As we head into the last weeks of the Fall 2021 semester, I’m wondering a lot about what “normal” is going to look like in the months ahead. We’ve almost made it through a first, tentative semester back on campus. Faculty are mostly back in the classroom. Students are mostly back in physical classrooms. President Todd Diacon even convened a mostly in-person meeting of university leaders in mid-November. We’re almost back to normal. Almost.
Having started at 91ֿ mid-pandemic, I don’t know exactly what normal used to look like, but the current situation doesn’t yet feel quite normal. The majority of meetings remain online. The university sends multiple alerts each week about students testing positive for COVID-19. Students come to Franklin Hall for classes, but are reluctant to linger when class is over.
The crawl toward normal will continue with the Spring 2022 semester. The vast majority of our classes will be offered in person. Our faculty meetings will be in person. And we might even host an in-person event or two. But masks and hand sanitizer will remain ubiquitous, and with that, the reminder that normal remains just out of reach.
For MDJ students, Spring 2022’s normal will mean they get the usual enthusiastic faculty mentorship as they seek summer internships. It will mean continued opportunities with our award-winning student media. And it will mean dynamic lectures, labs and seminars in Franklin Hall spaces that have finally returned to pre-pandemic capacities. All this will look and feel wonderfully normal.
But I wonder if we need to moderate our expectations a bit for the semester ahead? Friends and colleagues have observed that this fall semester has been the most challenging since the advent of COVID-19. It’s hard to disagree. The strains associated with trying to function normally while so much remains decidedly not normal (breakthrough infections, shipping delays, staffing shortages, etc.) have taken a toll on everyone. Will these and other challenges extend into the new year? Probably. But our approach will remain the same: Continue our stubborn, persistent, and cheerful dedication to providing the best educational experience possible for our students. They deserve it. And that’s why we’re here.