Just before 2:30 a.m., Syracuse University freshman Matt Fairfax wakes up to one of his two alarms and splashes water on his face. He then tip-toes to the quietest part of his Honolulu house and joins his first Zoom lecture of the day.

Fairfax has a hard time concentrating during the two-hour lecture. He’s never been a coffee drinker, so sometimes he’ll shift a football between his hands to stay awake and focused.

“It takes so much effort for me to get out of bed, but being negative won’t solve anything,” Fairfax said. “So I have to stay positive and push through the pain.”

Fairfax is one of the many SU students adjusting to a time zone difference while taking online classes. To attend their virtual classes in real-time, students living in time zones different from SU have to wake up early, stay up late, or both.

The university announced on March 16 that it would transition to online classes for the remainder of the spring semester in response to the coronavirus outbreak. The coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected 288,045 and killed 16,966 in New York state.

Many SU professors have offered students in other time zones the option to skip synchronous classes, which are held at the same time as they would be on-campus in Syracuse. But with the spring semester almost over, some students have chosen to keep up with their regular class schedule to avoid falling behind.

Dorothy Fang, a senior public relations major from Taiwan, has classes from 12:45 to 5:05 a.m. in her time zone on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays, her classes start at 9 p.m. and continue through the night until 5:05 a.m.

Professors have offered her accommodations, but she prefers watching lectures live, she said. Fang sleeps before and after her classes and has ended up getting more rest than when she was in Syracuse, she said.

“It was a choice for me to leave (SU’s campus), so the responsibility falls on me whether I get my assignments in or not,” she said.

Stephanie Prekas, a freshman neuroscience major, starts drinking coffee around 7 p.m. during the week so she can stay up for her classes, which end by 2 a.m. in her home country of Qatar.

Prekas’ professors have offered her the option to watch lectures the next day instead, but she chooses to attend them live so she can participate and better understand the content, she said. She then does homework for an hour before going to sleep and waking up later in the day.

“My whole family’s up, and I’m sleeping until like 3 p.m. every day,” she said.

Having classes that start late at night and end early in the morning has significantly impacted Nan Li’s sleep schedule.

Li, a freshman English and textual studies major from China, gets an average of five hours of sleep per night and takes power naps between classes to compensate, she said in an email to The Daily Orange.

“It’s messed up,” Li said. “I’m giving up on circadian rhythm.”

When Fairfax’s cross-media news writing class ends at 4:30 a.m., he has an hour before his Spanish class starts. Once that’s over, he goes back to sleep at 7 a.m. and rests for two hours before starting the rest of his day feeling drained, he said.

“There are moments when I look at my notes after an early class later in the day and wonder, ‘When did I write any of this?’” he said.

Other students have informed professors that they cannot attend live classes, submit assignments or take exams late at night. Most professors have been understanding and have offered to waive attendance requirements or provide extensions, they said.

Sourov Rayhan has set a limit on how late he’ll stay up for his classes. Rayhan, a freshman English major from Bangladesh, will attend his class that starts at 10 p.m. but stops after that, he said.

“I’m one of those people who can’t focus way too long for late nights,” Rayhan said.

Although Manvi Upadhyay only has one class that still holds live lectures, she has to collaborate on group projects in real time. Upadhyay, a senior biotechnology major from India, said it’s difficult to schedule a meeting time that works for everyone in her group.

Communication is the most challenging part of the transition to online classes, Upadhyay said. She’s experienced trouble getting timely email responses from her professors.

To accommodate students in other time zones, SU faculty are “using a blend of asynchronous content,” including pre-recorded audio and video lectures, discussion boards and group forums, University College Dean Michael Frasciello said in a statement. Students can view the prerecorded lectures on their own time.

“We made a very conscious decision when this happened to place more emphasis on other aspects of the course that students could do according to their own availability,” said Catherine Nock, a SU assistant Spanish language coordinator.

Roy Terry, an adjunct professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said that before leaving for break, SU had pushed for maintaining synchronous classes using Blackboard Collaborate Ultra.

Terry knew the international students in his two Practical Grammar for Public Communications sections who would have a tough time taking classes in the middle of the night. So, he looked for a way to satisfy both the administration and help his students.

Students have 30 hours to view Terry’s prerecorded lectures, which he posts on YouTube at the usual class time. He then takes attendance by tracking which students clicked the link to each week’s video.

“I’ve received a really favorable response from students,” said Terry, who spends 10 hours editing each video on Adobe Premiere Pro. “That has worked better for them than some of the synchronous things that have been attempted.”

Zoe Glasser, a newspaper and online journalism major in one of Terry’s course sections, said the pre-recorded lectures have saved her from waking up for a 5 a.m. class in Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time. None of Glasser’s synchronous classes run during SU’s normal academic day, which starts locally at 8 a.m. and ends at 10 p.m.

David Lucas, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, has tried to move a large amount of his course content to an asynchronous format. He’s also worked to keep communication with students readily open and send updates via email and Blackboard to clarify course expectations for each week.

“Students have indicated that these factors are helping them manage their time and complete their work in a manner that is accommodating,” Lucas said

Greg Munno, an assistant professor at Newhouse, made the first half hour of his 9:30 a.m. Cross-Media News Writing class into an optional “coffee talk.” The move is designed to help his two students from California, he said.

Munno doesn’t hold quizzes at the beginning of class, instead allowing his students to take the assessments on their own time. Despite his accommodations, he hasn’t sacrificed delivering the full course content.

“There’s no reason to make students suffer if it’s unnecessary,” Munno said.

Professors have also dedicated time to meet with students one-on-one or in small groups at times that work for them. J. Christopher Hamilton, an assistant professor at Newhouse, hosts two one-hour workshops each week for his Television Business class to discuss the material in a more intimate setting, he said.

Although Munno said he’s had excellent attendance so far and hasn’t lost any students yet to “this madness,” he recognizes that other classes might have students who are unable to attend synchronously.

“We have to be sensitive as professors that it might be impossible for some students,” Munno said.

Despite the challenges of learning in a different time zone, some SU students said their professors’ commitment to make accommodations and continue showing up for online classes has been enough to motivate them.

“My professors are trying their best by holding live classes and recording lectures,” said Fairfax. “So, because they’re putting in all this effort, I feel like I should show some respect for them.”

Published on April 27, 2020 at 12:00 pm

Contact Austin: aclamb@syr.edu | @AustinCLamb