Erica Stevens, an English professor who has thrived under the glowing lights of a Houston City College classroom, suddenly finds herself in the dark searching for answers.

Stevens was among many faculty present on Thursday, March 31st, inside the historic San Jacinto building auditorium for the final stop of the “Chat with Chancellor Ford Fisher” tour. For an entire week, HCC’s esteemed Chancellor Margaret Ford Fisher addressed various faculty and staff members at multiple colleges about changes pertaining to the 89th Texas Legislature’s Telework Bill.

Under the Telework Bill, rules govern how state agencies, such as colleges and universities, may permit employees to work remotely. The Chancellor assured those in attendance that HCC will support the state legislature’s Telework and House Bill 8 performance-based model by increasing the number of full-time faculty members at colleges offering workforce programs, thereby reducing students’ need to travel long distances to other campuses.

While the plan could be a major victory for students who had to contend with the chaos of Houston traffic just to get to a mathematics course required for their degree, it leaves professors like Stevens who enjoy the flexibility of teaching both in person and online, wondering what’s next for them.

“I have learned to be a better in-person instructor by teaching online-and vice versa,” said Stevens. “Of course, these multiple modalities also offer the flexibility in my job that is no small part of the reason I became a professor.”

Stevens arrived at the “Chat with Chancellor” event at San Jacinto to seek clarification from the Chancellor herself about the future of HCC full-time faculty who have had the flexibility to teach online and in-person classes simultaneously. Stevens, who teaches three in-person classes at the Northline campus and two online, including a class that’s only delivered exclusively online called Mexican American Literature, was concerned about whether a 3-in-person, 2-online teaching model would be feasible, given the changes HCC was implementing under the Telework Bill.

However, in an email sent by Stevens to the Egalitarian, she believed the Chancellor did not “answer in the affirmative or the negative” as to whether full-time faculty would be allowed to have such flexibility going forward. Additionally, Stevens admitted that she has not yet received “unambiguous communication” regarding how faculty would be assigned for online and/or in-person instruction.

The impact of the pandemic on higher education is a major reason professors like Stevens are seeking such clarification from the Chancellor. During the midst of the pandemic, many professors became, as Stevens mentions in her email, “proficient” in online teaching. Online teaching has also given many professors the time and flexibility to focus on other parts of their lives, such as spending time with family and attending other college-related events.

With online and in-person teaching possibly having exclusive parameters for full-time faculty, many of them may now have to fight harder to teach the courses they are most passionate about. It’s something that concerns another English Professor, Jeremiah Croster, who was also present at the Chancellor’s event at San Jacinto and spoke up in support of those who could lose a big part of what has made teaching at HCC worthwhile.

“It’s primarily a concern because it allows us less flexibility to teach the courses that we want to teach and less ability to be in the places where we need to be to teach those courses,” Croster told the Egalitarian.

Despite concerns and questions from professors like Stevens and Croster, it seems the college’s hands may be too tied by the state legislature’s law. After Stevens spoke up about faculty being unhappy with the changes, Chancellor Ford Fisher gave a blunt response…

“Well, I think they would be more unhappy if we were to be closed down.” As the Chancellor referenced during the tour, a potential loss of funding and “severe institutional risk” looms in the background.

However, the Chancellor clarified that full-time faculty assigned to on-site campuses during the day may teach at another campus site to meet their full-time schedule requirements. She also clarified that full-time faculty are not required to work 40 hours in person each week, addressing a concern from many faculty in Texas since the Telework Bill was introduced.

Yet, these clarifications may not be enough for faculty like Stevens, who could soon be mourning the loss of online teaching and the ability to educate students whenever and however they please.

“This is the work we can all do now, and some of us do it very well, just as we teach in-person with great success.”