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Regaining a Sense of Academic Purpose
CAROL TELL
2020 SUMMER FACULTY FELLOW reflection
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regaining a sense of academic purpose
When I was accepted to the Institute for the Humanities Summer Fellowship (in February 2020), few of us could have imagined what would transpire over the next months. The COVID pandemic sent us all into quarantine. I initially worried about our summer Institute. Rather than spending hours in our cozy Institute offices and meeting weekly over sandwiches around a conference room table, we now were consigned to working together over Zoom. How would we build an effective and supportive community of colleagues in this virtual space? How would we meet our individual work goals, given that our heads were often lost in this overwhelming global crisis?
By the time our cohort met virtually for our first meeting, we were all fairly used to video conferencing, and while we missed the camaraderie that naturally forms during inperson interactions—it’s impossible to have side conversations on Zoom—it’s no exaggeration to say that the Institute was a savior, at least for me. It was a moment where we could focus on our academic pursuits, learn about the fascinating work of others, and regain our sense of intellectual purpose. Our cohort—such a marvelous, creative, and interdisciplinary group—was able to jump right into the work at hand. Each week we delved deeply into one another’s projects, which were not just interdisciplinary but also multi-modal—from texts to websites and other digital platforms to film.
Peggy McCracken expertly guided us each week, and by the end of the summer I found that this was one of my most meaningful and engaging experiences at the university (and I’ve been here since 2002)—despite the constraints of the pandemic. I learned so much from my colleagues, who quickly and perhaps surprisingly over Zoom, became friends. We all were grateful not just for one another but also for the weekly ritual that forced us out of our isolated selves and back to our collegial, academic selves. What a tremendous, necessary opportunity.
