University of Missouri professor discusses first day of teaching in classroom

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Students and professors were on the University of Missouri's campus for the first day of classes on Monday.

Along with backpacks and notebooks, masks were also one of the required supplies.

Everyone on campus has to follow guidelines on social distancing and face coverings amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The university has begun tracking how many students have tested positive for the virus. On Monday the university reported 159 active cases among students.

The university does not plan to track how many faculty and staff have tested positive for the virus.

"It is very very difficult to track faculty and staff. We have faculty and staff that live outside of the county, in Boone. We are looking at that possibility," said MU spokesman Christian Basi.

With cases reported on campus and cases climbing across the county, professors have to prepare for classes differently this year.

Martha Steffens is a professor at the university who teaches business and financial journalism, she has taught there for 18 years. She said her focus during her first classes of the semester was different than years before.

"I was thinking very hard about the safety aspect. Usually on the first day I'm thinking about content and meeting the students, but today it was all about safety," Steffens said.

Her first class of the day was moved to accommodate more people.

She said it is not unusual for students to add a class or change classes last minute, and said the university was doing a fairly good job to adjust.

Steffens said now she will have to work to remember the guidelines while in the classroom. She said when she teaches she has a tendency to walk up and down the rows of students.

"I said, 'If I start to do that and I get too close to you please put up your hand and remind me to back off,'" she said.

Steffens said she did not print off the class syllabus for students to avoid shared touch, and she is working to do little things like this to keep people safe.

On top of extra planning for in-person classes, like having extra masks for students and cleaning supplies, she has also had to plan for her class online. She said students learning online like to have more contact with the class professor.

Steffens and her teachers assistants have received tons of questions from students already.

"It's because if you had a lot of questions you would wait for the first day of class that you would usually end early and then people would gather around and ask you questions," she said.

She also had to adjust her curriculum because student and professor travel is restricted, and to make the text for online classes more accessible.

"This class usually took a trip so I needed to replicate some of the content that people got from visiting media in another city," she said. "I have to sort of add different speakers."

She said overall she feels fairly safe on campus with the precautions in place.

Basi said staff will be on the lookout for people who are not following preventative measures. He said anyone who reports this behavior should be specific with photos, names, etc.

From that point, the university would take an educational approach, and if they continue, it could move to a disciplinary process.

What that discipline would look like is up to the university and would not necessarily be the same in each case.

"We win if we can do this on the education side. We lose if we have to go through discipline," Basi said.