St. Bonaventure's Zoom

During the COVID-19 Pandemic St. Bonaventure became reliant on Zoom for online classes, meetings, interviews, appointments, etc. In March of 2020 when campus initially shutdown, many professors used Zoom in order to virtually meet with their classes and continue the semester as normally as possible. However, some professors chose to use another online meeting platform or no online meeting platform at all.

   In the 2020 Fall Semester, students returned to campus with the intention of classes being mostly in person and staying through Thanksgiving break and then doing the last two weeks of the semester via Zoom. However, Zoom was still used significantly. Many students where either put into isolation due to contradicting COVID or being a close contact. During this time professors would use Zoom to keep students up to date through a one-on-one meeting or by having them join class via Zoom. Additionally, despite many classes being in person, some professors chose to have their classes on Zoom from the start. Professors would have a set meeting time where students joined the Zoom and class would be conducted live online. One example of this was Tracey Schrems EDUC 101 class. Furthermore, many professors used Zoom to do their office hours or to have appointments with their advisees.

     One way St. Bonaventure inventively used Zoom was in the Summer of 2020 – St. Bonaventure used Zoom to conduct its Freshmen Orientation for the class of 2024. During this session students were sent a Zoom link and joined at their assigned time. The session started as a big group but then students were sent into break out rooms with smaller groups. The goal of the breakout rooms was for students to virtually meet and interact with their future classmates. Additionally, during this period, the students where sent Zoom links to meet their advisor. Here students had a set time to introduce themselves, discuss their major and courses needed, as well as ask any questions they had.

Kelley, Lorelei D.. Accessed November 29th 2021.