LEWISBURG, Pa. — When looking around Bucknell University's campus in Lewisburg, it's almost hard to believe classes have started up after spring break. The campus looks deserted.
"Taking hands-on work and open-ended problems online has been my fun and exciting challenge for this past week," said Margot Vigeant, a professor of chemical engineering at Bucknell. She and the university's other professors had about a week to change their curriculums from in-person to online.
"I'll have some things that are video; I'll do some chats like we're doing right now for live office hours. For the students who don't have that same level of online access, I've joined a group chat with my class," Vigeant said.
"We have a faculty who has students overseas, and they don't have good internet, but the way she structured her classes is they can do this over the phone," said Param Bedi, Bucknell university's vice president of library and information technology.
Bedi says some classes are live while others are recorded. Professors are being creative and flexible.
"Not all students are going to have the access that we expect them to have. They are going to be in different time zones, different countries, different continents."
Bucknell University is using a video conferencing program for the classes that are live online. University officials say so far, the transition to online learning is going well.