Spring 2021 LOVE Pilot Planning Team and Facilitators

As we begin our twelfth month of the “new normal” with jampacked Zoom days and the on-going numbness of physical disconnection from much of our Arcadia community – even as we see hopeful signs of some students, staff, and faculty returning to campus, eating in the Chat, having an embodied experience of 450 S. Easton Road and Oak Summit – I, we, CTLM continue to seek ways to stay profoundly connected to the dynamic exuberance (dare I say joy?) that exists in moments of meaningful teaching, learning, and mentoring.

After a meeting last week, a student mentioned to me that “my eyes looked tired” on Zoom. My guess is that yours are sometimes suffering the same fate. We are tired and summer, widespread vaccinations, social nearness are all still dreams for the future. If our All Modes adventure is a marathon and not a sprint (and it definitely is), how do we sustain that fire that was burning over the summer as we worked on new ways to be a learning community together?

In these next few paragraphs, I want to highlight some of the ways I’ve noticed expansion of minds, ideas, engagement – even in this moment of such constriction. Capitalism would have us believe that doing more, accomplishing new feats, pushing beyond our limits is the ultimate goal, but taking time at CTLM and at the university to notice what is here now, and not just the yearning for what’s next, what’s better, feels like an important practice for the start of February:

• Professional Learning Communities continue to meet to share pedagogical highs and lows, technological triumphs and snafus, as part of a community where expertise about Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring are shared and the collective knowledge is more than the sum of its parts. (Stay tuned for a Spring 2021 invitation to join if you haven’t already been part of one of these groups).

• Deepening DLS/TCGS/CTLM Collaborations are continuing and expanding. We had a wonderful series of Spring Planning/Get Stuff Done days that involved meaningful conversation and learning – with a wonderful adjunct presence – in December & January. TCGS Faculty are sharing their Fall experiences with All Modes/Hybrid Learning and we look forward to additional PLCs with TCGS members.

• Living Our Values Experience (LOVE) Pilot will launch for the Spring on Friday, February 12th with ongoing racial affinity groups and new working groups that include graduate and undergraduate students as well as faculty, staff, and community leaders engaging in deep learning and plans for anti-racist actions around workplace discrimination, health disparities, criminal (in)justice and voter rights, cultural (mis)representation in arts and athletics, and investigating the history of Arcadia’s castle and the sugar industry. (See photo of our facilitator training below and email if you want to know more: lovepilot@arcadia.edu) And stay tuned for more about our first Spring 2021 campus-wide Act Up/Teach-In on February 25th: Mapping and Dismantling Systemic Racism.

• Building an Inclusive Pedagogies Framework: Building on the summer 2020 Equity & Engagement framework (fostering teaching and learning that is student-centered, inclusive/accessible, with real-world connections) CTLM has co-sponsored (with the Innovation Grants program) an Inclusive Excellence Scholar/Practitioner project with 12 faculty, staff and students to engage in inquiry projects that address ABRI principles, equity-minded data collection, and meaningful engagement for all students regardless of disability or native language. This work will lead to a draft inclusive pedagogies framework for the university to provide feedback on and then implement.

• Ongoing Student Leadership & Collaboration continues through student pedagogical consultants in the Anthropology program, through CTLM graduate and undergraduate fellows in leadership positions with many CTLM projects – AU Student Link, LOVE Pilot, IESP Grant, and this fantastic newsletter.

Hope this update reminds you, as it has me, that we are not just completing a set of tasks, going to too many Zoom meetings, but we are also building connection, building a human web of engagement and learning – in spite of the potential for numbness and exhaustion. When there is too much to do, and even the things that once seemed exciting and engaging only seem overwhelming, I want to remember to slow down and notice the joy and connection that continue in spite of it all. It is also reminding me that finding time for rest – even in the midst of spiraling to-do lists and all the real-life challenges we face – is the only way to learn deeply or find some joy in the muck. As individuals and as an institution, I hope we can continue to find ways to care for each other and build systems that sustain connection, care, collaboration, and rest. What can we do to find, create, and nurture joy in this learning community in the midst of it all?

With this notion of joy in mind, we have collected essays from students, staff, and faculty looking back on their Fall 2020 experiences. Some of them are reflecting upon successes and some of them are reflecting upon struggles, but we hope that, collectively, they can help us get through this spring semester together.

2020 definitely was not the year any of us wanted. As we look back on what was most likely the worst year of most of our lives, it is almost impossible to think of anything other than negativity. I mean at this point I have spent more of my “college experience” at home than actually on campus. However, that does not mean that 2020 doesn't mean anything to myself or anyone else. This year was incredibly tough, but like they say, the darkest nights make the brightest stars. I have no doubt that we will emerge from this so much stronger than we could've ever imagined. I look forward to sharing that moment with you all.

When I look back at 2020, I cannot help but be thankful for the immense success that myself and the other editors of Quiddity, our campus literary magazine, have had this year. We lost our 3 editors last spring when they graduated, leaving behind very large shoes to fill. However, we were up to the task. As soon as we could, we jumped right into action, creating a new logo, working to have two writing contests, an issue, and a redesign of the website from the ground up, all while fighting through our first entirely online semester. This was no easy task, we had 9 semester's worth of content to sort through, copy over, and then reformat to the new site. It is absolutely as time consuming and tedious as it sounds, but we took it piece by piece and were able to have it all built up by the release of our 10th issue, right before winter break. I was blown away by the website in its finished state and I was ready to accept that as the success of the year, but it only got better! In the midst of a global pandemic and one of the worst semesters of our lives, we received 30 poems, 4 fiction pieces, 1 creative nonfiction piece, and 1 short play! Our community came through and helped us produce one of the best issues we have ever made, on an entirely new platform, all while in a completely remote working environment. It’s incredible.

This is not my success story, it’s ours. Sierra, Erica, Angel, Michaela, Quiddity Readers and submitters, and of course, Daniel, if you're reading this, THANK YOU! We couldn't have done it without all of us working together. To the Arcadia Community, I thank you for giving us all the ability to put the amazing talent of our school on a pedestal for everyone to see. I am proud to call myself a member of the Quiddity editing team, and I cannot think of a better success story than the magazine that I hold so near and dear to my heart. Thank you for helping me find the silver lining of 2020. If you haven't already, please check out our 10th issue that was published over winter break. You can find that and so much more on our brand new website! Also, the submissions for our current writing contest, “Rebirth” is now live, so don’t forget to submit! Thank you for keeping our dream alive, I will be forever grateful.

Libraries were hospitals that filled my wounds with words I rarely heard outside of books growing up; the Art History program taught me the value in how I survived my youth. Great swaths of my time have been spent plopped somewhere, face buried in yet another thick tome from the Landman. Working on my thesis throughout last semester, though, I discovered that 2020 touched a collective threshold for me.

As I grasped for what I learned before the pandemic and blanked at every turn, my memory loss seemed to confirm my deepest fears over what I’ve read on trauma; headaches weren’t the cause of this. This is what happens when you experience too much trauma without unpacking it. Last fall, I learned that toughening up and pushing through isn’t worth what it eventually does inside of us.

Wounds left to fester draw much more than flies; celebrate your strength by seeking out good counsel, okay? The hardest, most valuable thing in all the world is learning how to show up for ourselves. It’s been difficult to admit that I need treatment more than another book in my arms, but I deserve to feel my brilliance. I started spring semester by seeking trauma counseling at Arcadia. Every part of us is an irreplaceable treasure — especially our minds.

I had the great fortune to participate in one of the CTLM’s Professional Learning Communities last summer (facilitated by the fantastic Shannon Diallo). As we prepared each other for our first fully-online semester, our group returned frequently to the idea that amid so much upheaval, for students and teachers -in our lives, our routines, and the familiar structures of our classes, we needed to focus on the sine qua non of our pedagogy and our ambitions for our students, and embrace that in this moment, less was probably more. I could get on board with scaling back course material, but struggled all summer to imagine being able to replicate the immediacy and energy of an in-person discussion-based course, the student-centric experience that’s at the heart what we do at a small school, and is the non-negotiable element of my pedagogy.

In the Spring 2020 semester, at the advent of our public health crisis, we still had four weeks to build trust and good-will in the classroom before the shift online, and I often felt I was cashing in on that investment for the rest of term. But what about the Fall? I was convinced my students would be strangers, avatars in a tiny Zoom window. What I didn’t anticipate was how much the rules had changed, indeed, been thrown out the window, amid a once-in-a-century pandemic. I should have known as soon as one of my students showed up to an early synchronous session dressed in a full chicken costume. I at first thought he was just ahead of the curve of what would be our collective devolution -that he recognized what Yeats knew -that the center was most definitely not going to hold. But once he followed up by dressing as a cowboy, and finally coming to class in full prom attire, I started to see synchronous teaching not as stilted, but as a chance for snapshots into my students’ lives. As teachers, we’ve all had to negotiate the chaos that comes from our students learning in their living environments: siblings and parents roaming into frame, lost internet connections as family members fight for bandwidth. But in an unexpected way, these extended glimpses into their home lives made my students feel oddly more embodied than they do in the classroom. The Zoom window surrounded them with context. I got insight into their quirks and their passions -from their Zoom backgrounds to how they chose to decorate their bedroom walls. The idiosyncrasies of their lives came out in living color in a way that just doesn’t happen in what I began to see as the oddly more monochromatic space of the brick and mortar classroom. And I of course could share my quirks -in fact, it’s almost impossible to avoid doing so in the synchronous online space, as students often spend extended time staring into my apartment or at my desktop while I share my screen (one class became politely preoccupied with which of my Bluetooth devices was running on a low battery). They could also ride along with the improv of my daily life -when my first grocery delivery in months came in the middle of a synchronous session, the group relished yelling “Run, Forrest!” as I scrambled to answer the door.

And we of course could share the collective trauma of this moment. And, because of the setup of the synchronous space, the wallpaper of Zoom windows, I could see and share their anxieties, witness as the plush context of their home lives was also a pandemonium that they had to keep at bay. On Zoom, there are no blackboards to turn back to, like there are in the classroom -no way to look away. And sharing their distress helped me finally to feel authorized to shed any concerns I had about stripping my courses down to their bare essentials -the sine qua non, which for me as a literature teacher meant worrying less about coverage -why assign more pages when we can swim around in the ones we have? And it meant remembering that if I’ve helped them to grow as writers and critical thinkers, the core of English literary studies, I’ve done my job, and if we then also spend a lot of time laughing at each other and this ridiculous moment in time, it also means I’m helping them to heal. On the last day of the semester last term, I mentioned to one of my classes that I’d never actually met any of them in person, yet felt like I knew each of them so well. I quipped that when I finally ran into them on campus, it would be like meeting a celebrity -because they had become so real to me on the screen

As my mother updates me, via Facetime, on her growing & unfounded anxiety about the vaccine, I’m responding to an email from a student about where to find our class’s Zoom links. As the Provost provides a compassionate & thoughtful update about the University’s COVID safety protocols, I’m reviewing course proposals for the Academics Committee. As I’m drafting this, I’m pausing to read an email from a colleague concerned about the potential psychic trauma of prolonged isolation for students. As I’m leading a discussion on Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel”--a story about an impossibly infinite space--I’m keenly aware that I’ve been sitting in the same 6’x8’ box of an office for 12 hours (and I’m also scanning student discussion board posts from another class about the difficulty of concentrating in our current learning moment). This is my struggle. It’s one of time & space.

Before the pandemic--in those wonderful days when you could accidentally graze a stranger’s shoulder at the checkout line and it would be cause for the optimism of a new friend & not the fear of contracted disease, or you could spend a snow day re-watching Harold & Maude with hot chocolate and not rushing from shoveling to Zoom, hoping the others don’t notice your perspiration or sweatpants--I neglected how important physical space can be in both determining my workflows & others’ expectations of them.

In Fall 2019, I often felt stressed & overwhelmed--as I imagine we all do--but there were physical spaces and physical gaps for each feeling. I would teach in the classroom--that ur-technology I’m just now appreciating the power of. I would respond to emails & mentor Arcadia students in the tiny & wonderfully dank office I have in Taylor Hall. I would conduct union business in our also tiny but beautiful union office. I would drive one-and-half hours to Rowan University (where I also teach) and perform similar services in similar spaces. And, in between, I would listen to Kevin Young help me understand poems on The New Yorker poetry podcast or I would let Dory Previn’s music articulate my melancholy or I would do nothing but drive & reap the benefits of that empty & generative space between tasks.

I--like all of us--no longer have that luxury. Everything is happening at once. I suppose this has always been the case, but now it feels as if we are expected to respond to everything at once as well. We live in urgent times. Obviously a public health crisis warrants a certain amount of urgency and so too does the culmination of an historic election cycle. This low grade sense of urgency that permeates daily life though--coupled with the lack of clear physical borders in our new teaching/learning environments--can have the power to overwhelm.

There are more tasks (for students, teachers, staff, & administrators) to be done to support teaching & learning online and--since we are no longer commuting to & from campus (or to & from anywhere really)--there is more time to work. What I imagine would have been emails in 2019 have turned into meetings in 2020/2021; walk & talks in hallways between classrooms have turned into emails; Slack & Discord channels that did not exist 2 years ago have emerged in all of their discursive glory.

To be clear, I think there are immense benefits to these increased lines of communication and to the pandemic-necessitated vulnerability that seems to be imbuing so much of that communication right now. I can describe in great detail the living rooms & kitchens & offices of colleagues I barely knew a year ago; I feel genuinely close to colleagues & students I’ve never had a face-to-face interaction with (including some of my fellow CTLM Fellows!). But, a year into this, I still struggle with how to be entirely present in any given moment.

There are things I can (and do) do. I’ve stopped bringing my laptop to bed. Those early morning & late night forays into the internet are now reserved for checking the box scores of Sixers games or reading Jacobin articles. I’m trying to jog more--a space I, for whatever reason, don’t feel pressured to check my phone. I still miss the spatial & temporal borders that gave shape to my day though, and I wonder how easily we’ll be able to re-embrace them as we transition out of our current moment & into whatever comes next.

This past Fall 2020 was a challenge for everyone at Arcadia, but we rose to that challenge and, from the Digital Learning Services perspective, we had a very successful and engaging semester. DLS was able to collaborate with many faculty, both full time and adjunct, as well as support staff across the campus. We learned a lot over the summer and it gave us the opportunity to apply it in our fall workshops, training sessions, and webinar sessions. We collaborated with many departments, but the connections made with CTLM created engaging conversations which led to a deeper understanding of how to use technology tools to engage students.

One noticeable increase in attendance this fall was from adjunct faculty. The increase added to richer discussions and a deeper dive into the tools and resources available when logging in with Arcadia credentials. While there are many factors that led to the increase in attendance by adjunct faculty, some of the increase could be attributed to the stipend that was offered to recreate courses in the All Modes Ready format. But, I also believe that many aduncts were able to attend more this fall than in previous years because many are working from home and able to attend our daytime workshops.

DLS had very impressive workshop attendance for fall 2020. With a decline in the first month of the semester, the attendance spiked in November and the momentum continued through December and didn’t skip a beat as we moved into January.

See the numbers:

• Over 20 One on One sessions

• Over 65 - Workshops offered including Faculty Showcases

• Over 100 registrations

• 45 attendees - Presentation and Q&A by Flower Darby author of Small Teaching Online

• 40 attendees - DLS/CTLM Support & Get Stuff Done Dayz that focused on student engagement

Faculty are seeing the value in our Learning Management System, Canvas, and other tools the university subscribes to as compelling. Faculty were open in their discussions of what they needed and wanted for their students. Working together with members of DLS, CTLM, and colleagues fostered rich conversations and collaborations between all that took part. The opportunity to connect with faculty and connect them with each other was a great support system in this somewhat isolating COVID-19 world we were/are navigating. In these sessions, faculty were able to rethink how to make Canvas work for their courses when they would not be meeting face-to-face.

The Psychology department invited DLS to their department meetings to listen to the engaging conversations and to add on-the-spot support or followup resources/sessions as needed.

Another success of the fall semester was the feedback we received from faculty about the (optional) template that was applied to all fall courses which included many resources for faculty right within the course. We used this feedback to modify the spring template and will continue to add to and modify this template each semester to support faculty and students with a universal design.

DLS will continue to search and offer new and interesting ways to keep the collaboration between faculty going as the teaching landscape changes.

• Register for an interactive demonstration from Dan Levy, author of 'Teaching Effectively with Zoom' on February 12 from 1-2:30pm. The goal of this session is to help educators teach effective live online sessions using Zoom. More Information

• Check the DLS Workshops page often as new workshops, training, faculty showcases, and guest speakers will be added throughout the semester.

• We are always looking for new workshops ideas, if you have any ideas or would be interested in us coming to a department or committee meeting, please reach out to DLS at dls@arcadia.edu to schedule a time that works for you.

When reflecting back over this past year, and the struggles I have had, one that comes to the front of my mind is my brick wall. Yes, that is a literal reference. To put this in context, I love my home, my safe space, my sanctuary. It's a world that fills me with happiness and humor, and it has that special mix of weirdness, joy, and personality that is special to me. As an individual, it takes a lot for me to let people in. This is a world I hold very dear and close to my heart and it's not just anyone who gets the special invite to be part of my inner shire. Prior to COVID, it was not a long list of individuals who had the passcode into my much guarded life of adventures and into the places I cherish. There was my Arcadia world and there was my Lindsay world and I was perfectly content for the two to be two unique, happily co-existing spaces.

But going virtual changed all that. In a blink of an eye, you (the Arcadia Community of students, staff, and faculty) were inside my home. Seeing and being a part of my other world. You were building new perceptions of what you saw, taking inventory, and blending what you once knew about me into something new. And this was something challenging for me. Sorry all, but you had not been invited in. In every zoom meeting and class, this was constantly at the front of my mind; you were an uninvited guest into my safe space. When I tuned into our zoom time together, I struggled to stay present in the moment (something I value and strive to be with everyone around me). I continually had parallel thoughts going through my mind. Constantly pondering what question would you ask about what you saw? What question would you not ask, but privately make assumptions about? The added invisible elephant that sat in zoom with us was ever present, which made being present for me even more challenging.

Now for anyone who has been on a zoom with me, at this point you are laughing. You’re laughing because for the most part you will find me sitting in front of a white brick wall. I know, could I be more literal with how I don’t want to invite you into my world? My brick wall has been lovingly made fun of for the past year, including questions about when I would get out of my jail cell? And while yes, it does seem like this may be about me not wanting you to be invited into my secret world, it's also about perspective.

I love my brick wall both figuratively and literally. When I see myself in zoom with the brick wall behind me, I don’t just see a brick wall. I see determination, perseverance, hard work, and something I am extremely proud of. Because to me, that brick wall is connected to a house I own. An accomplishment in and of itself, but this house also comes with a deeper and more meaningful story to me. When my partner and I bought this house, it was a total gut job. It had boards on the windows, extension cords for electricity, no kitchen, heat or a functioning bathroom. What it did come with was hopes, dreams, and excitement about what it could be. As the story goes, two young kids together said “we don't need to have experience in renovation to do this, we have each other, gusto and a strong ability to laugh as we try to google how to use a nail gun.” We clearly had watched too much HGTV and were feeling pretty ambitious. We dove right in, and trust me I have some funny stories; including when I decided to surprise my partner by hanging all of the drywall in the very room I sit in just to discover too late there is a right and wrong side to drywall.

But like all of our mishaps, it's a collection of funny and treasured journeys we had while renovating our home. And I hold them all dear. The brick wall was one of my projects. To take a crumbling wall and turn it into something sound and beautiful. So while you see a brick wall, from my perspective what I see right behind me all day long in zoom is a reminder. A reminder that I can do this. That I can take on what may seem impossible and be successful, while also having fun and laughing at myself the whole time. It's a reminder of what can be accomplished when we put our minds to it. That no one should let others tell them that they can't, shouldn't, couldn't, or to question why they would want to. It's a reminder that I determine what I am capable of, not others.

But when we first went virtual, even though my brick wall was behind me cheering me on, encouraging me to tackle things brick by brick, I could not see this yet, all I could see was the elephant sitting in our zoom rooms with us, distracting me from my capacity to be present in the moment. Asking me whether I could be capable? Continually wondering what you were thinking as you looked at my cherished brick wall. Did you see the beauty that I was seeing?

Don’t get me wrong, for those of you who know me, you know the reason I am so guarded is not because I don't want to get to know others or to share in life's joys and build togetherness. After all the secret to life and happiness is other people. But before COVID, this was on my own terms. And no longer having that control was something I was struggling with. But in true to the secret of life and happiness, it was through other people that helped me through this struggle. One such example of this reminder came from when I was fortunate enough to get to listen in during a summer 2020 advising session with Carol Loeffler when she shared this secret with her new students. Thanks Carol, your eloquent reminder was just what I needed. And the reminders continued to flood in. From a laugh or a shared moment with a student, a silly gchat from someone on my team, to a supportive phone call from another faculty member. Moments matter, people matter. Every kind gesture matters.

So I want to thank you. Thank you for every time one of you let me into your world, to share a piece of your safe space, sharing a piece of your brick wall with me, it propelled me forward, and each moment you shared with me, created inspiration and hope.

You reminded me that I too needed to have perspective. Especially on my figurative brick wall. To see beyond the brick wall I had built between you and I. Because I had been blind to your brick wall. Because while I had been distracted by the fact that I had not invited you in, the same was true on your end. You had not invited me in either.

And with every kind gesture you shared with me, with every piece of your world you let me into, brick by brick you changed my perspective on what I was struggling with and how I could eventually tell my elephant she had permission to leave the zoom room. That it was very possible that you were going through the same thing I was. That if we had 10 people in a zoom, we may also have 8-9 elephants and maybe a few monkeys on our backs, or some other kind of animal—I’ve never been good with the analogies. Everyone has something wildly different outside of their 4x4 zoom box. It could be noises only they could hear at that moment, things only they can see right outside their computer frame, elements which could be impacting how they felt sitting there with me and others, impacting how vulnerable they may be feeling, having to be in a more personal and vulnerable relationship with me that they had never agreed to. So I have been working to change what would be at the front of my mind when I jump on a zoom with you. Instead of being distracted by letting you into my safe space, it became my challenge to not ever lose sight that I was entering yours. That while I may have been able to get my elephant to leave, you may not have or are not able to. That they actually may be a permanent fixture, and for me to try to make that feel more ok for you. To challenge myself, so that I could be a more present, intentional, and an active listener and a welcomed guest into your world

And so yes, I do this by taking inspiration from my brick wall. That while things may feel difficult at times, or that you don’t have the right tools or know how, that together we can figure it out, together we can find the beauty in the destroyed or broken places, that nothing is ever a loss cause. That through love, attention, patience, accepting failure not as an end point but as a natural part of the process, together we can build something wonderful. That really the only tools we need are the audacity to have hope and a belief in one another.

Around the beginning of this year, everyone created new year's resolutions for themselves and by March those new year's resolutions began to fade.

Many new year's resolutions start fading away after a few weeks because they aren’t specific. New year's resolutions usually come in one sentence and they usually don’t describe what you hope to accomplish with your goals. One common goal is to lose weight or to get fit, but you need to identify how you will become more fit.

Some Useful Questions to Ask Yourself

1. When do you want to achieve this goal?

2. How will you know when you achieved your goal?

3. Can you realistically achieve this goal?

People also become very lazy or too busy to continue with their goals. By the fourth week of the semester, I’m already burned out and ready for spring break. It makes it hard for me to be motivated to achieve my goals. I have used phrases like “I’m Tired” or “I’ll do it tomorrow” and my personal favorite “I don’t have time today”. We use these phrases to justify why we are working on our resolutions.

Stay Consistent

1. Put your goals on your schedule

2. Make time for your goals

3. Positive affirmation

Not Personal Enough

Sometimes your resolutions aren’t personal enough. If you don’t have a passion to achieve your resolution, it will be difficult for you to actually stay with it. Brides working out to fit into their wedding have had great success losing weight because they had stakes. They knew what they wanted and it was for a personal and important moment in their lives. Like brides, we need to find a motivation. The motivation should be something important to you that will keep you on track.

Accountability

An accountability structure can help keep you on the right track. Many people get accountability partners who will help stay active in your goals, they are also the person who will eliminate a distraction that is stopping you from achieving your goals. To keep your commitment to your New Year’s Resolution, you should have an accountability partner or a notebook where you jot down when you are working on your goals. You can also track how your goals are also coming along.

I haven’t created a New Year’s Resolution for two years now. I think that creating a goal just for the sake of creating a goal for the new year is not very helpful. I create my goals any time in the year and I carefully track my progress and assess anything that may be holding me back. I also have to make sure that my goals are very detailed and time-oriented to ensure that I continue with them.