Hello, Spring '22 semester

Same as it ever was...

I don’t actually know this student, but I feel for him.

At 9:35 a.m., I’ll be at my Interpretive and Editorial Writing class (JRNL 3367) in a classroom I visited yesterday so I could become familiar with the room’s technology, but that wasn’t possible because the door was locked and no one could seemed to have the key.

Ah, higher ed.

This marks my fifth pandemic semester, and if last semester is any indication, this one will break me, too. During each pandemic semester, I either buckled under airless requests from on high or requests from students who don’t know how to navigate college. Pandemic teaching is hard and yet, I persisted. I showed up, every class and every student meeting, I showed up dressed like a grownup and smiling behind my mask because this is hard for everyone and I’m not special.

Every semester, I’ve added at least one new strategy with which to deal with pandemic teaching. After the first semester, I told myself that what I needed was more sleep. So the following semester, I slept more, and at the end of that semester, I added “eat healthy” to my list. Subsequent semesters have helped me expand my list.

So here’s how I intend to get through this semester. Feel free to adapt any of these strategies in your own work. Feel free to add more strategies:

• Sleep more.

• Eat healthy.

• Don’t answer emails or phone calls on weekends, and unless it’s an emergency (higher ed has few such emergencies), don’t respond to requests sent after 6 p.m. on weeknights. Y’all can just take a seat.

• Do not volunteer for or be drafted onto any committees. I am no longer climbing the ladder of success and there are other, capable people who are. I shall let them have my seat.

• Continue to be available to students (I like students) but there is a lock on the office door and if necessary, use it. Last semester, I was conducting a phone interview from my office, and someone kept knocking on my (closed) door. I excused myself from my phone call, unlocked the door and pushed it open, right into the forehead of a student who thought his question was both burning and super-important. It wasn’t and the swelling on his head was visible for a week.

• Do not schedule anything back-to-back, not meetings that make me skip lunch, not classes that make me jog somewhere to be on time. I shall slow down time and chew my food.

I’m telling you all of this the way I’d tell you that I’ve started a writing project. Now your job is to check in every once in a while and say, “How’s it going this semester? Sticking to your guns?” That will help keep me honest. And thank you.