I have colleagues who speak dreamily of teaching online from their sailboats or vacation homes. They talk of never having to attend another faculty meeting. Theirs is a glammed-up idea of connecting to students via virtual means and wifi connectivity (or satellite-based connectivity).

Having spent a couple years now teaching online from a distance, via a campus that I’ve never yet physically set foot on, I can say that there’s something to be missed being at a distance.

No More Chocolate Hedgehogs or Pottery Sales

Maybe I’m sentimental. There’s something charming about going into the local campus cosmetology department and enjoying the mannequin heads that the students have decorated. There’s something about looking at ceramic-shaped beans in the student art gallery. There’s something about dressing up and being served in the formalist dining room with the students practicing their various roles in hotel and restaurant management. And there’s something to be said for returning to one’s home with an armload of ceramics from a pottery sale. I still remember a chocolate hedgehog from our European-style bakery on campus.

Going to campus to eat in the dining room is usually not something to write home about, but now after working from a distance for many years, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t make a road trip out to see my actual campus.

For those who’ve taught on a physical campus for years, they may start taking the attractions for granted. They stop seeing the charms of their campus.

The Run-ins and Incidental Conversations

From a distance, via email, I have a sense of some of the campus events. There are the professional development endeavors. The volunteer clothes drives. The dances from around the world. I guess it all keeps happening even without us distance instructors. There are some things that cannot truly be mitigated for in e-learning. The backchannel communications come rarely with the occasional phone call or email or even an electronic newsletter.

For administrators, it would be good for them to reach out to create more of a sense of an online community to bring in those at the periphery.