College to open on-campus spaces for online students

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The college plans to open a room on the Arnold campus and another at Arundel Mills where online students can participate in virtual classes and do their homework.

Ryan Oberteuffer, Reporter

 AACC plans to open study spaces on the Arnold and Arundel Mills campuses in March for online credit students who prefer not to work at home. 

 “We’re thinking that it would be very helpful to students who may live in a house with a lot of other people who are also trying to work from home,” Dean of Student Success Bonnie Garrett said. 

 The campus closed last March in response to the coronavirus. About 2,000 students are taking classes on campus, while the rest study online. 

 Called “learning spaces,” one computer- and internet-equipped room on each of the campuses will allow up to nine students to study for three hours and 45 minutes at a time every weekday except Friday. 

 On the Arnold campus, the learning space will be in the Careers Building.  

 Garrett said students can use their time in the space to attend virtual classes, do homework or study. 

 Students can register for as many of the three daily time slots as they want and can make recurring reservations for the same blocks each week for the entire semester, Garrett said. 

 Students will have to wear masks and stay six feet apart in the spaces, which will have disinfectant spray and wipes to allow students to clean their workstations. 

 “The college is truly dedicated to responding to this kind of student need,” Garrett said. 

 Some students said they would jump at the chance to use these spaces. 

 “I don’t have a desk in my room,” second-year exercise science student Raphael Roman said. “I don’t have another area throughout the house where it’s conducive to a work environment.” 

 Hannah Boring, a high school senior who takes classes at AACC, said she “know[s] plenty of people that would” use the sync space. 

 “I don’t like working at home,” Boring said. “Like it’s too much of a comfortable environment.”