"The university is considering whether to take classes online as a response to the coronavirus," she said. "Will you be our point person in training the faculty for going online?"
At the time, I was happy to do it, because I have entertained daydreams of how nice it would be to teach online and gain those five hours per week that I spend driving from home to the office and to be able to do laundry while grading rather than sitting in an office. In the 10 days since, my mood has sobered as I consider the future.
So, after she left, I went into planning mode to cancel my class and prepare for a 3:30 meeting with her and the deans. Over the next three days, I spent several hours in meetings to scramble to plan while the upper administration was also scrambling to plan. It was frustrating to try to create a plan for training (which would need to be extensive since a couple of years ago the administration had actively rejected the idea of online teaching as not consistent with our mission) without knowing whether or not we were actually going to need to use the training. But at 9:45 Friday night, our president announced the university was going online for the rest of the semester, following a two-week spring break in which faculty could get ready for going online.
Then came two days of training that coincided with the onset of social distancing in the wider context. Our first day we had in-person training; overnight, the number of cases of the virus had grown to the point that the CDC recommended no meetings of groups larger than 10, so we had our second training day via video conferencing. We were also told that we need to get anything we think we might need for an indefinite period of time out of our offices, since we would not be allowed back on campus after Friday, March 20.
So here I sit in my sewing room that has unexpectedly become a faculty office. I'm trying to figure a legitimate way to teach public speaking online. I'm dealing with an internet connection that was already iffy that now is burdened by a whole community that's suddenly online at once (the public schools have been moved online, as well) and wondering if I'll need to get up in the middle of the night to be able to post lessons and grade stuff online.
It seems like the entire fabric of "normality" has been shaken violently (and probably isn't through shaking yet?). We had a text message yesterday that our church has canceled services until at least the end of the month. Without school and church to punctuate my week, it's kind of hard to remember what day it is. My son went last night to pick up a few groceries I thought we might need to round out our menu over the next few days - he reported there were no meats, no flour, no eggs (but at least he was able to get a bag of apples and a can of cooking spray, ha ha). How long will it be until the surge of "stocking up" is over and shopping goes back to "normal"? Will it go back to "normal"?
There's a lot of uncertainty about the future of "normal," at least in my mind. Is the virus as serious as health officials say, and how long will it take to "flatten the curve" sufficiently that health services are not overwhelmed? What impact will closing down so many businesses have on the economy? Are we getting ready to be in another Great Depression? (My dad said there are many conditions now that are similar to the conditions that led to the Depression of the 1930s.) How will people like my daughter, who was laid off from her part-time job as a lifeguard, be able to pay their bills and feed themselves? She's fortunate to have us as a backup, but will a private college survive the upheaval, or will I be "retired" a little sooner than I had anticipated?
One thing I keep thinking in the back of my mind - things like the Black Death or the Great Depression weren't just fiction. People lived in those hard, hard times, and I ask myself whether we are getting ready to be some of those people. Whether we want it or not!
I guess we don't have a lot of choice in the matter, so just like those earlier people, we have to keep plugging on. There's a hymn I really like called "Living By Faith" that starts,
"I know not today what tomorrow may bring,
If shadow or sunshine or rain;
The Lord I know ruleth o'er everything,
And all of my worry is vain."
I think I'll keep that one on a repeating loop in the coming days.
