Bill’s video connection to class was intermittent with audio that sounded like he was talking underwater. During the COVID19 pandemic, with all teaching online, everyone’s connection to class was video, but Bill’s was troubled by a poor internet connection in his home. If a global pandemic was not dystopian enough, having jumpy and unreliable audio/video were a vivid illustration of the strange days in which we were living.
A highly interactive course like Organizational Behavior is a difficult course to deliver online. The video cams need to stay on and all class meetings were synchronous. Bill slogged through with faithful, if grainy, attention to the course and even troubled himself occasionally to travel into town to find a better coffee shop connection for taking online quizzes.
During a class around mid-quarter, Bill stayed after class. As everyone clicked “leave meeting,” his video square persisted while others popped away. In less than 30 seconds, his and my Zoom meeting squares were the only ones remaining. We began to talk.
My first thought was that he was going to apologize again for the tech issues that plagued the quality of his engagement, but he just wanted to talk. Ten minutes of relaxed and warm exchanges were aided by an unusually cooperative internet, almost certainly because God wanted this connection this time to work well. It turned out I had his sister in another class a few years ago, and his dad is an adjunct professor at Cal Poly, someone I know. This family owns a small business in town and a home in the connectivity-troubled outskirts. Bill helps his Dad with the family business, and his mother is fighting cancer.
My question “tell me about you and your family” had opened a door through which an opportunity for divine connectivity was presented. Matters of faith evolved in the conversation, as we both tested whether we had a fellow believer on the call. We spoke of worship, ambition, family, care for others in tough times, and finally I asked if we could pray.
Afterward, Bill said simply that he’s never had a professor pray with him before. I admit to a lack of bravery in such things, so this was rare for me, too. God wanted us to pray, I am sure, and made it easy as a product of shared conversation. Here’s a student who participates in lectures and discussions about such Organizational Behavior topics as servant leadership, and we both ended the day with the joy of illustrating this learning in prayer.
In most universities, it is appropriate to be circumspect about when and where to broach matters of faith. Occasionally God will just work it out. And one-day last quarter, after closing a meeting with 39 students using the words “class dismissed,” God provided an epilogue meeting with one student ending with the words “in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Cal Stevens
California Polytechnic State University