Boning up

“In normal times? Let’s start with normalcy.” 

Anne Grauer, chair of the anthropology department at Loyola University Chicago, teaches human osteology, the study of bones. In a traditional semester, her anthropology and biology students file into a School of Environmental Sustainability (SES) lab multiple times per week, where they’re met with skeletal scraps. What follows, per Grauer, is “a lot of intense interaction as well as a great deal of engaged learning.”

No two bones are identical. From fragments, anthropologists must assess what part of the body they’re looking at, and even what side of the body a given fragment comes from. “I don’t use Powerpoint,” Grauer says. “We use human remains!” 

This spring, after her initial COVID-induced panic subsided, Grauer requested and was granted dispensation to teach portions of her fall 2020 osteology course in person. Her 21 students are divided into three groups, each of which meets at SES every week for a socially distanced session. For two hours, they can ask questions that might be intricate or unique to them (and thus hard to explain over email or the phone) and receive an immediate answer. 

See more: View our gallery of fall semester classes at Loyola

When not dusting and investigating at a lab bench, they’ll watch recorded lectures that Grauer posts to Sakai or join supplementary synchronous virtual lessons. During the latter, each student places in front of their computer a life-size skeleton model; Grauer made arrangements with a scientific supply company, using the student’s lab fees to help offset the purchase price: “We’re all holding the same anatomical feature—[the model] removes an understanding of human variation students would get in class, but it’s still a great unifying factor.” 

Because she’s had to refashion her syllabus and accommodate small-group lab visits, Grauer is spending twice the time she typically would teaching. It’s worth the effort. She knows that hands-on training is vital—the lessons are tactile and practical, not just hypothetical. “And it’s been wonderful to be with students face-to-face,” she says. “I realize how much I miss that rapport, building those relationships that you get from being close to somebody and seeing them eye-to-eye.” 

In the parlance of her field, that’s orbit to orbit.