But she did surprise a student in another class who sat down across the arena as her students were leaving, removing his mask and eating in his seat — both against the rules.
“You’re not allowed to eat!” she said through the arena’s sound system. “Yes, you! I’m talking to you!” The confused offender looked all around for the source of the sound, to no avail.
“It was like the voice of God,” she said. “I don’t think he ever figured out where it was coming from.”
Initially, Van Meter had doubts that an arena could be conducive to learning. But the center’s staff made it work, she said, from lowering the gigantic center court scoreboard so that slides in larger fonts could be displayed, to channeling audio only to spots where students sat so they could hear her. Staff even brought in a large monitor and oriented it toward the professor after she realized she’d be unable to see her ownslides projected onto the center-hung scoreboard above.
All professors have their own wireless headset microphone, cleaned after each use. Van Meter begins her class by flipping on her mic and asking, “Can you hear me?” — waiting for a thumbs up from students in the back rows. A takeaway from her experience, she said, is that despite the pandemic, students and instructors can still focus on content. She has not watered down her course, Educational Implications of Individual Differences, even if it is being delivered in a setting with pluses and minuses.
“I’m sure the seats are more comfortable than they are in a normal classroom, but at the same time, they have no desk, so they have to balance everything on their laps,” Van Meter said. “It all balances out.”
By now, Fremer is used to finding her seat — as in Section 106, Row E, Seat 109 Event Level. A seating chart and a staff member were available the first day of class to help her and classmates find their way.
Hornick said sitting in the arena bowl makes speaking up in class hard.
“You can’t really ask questions,” she said. “However, they did set up a system where you can log into Zoom and ask questions via Zoom Chat.
“Everyone was spread out everywhere,” she said. “It’s pretty cool seeing the arena that empty.”