As the world readjusted itself in a matter of a few weeks, nearly every government, business, and nonprofit has been forced to provide their services through vastly different mediums. The current predicament we find ourselves in can serve as a sort of structural litmus test by which we may judge the true nature of many hallowed institutions.
To address the elephant in the room immediately, the College Board has not been as adept at adapting to the new digital learning environment as most students would have liked. The online AP exams were plagued with technical errors from submission timeouts to forced retakes on the first week, all of which is harrowing for students who were inadvertently directed to participate as involuntary lab rats for an unfinished, hastily prepared experiment by the nation’s leading provider of standardized tests. However, even beyond the technical issues that certain students were faced with during the exams, the premise of the online AP exams themselves did not rest well with as many people as the College Board might have hoped. Transitioning from a rigorous three-hour paper exam to a 45-minute online counterpart was clearly a makeshift decision on the billion-dollar nonprofit’s part, and — as many people have pointed out in the past few weeks — a consolation to the fact that refunding the $94-per-exam fees for millions of students around the nation was neither in the company’s interest nor its intention.
Governmental responses to the outbreak, quite naturally, vary heavily from state to state. Governor Cuomo has repeatedly invoked the phrase “phased reopening” when referring to New York State’s eventual policy on resuming regular social and economic activities, suggesting that a more cautious and experimental approach is on the books for now. Although New York has the most active cases out of all fifty states at the time of this writing (mostly due to the rampant pre-pandemic international travel activity and high population density of New York City), the overall positive response to Cuomo’s policies seems warranted — if only for the fact that he has displayed a level of calm, mindful leadership for the past several months that many New Yorkers find reassuring. However, as with any major political overhaul, many dissenters have readily expressed their dissatisfaction with staying home for weeks. In Kentucky, anti-quarantine protesters burned an effigy of the state’s Democratic governor on the 27th of May, igniting both partisan tensions and the tumultuous debate on whether or not the lockdown is really worth sacrificing so many facets of “normal” life. Regardless, it remains to be seen if a crisis of this magnitude can be sufficiently contained on a state-by-state basis.
Most community and social activities have been forced onto the internet in the wake of social distancing guidelines, as everything from church services to club meetings are now conducted through various video conferencing programs. However, sports pose a particularly difficult challenge for the pandemic era, as team practices are infeasible. Although dedicated athletes will have no trouble staying at the top of their game for the upcoming season, physical aptitude is only one aspect of a well-rounded athlete. Teamwork and communication skills are just as crucial as fitness in order to form an effective team in most sports. The loss of a full team sport experience may be one of the several outright losses of this pandemic.
Of course, none of the issues posed by such a rapid transition to life on lockdown can be blamed on any of these institutions. As much as one can criticize the handling of the pandemic by their governments, employers, and the College Board, the fact that many of them had to abandon providing their services in the medium through which they have done so for decades is a difficult change that we must empathize with. In the best of all worlds, everyone can learn about their own inner workings from this unexpected circumstance, and hopefully work to improve themselves with the insights they gain.