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Thursday, March 12, Elizabethtown College announced its decision to transition to a remote learning experience in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, but as classes are online, students continue to require services offered in the Learning Zone. Assistant Director of the Learning Zone Tammie Longsderff and Writing Wing Fellow Richard Fellinger are in charge of academic and writing tutors, respectively. There are 115 active academic tutors and 35 active writing tutors on the Learning Zone’s payroll for the spring semester.
Prior to the College’s decision, Fellinger had plans to offer remote tutoring; however, after Human Resources (HR) denied its request, Fellinger and Longsderff then began to appeal HR’s decision to the administration. Since then, the request for remote tutoring has been approved after diligent advocacy from Fellinger and Longsderff. Longsderff noted that in order to approve remote tutoring, relevant federal regulations for student employment had to be reviewed and they advanced with a plan. “We are hopeful this type of service will continue to provide the necessary academic reinforcements our students receive on-campus in a seamless and effective way,” Longsderff said in an email interview.
“Yes, [the] Elizabethtown College administration is extremely supportive of distance tutoring during this time of remote learning,” Longsderff said.
As tutoring transitions, the program itself has changed to aid in the transition. Writing tutors will be contacted via email with a writing tutor request. From then, writing tutors will note their start time and end time in order to be paid by the Learning Zone. After receiving a student’s paper, writing tutors will then make comments, amongst other suggestions, using the comments and track changes features on Microsoft Word or other platforms if requested. Writing tutors will be contacted individually to provide support for students. Requests for writing tutors should be emailed to fellingerr@etown.edu.
For academic tutors, one-on-one academic tutoring sessions will be set up on Zoom. To request an academic tutor, requests should be e-mailed to Longsderff at longsdtl@etown.edu.
In an email interview, Fellinger expressed a positive outlook during the transition. “We have a great staff of Blue Jay tutors and I know I can always count on [them],” he said.
Longsderff acknowledged that while the College transitions to a remote learning experience, the Learning Zone staff is “doing our best to support the campus community” as academic issues arise. “We ask our campus community to please remain flexible and mindful that we may not be able to fulfill each request as we transition to an online service environment,” Longsderff said.
