Category: Uncertainty

Hope, Uncertainty

Vaccinations or Interventions?

ProvostMissy@WCSU

Today students at WCSU are moving into our residence halls. Like everyone else, we’ve worked hard to create a re-entry plan that offers as much protection from Covid-19 as we can manage. We are testing our mostly vaccinated students as they enter, trying to stop an outbreak before it happens. We are stressing the importance of masks whenever indoors on campus and we’ve made the N95 versions available. We have isolation plans for what we imagine is the inevitable arrival of Omicron, and we have made getting tested as easy as possible so that folks can be proactive. That’s really all there is to do. This is as safe as we can be, and we are ready to go.

The last two years have taught us that these measures are relatively effective, despite the moving targets surrounding this Covid-19. We have had low campus-level infection rates, with only one brief school-level shutdown (not university-wide), and the protections in the classrooms in particular seem to be doing what they need to do. Outside of class people may be willing to take more risks, but in the classroom we seem to be pulling together to protect each other. That has been a bright spot in this whole thing – that impulse to protect each other, at least in the classroom.

But off campus is a different story. We have definitely not been pulling together to protect each other. Instead some of us are focused on individual rights, some of us are lost in a lot of misinformation about the vaccinations, others are swearing by the science and claiming ignorance or malicious intent in those who have questions. And all of these positions are accompanied by scorn for those with whom we disagree. These attitudes have been exacerbated (created?) by politics, to be sure, but there is more to it than that, and with the emergence of Omicron, it is time to evaluate some of what that “more to it” might be. I think one of the biggest culprits in this mess of disagreement is the word “vaccine.”

Throughout my life the word vaccine has meant full protection from a disease. I am vaccinated against polio and the measles and tetanus. As a child I had the mumps and the chickenpox, so I’m safe from those as well. I have had no occurrences or recurrences of these diseases. I appear to be fully immune; my faith in this science is strong. Given this understanding of vaccinations and immunity, it is no wonder I was eager to get my vaccination for Covid-19. Honestly, the emergence of one so quickly appeared to be a miracle to me. I signed up for my first dose as soon as I was eligible. When summer came, I happily returned to restaurants and playing music with my friends. Then Delta hit and boosters were recommended. I got one. Now it’s Omicron and, well I’m seeing a pattern here. The vaccinations that I’m signing up for are not quite what I mean by vaccine.

It seems like the shots we are getting are more like our annual flu vaccines, which offer some measure of protection but not complete immunity. Flu vaccines definitely reduce the number of people who get sick each year, but some number always get sick anyway. These vaccines are always being reformulated as new variants emerge, and that reformulation might miss a variation. I have always known that these shots were helpful but not perfect. This was ok with me, as I lined up for a flu shot each year, but I’m guessing this is because I was young enough and healthy enough not to see any real threat from the flu. Covid-19 has been something different.

Obviously, I’m not discussing the science. I am sure that the doses I am getting for Covid-19 work sufficiently like vaccinations to warrant the same name, but the breakthroughs and the quick mutations are really not helping us all come together to protect each other. The state of affairs with Omicron appears to bolster the arguments of those who didn’t believe in these vaccinations in the first place. The changing understanding of how masks should work are adding fuel to that fire. I get it. I don’t get the politics at all, but I do understand why some people are not confident in these measures because the story appears to keep changing.

I think it is time to re-think that word vaccine. Given the lack of permanence in the protection, and the moving target of the mutations, perhaps we need a new word for these shots that conveys the difference between them and my polio vaccine. I like to think of mine as an intervention. It is clear that the multiple doses provide some protection from Covid-19 overall and severe illness in particular. This protection doesn’t make me fully immune, but it is very likely to keep me out of the hospital. I feel relatively safe because of it, so I’ve done my best to take care of me.

My decision to engage in this intervention, along with my decision to wear a mask, also reduces the likelihood that I will accidently get others sick. We shouldn’t lose sight of this part of the intervention; it is about others. I really don’t want to get others sick. I do not want to be responsible for someone else’s trip to the hospital. I do not want to put all of those folks working in restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals and, yes, classrooms, at a higher risk of infection because of my behaviors. I also want to keep going out to play music with my friends. I want classes to be in person and to see my colleagues at work. I want a relatively normal world.

So, I am reimagining the steps we are taking on campus as interventions that make us safer, not as paths to immunity. I am taking part in these interventions on and off campus, even if the morning news continues to shake us all, because I am doing my very best to contribute to a relatively safe environment for all of us. I am trying to get my mind around the word endemic and the conditions that will signal that we are in that phase of this virus. I’m hoping the decisions we are making are getting us there. Most of all, I am hoping we can leave the scorn for each other aside and pull together to protect each other.

Resilience, Uncertainty

The Other Long-COVID

ProvostMissy@WCSU

Last week I was chatting with a faculty member about how things were going in her classes. Looking at the third week census data and the first hint of color in the trees on campus, we both realized that we were well past the feelings of starting off and now fully immersed in the fall semester. With so much attention to the transition back to campus, that simple fact had escaped our notice. We are no longer in transition; we are here.

I am very proud of all that has occured to get this done. Between the rearranging of classrooms, to the creation of processes for collecting all of the relevant health information, to the managing of curriculum with an eye on any abrupt departures, everyone has worked tremendously hard to get back to something like normal. I am looking with joy at the performing arts and athletics schedules, and smiling as I observe students scurrying across campus to their classes. It feels almost like what I like to call the before times.

But it isn’t quite the before times.

Shortly after the conversation with my colleague, a series of messages came to me. Several were about managing campus spaces in this COVID environment. There were questions about addressing people who are wearing masks improperly, the limits of our obligations to students who are quarantining, appropriate strategies for dealing with a missing COVID test reports, and how we are handling contact tracing in an environment where the majority of people are vaccinated and wearing masks. As I responded to each question, I could see the frayed nerves in the language of the messages. I did my best to respond in ways that might soothe those frayed nerves, but I’m sure I missed the mark here and there.

Then there were the other messages about normal things – schedules, governance, new programs or initiatives. These messages also seemed to carry an intensity of tone that was, well, a little overwrought. People are trying to get on with the usual things that universities do, but everything feels a little extra right now. Messages are a little more accusatory than the tone of our normal, healthy debates. Things that might have taken a few exchanges to get to frustration, now seem to start at a yell. Maybe the fact that so many of our conversations are still in Zoom-like environments, is causing us to lose the ability to recognize our shared efforts and camaraderie.

I think what we are experiencing is the emotional equivalent of long-COVID. Please know that I understand the seriousness of the physical symptoms of long-COVID. I am not being glib. What I am observing, though, is that this pandemic has created a sustained period of uncertainty and it is wearing us down.

In the field of communication, there is a body of research about uncertainty flowing from Berger and Calabrese’s Uncertainty Reduction Theory. The gist of the theory is pretty simple – we don’t really like uncertainty and we work hard to reduce it. Sometimes this behavior results in short cuts that are problematic (stereotyping, for example), but in all cases we tend to seek information to reduce uncertainty as quickly as possible. We build understanding with each interaction with new people or places or ideas and try to build ourselves a map of what we are experiencing and how to proceed. With COVID-19, it has been very difficult to get to the part where we feel confident about the predictions we are making for how to proceed.

We thought we would be through this by now. After all, the promise of the vaccinations became real last December. Many of us couldn’t wait to get our appointments and our biggest concern was holding on until our age group was scheduled. Yet, even as we did this, many were still in that limbo that comes with family members who are too young for vaccination. They have to hold out longer.

Then we were faced concerns about getting the vaccination in it’s experimental status. The FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine helped, but there was also the emergence of the Delta variant and suddenly everyone seemed to know someone who was vaccinated and still got COVID. Doubts began to flourish and all my hope for returning to classrooms under normal conditions were dashed with a quick pivot back to masks. We all have to hold out longer.

Despite these lingering concerns and disruptions, there are lots of reasons to be optimistic. We have emerging science on the impact of booster shots that is very encouraging. There will soon be vaccinations available for younger children, helping all members of our community get just a little more peace of mind. Today the trend data shows that the rate of infection is slowing again, so maybe we’re turning a corner. Fingers crossed.

But even with the good news, we are still living with uncertainty. We can’t get that feeling that we have things under control, and it is stressing everyone out. I wish it weren’t so, but that stress is showing up in interactions all over the place. We are going to have to find a way to reset our perspectives and figure out how to live in this limbo a bit longer.

This leaves me thinking about what I can do to support everyone through what I hope is a not too much longer period of not quite normal. I would love to be able to just mandate some hours of relaxation for all of us. Instead of a common hour for meetings, we need one for breathing. Would that I could alter our schedules for this immediately! But I can’t so I will suggest things that are totally obvious, but maybe need to be said. Here goes:

  1. Take more walks. Right now is the perfect time as the temperatures drop and the leaves change. A walk on a trail or a sidewalk is fine. Getting outside is the crucial part. I want to also recommend that you actually leave that phone home while you do it, but if you must carry it for emergencies, keep it in your pocket.
  2. Try a little yoga. I know the complex routines of advanced yoga can be intimidating and some see it as something that is outside of their worldview, but the most basic of stretches are really soothing. The most important thing about them is that you stop focusing on to-do lists and inhale deeply. It is a natural way to slow your heartbeat and re-group. If I really can’t convince you to do yoga, try any other quasi-athletic thing you enjoy. The point is to shift your attention from your work life and the rest of things you feel you must do.
  3. Listen to or play some music. If you are playing music, you will not be able to worry about other things. If you are lucky enough to play music with other people you will reignite those collaborative skills of nuanced listening and mutual support that seem to be suffering in the zoomiverse. If you are a listener, do it with your eyes-closed. Tune out the world and tune into the sound. It is a break from the endless screens that we rely on all the time.
  4. Most of all, examine your schedule and delete a few things. We just don’t have to do every task we have set for ourselves. If we take a good look and cut out a few things, the rest of this marathon of uncertainty might be just a little more manageable.

But I always say to do a little less. It isn’t just COVID that pushes me this way–it is the general observation that our society – especially education – is trying to do too many things. We really can’t teach everything or ensure that our students will absorb or engage everything we thinks is interesting and important in a few short years of their lives. Nor can we do all of the research that interests us, even in a full career. We can afford to do a little less and still learn interesting and valuable things.

For today, though, my case for less is really about making room for the breaks we need right now. This long pandemic is wearing us down and we need to get a grip. So I am encouraging everyone to do a little less so you can log off and turn your attention to anything that makes you breathe deeply. You’ll be glad you did.

Higher Education, Thinking, Uncertainty

Deep Breaths

ProvostMissy@WCSU

Like everyone in higher education, I have spent every day since mid-March sorting through information and trying to make sound and thoughtful decisions about what to do. From our abrupt exit in the middle of the spring semester to our plans for the fall, nothing has been simple. There are complex interconnections between areas of the university that need to be sorted through and there are multiple constituencies to consider. This takes time, reflection, dialogue, and then logistical planning. It does not benefit from yelling. As I read the coverage of these issues in the Chronicle, Inside Higher Ed, New York Times and the Washington Post, I find myself wanting to ask everyone to take a deep breath.

For the record, I am not more concerned with budgets than safety. This characterization of administration is a convenient trope that bears no relationship to reality. Budgets matter, of course, but that has not been the primary motivator of a single decision. It is the background noise that we worry about as we try to figure out what will best serve our universities.

At WCSU, we are striving to return to campus, but in a limited form. We are setting up classrooms with six feet between seats. We are requiring masks for everyone. We are deploying hand sanitizer everywhere. We are reviewing our ventilation systems to be sure we have the best possible air flow. We are ordering microphones for faculty who have masks on, because we are worried that their voices will be muffled, and students will not hear them. We have added all sorts of training in online teaching, so everyone is prepared to flip to online if that is warranted. We have had numerous meetings with union leadership, department chairs, faculty in disciplines particularly impacted by this change, and so on. All of this will have an impact on our budgets that we have no idea if we can recoup, but we are making the plans anyway.

Given all of this work, perhaps it would be easier to just be online. Sure, but then there are these other complications.

Lab sciences are not great online. Faculty in those disciplines have asked to preserve some of that hands-on experience. In some cases, certifying students for work in labs or applying to graduate school relies that hands-on experience. So, we worked together to develop protocols that we all feel are safe. The same is true for nursing, and that faculty has come together to propose what they feel are safe options.

Music ensembles are a disaster online. Don’t let the nicely edited zoom concerts you have seen fool you. Those are big (edited) productions. In reality, there is just too much lag to play together remotely, especially when on considers the variance of bandwidth in people’s homes. We cannot really support ensembles in full, but at least the ones without wind instruments and voices should have a chance to play together. For those others, we are trying to figure something else out, mostly outdoors subject to weather.

I am particularly worried about our incoming first-year students. While it is possible to build community online, it is not easy. Community building online works best with people who are either returning adults or graduate students. To build it with traditional students is a lot of time and effort. I know that some of my faculty will do a great job of facilitating group work that will help students meet each other, but students will miss the way physical co-presence tends to lead to post-class conversations. This is not trivial. We already know that our commuter population sometimes struggles to make these friend connections when they only come to campus for class. Not coming at all will magnify that problem. So, we are trying to preserve some of those first-year on campus experiences. Even if we find we have to return to online only, a few meetings are likely to be helpful in building those important connections between students.

We have a plan for our dorms. We are working through those safety protocols and, yes, we are wondering about our ability to build compliance. Enforcing the use of masks and social distancing protocols in classrooms and libraries, etc., is relatively easy. In dorms, not so much. We are reviewing the various publications on monitoring health in dorms and planning our testing and tracing protocols. We have also updated our fall schedule so families can make informed decisions about the value of dorms, given the proportion of class-time online (schedules vary). Still, some students and families want this option, so we are not just saying let’s skip it. This decision was made with the desire to preserve this option for families who want or need it. It was not made with an eye toward the bottom line. If anything, having the dorms open will cost more than closing them, given the protocols we will have to put in place and the scaled back occupancy numbers.

Nevertheless, the money piece does matter. As usual, the conversations about money in the press focus on the private schools with large endowments and very high price tags. Those of us in public higher education are grappling with small (no) endowments, diminishing state appropriations, and price tags that are lower than the cost of operations. We are being asked about reduced tuition and fees because of the predominance of online offerings, but there is no reduction in the cost of delivery. I am focused on cultivating good online instruction, but I know it is not the same as the expectations these students had for their education. We are being asked about pro-rated dorm costs in case we go home early, but the cost of the dorms will not diminish if we close early. The price is based on the semester, not a weekly rate. We do not know what to do about this. Our price tags are “affordable” but they are still a stretch for many of our families, so I understand their questions about reductions in this context. My tale of how low the tuition and fees are compared to the cost of delivering education is cold comfort to them. This puts us in quite a bind and there are no good answers.

It is July 13th and the decisions we have made so far reflect my (and the entire administrative team’s) best effort to navigate this difficult world. We are likely to change course on a few things as we monitor what is happening elsewhere. We are likely to grapple with decisions about costs and value as the proportions of online offerings shift with those insights. We will continue to address the interconnected decisions of operating a campus, in collaboration with our union leadership, as methodically as possible, even as we hear the demands for information on a daily basis. We will try to respond quickly, but some decisions take time.

This leads me back to the breathing part. Perhaps, for just a minute, we could all pause and think about these complexities. Perhaps we could stop accusing each other of bad priorities and look at all we have done to figure this mess out together. Perhaps we could cultivate a little more patience so that there is time to review the list of protocols we have developed, determine their feasibility, and then make adjustments. We can’t get this done if we are constantly responding to panic and misinformation. So deep breaths, please, so we can all figure out the fall. We will think about the money piece later.

Higher Education, Innovative Pedagogies, Uncertainty

Contingencies

ProvostMissy@WCSU

Well, the national news is not encouraging. This morning I saw that two universities have stepped back from having any campus experiences. Although they started out committed to bringing some of their students back, the early signs in those (southern and western) states are showing a resurgence of COVID-19, so they are changing course. Here in Connecticut, things are still moving in the right direction (lower incidences of infection, low hospitalization rates), but we are just reopening, so time will tell how things progress in July. In the meantime, we must get ready for our August opening with a lot of uncertainty. Oh goodie!

Well, the obvious answer is to prepare to be fully online, just in case. But this is no small thing. Teaching online is (or should be) fundamentally different from on-ground teaching. For example:

  • In the classroom, faculty can see reactions (confusion, engagement, or the lack thereof) and adjust. Online, the space for reactions must be carefully constructed.
  • In the classroom, group work is relatively easily supported, online it must be designed in advance.
  • In the classroom, you can easily change course if things are not working. That change can happen in the same day or by the next session. Online, that change will require re-writing notes/assignments and so on, to address the change.

Preparing to teach online requires thinking about instruction in new ways. It is a departure from the routine. You can see, from this short list, that many people will be tempted to just prepare for teaching the last part of the semester online (when we all go home at Thanksgiving).

Nevertheless, with the hope of some on-campus experience before us, we must prepare for multiple possibilities. This preparation will take effort, but it might benefit all of us for the long haul. In that spirit, I would like to offer some thoughts about course design. I hope this is some encouragement. We’ll see.

First, for faculty who are new to thinking about building courses around weekly topics, with weekly activities to support and assess student understanding of those topics (best practices for online instruction, excellent for those aiming for universal design), I would like to say that this approach will also strengthen the on-ground learning experiences for your students. Like preparing to teach anything, this will require some thought and effort, but it can be very satisfying for everyone involved.

For lower level courses, this weekly topic approach helps students transition from high school to college learning expectations, by providing clear timelines, and lots of opportunity to see if they “get it.” Online, assessment opportunities can easily become self-assessments (mini-quizzes), to reduce grading for the professor. On-ground those same strategies can be deployed in support of the class discussions, ensuring students have started thinking about the ideas before you meet. Then faculty can attend to discussions and more nuanced assignments, without overburdening themselves. It takes time to get all of this organized, but once done, it can be edited each semester, reducing the preparation to normal on-ground levels.

For upper level courses, particularly those that are meant to be seminars, the same weekly groupings of topics apply. Offering these courses online will require a good understanding of how to set up discussion groups, so that students can take on leadership roles. This is a usual practice on ground that translates to online very nicely. It is true that most of this will be asynchronous and lack some of the in-classroom spontaneity. However, the time lag in responses often allows students to think through ideas in ways that they have difficulty doing in the classroom. Their responses, with time to think, are often more grounded in the readings and more thoughtful. The grading will be the same as always (usually lots of writing assignments in these kinds of classes), and faculty will find themselves nudging conversations rather than responding to everything, just like a seminar. In other words, it does not have to be a lot more work than on-ground seminars, after you set things up.

Second, many people already teach hybrid courses. This approach has long been seen as an effective strategy for learning at many levels. It blends some face-to-face experiences with online work. Faculty who have been doing this have been deciding about what is vital for on-ground and what works well online, for years. In normal times those decisions are made in advance. However, teaching this way also requires the kind of organized experience that an online class requires. Faculty who have taught hybrid courses will be well-prepared to flip to fully online if necessary. It might be a good time to phone a friend and see how they do this.

Finally, for those who plan to use live meeting platforms for the fall, I must acknowledge that it is not necessarily ideal. If you like to lecture, great, but getting feedback from students will be a challenge. We have all learned about the strengths and weaknesses of WebEx, Zoom, Teams, etc., this spring. People try to have “conversations” but they end up being frustrated as we wait for people to mute and un-mute themselves (and forget to re-mute themselves afterward). It can happen, if you assign moderators to discussion boards, but it is tricky.

And there are limits to our ability to pay attention in online meetings. We all know this now that we are working remotely. The chunking strategies that are ideal for the online teaching environment, are also preferable in the WebEx/Zoom environment. Faculty should carefully consider how they are organizing time in this environment. You will be glad you did.

In addition, even if you prefer the live meetings, assignments and assessments, you still need a learning platform (in our case, Blackboard Learn) so that students have a consistent experience. It is incredibly frustrating for students to have to find their courses – with some in email, some in Teams, and some in Blackboard. So, the work of preparing the course will still need the kind of preparation that our online classes require. It may be work to set this up, but those same tools work on ground, too, so it is not wasted time. Indeed, I have long enjoyed collecting assignments this way. It helps me keep track of things in multiple courses, instead of unseparated email trails and piles of paper.

So, I guess what I am saying is we must prepare to teach fully online, but the best techniques for online teaching can have great benefits for on-ground teaching. The process of imagining your material in multiple formats, might also help you see that material differently. This has the potential to help you reach students with diverse learning styles. The tools that you leverage now will be there for snow days, conference trips, and other scheduling purposes after COVID-19. They may also help us chart a new path toward new schedule configurations in the future. This is something we should be thinking about anyway, so why not take advantage of this moment of crisis to prepare for a more flexible future.

I know it is hard, but, after it is done, I think it will be worth it, not just for the fall, but for the future of the university.

Higher Education, Resilience, Uncertainty

Unhappy Realities

ProvostMissy@WCSU

We have done it! Working with my deans, department chairs, and facilities team, we have mapped our classroom capacities for COVID-19 and built a fall schedule. Room capacities were startling, with lecture halls that once fit 75-125 now only fitting 16-25. Fixed seating scenarios were much worse than rooms with moveable seats, so the very few large lectures that we offered will have to be online. Working with faculty preferences and concerns, paired with a few guidelines around creating on-campus experiences for our First-Year students and our upper level major courses, we ended up with a mix of online (60-62%), hybrid, and on-ground classes (38-40%). Absolutely no one is happy.

Of course, no one is happy. My residential students (about 30%) want more on-campus courses. So do some of my commuters, who do not like the online learning experience. Other students (a mix of traditional-aged and returning adults) do not want to come to campus at all. They are juggling work, children, helping with siblings, or serving in essential personnel roles (nursing homes, hospitals, etc.). For them the best option is all online, but not all of them will achieve that. Some students and faculty and staff have health conditions that suggest they should stay away. Others have learning needs that favor face-to-face experiences. Faculty are trying to figure out how to teach in a mask and/or spending the summer reimagining their courses for our very non-intuitive learning management system. For part-time faculty it is even worse, with decisions about on-campus or online, complicated by the reality of reduced enrollments and likely course cancellations. Oh boy.

And then there is the drip, drip, drip of health and safety concerns. As we watch surges in recently reopened southern and southwestern states, we wonder if we should come back at all. After all, even here in Connecticut where the prevailing behavior has been reasonable caution (most of us are wearing our masks and sitting far apart), we know very well that young people will take risks. That is a simple truth.

As the fall schedule began to solidify last week, I started to get the questions and complaints from students. I anticipate my inbox will be full of these missives about the balance of online and on-ground experiences until we start the semester. Then they will be followed up with complaints about how each modality is working. The list will be:

  1. The professor doesn’t know how to use Blackboard.
  2. I can’t hear my professor through the face mask.
  3. I can’t figure out which day to be on campus and which day is online (hybrid/hi-flex).
  4. I thought I wanted the synchronous (live online class), but now I wish it was asynchronous.
  5. And so on.

I am also receiving questions and concerns from faculty and staff. These questions revolve around enforcement of mask wearing (we will all enforce this practice together), cleaning practices (same as always, with supplies to wipe down desks and teaching stations in every room, and hand sanitizer everywhere), ventilation (adequate with masks on), and bathrooms (same as always, just wear your mask and wash your hands). For faculty and staff who do counter/reception service (secretaries, librarians, registrars, etc.), we are adding plastic barriers for extra safety, but most things will be by appointment anyway. These questions will continue through the start of the fall only to be followed up with:

  1. I thought I could teach for three hours in a mask, but I cannot.
  2. I can’t hear my students through their masks.
  3. I can’t read my students through their masks.
  4. I thought I wanted to teach online synchronous, but I wish I had decided on hybrid.
  5. And as always, I hate Blackboard Learn.

Nope. No one is happy.

I have seen all the jabs at administration during this pandemic. We have been accused of making decisions too quickly (driven by monetary concerns) and too slowly (families/students want to know what to expect). We have been accused of offering platitudes and vague statements that obscure realities. We probably have done this as we navigate the balance between decision-making and problem-solving. We are being asked to lead our campuses forward with the same information that everyone else has, while being flogged for each decision. Ok, I have a sense of humor. But, you know, it is not all that funny. We are tasked with making sure we still have universities in the fall, and it is not an easy task.

All I can say is this, I have tried my very best to deal with the realities as they are known today. For faculty, that means working with their proposals for modalities, asking for minor modifications to meet a few face-to-face interaction goals, and then letting it be. For students, that means making sure that most have a blend of learning options in their schedules. They will not have everything they prefer, but they will have some options. For staff, this means working to determine the balance of on-campus and remote work and putting in protections for those in reception areas. For everyone, this means vigilance and compromise.

All decisions have been informed by the very best guidance from the CDC so far: wear masks, wash hands, stay six feet apart. That is really all there is to do, unless we all stay home. Students across the country rejected the notion of just staying home, so we are doing our best to “re-populate” our campuses. When you blend commuter with residential students, like we do, we must assume potential exposure at all times. So, we are erring on the side of caution with our protective measures. The masks, social distancing, and reduced number of classroom experiences appear to be an effective strategy and should go a long way toward preventing a resurgence. We’ll see.

So, no one is happy. No one is going to have an ideal experience. Everyone is going to have to reimagine what education is like in this environment. But, is this really a new situation? Ideal experiences never really exist. Faculty must always figure out how to create the best educational experience possible with the tools and settings available. Students always have to adjust to experiences they did not expect or have not experienced before. So, you know, we could decide this is adventure and, well, get happy.