of a musical with students at the Governor's School for Science and Math - which also just sent all its students home, stopping the production in its tracks.
One student just returned last night from her study abroad program in Valencia, Spain - after boarding her plane at 3 am (visions of the rainy airfield in Casablanca).
And - somewhere out there, tentatively connected to my heart via email and the occasional panicked text message, are eleven seniors who are working off 135 hours each in internships - most of them stalled around 40 hours logged, as their placements have either closed down or moved to remote work, leaving several of them stranded with unclear prospects for the remaining weeks of the semester.
"The Key," Hartsville's Downtown Business Association office? closed. Parks and Recreation and the T.B. Thomas Center? closed. (No adult soccer league!) Coker's IT department? working from home. The Family Counseling Center? closed - no counseling. Coker's Human Resource office? working remotely. Marketing for "First Steps"? working remotely.
The placements that remain open are two physical therapy providers (one in Hartsville, one in Greenville), and a doctor's office (well - yes! we need doctors!) - and the latter even provided two exciting cases for the student intern's observation: Lyme disease and - drum roll - potential corona-virus exposure!(Oddly enough, reading that particular journal entry was the highlight of my late afternoon.)
So - where do we go from here?
So far, mostly we send emails.
Reassuring emails, encouraging emails, updating emails, pleading emails, inquiring emails, and haranguing emails. Also: clarifying emails, and the kind of emails that are so thoughtfully and carefully worded that they somehow convey confidence in the idea of continued confidence, without actually predicting, with any confidence, exactly what we will be doing. Emails that use the words "fluid" and "flexible" to convey that, yes, we are comfortable with not knowing exactly how we will be spending the rest of the semester - or where. But confidence, real confidence, that we will remain productive and engaged.
And you know what? My emails don't lie. I have terrific students. I have students who are creative, and I have students who are enthusiastic, and some curious and excited learners and observers, and I have students who know stuff I know nothing about (like chemistry! or coding! or dance!), and I have students who can cope. We are adding to our interdisciplinarians' toolboxes: flexibility, patience, creativity, intellectual dexterity, and humility - those are skills, and that's the stuff that we are made of.
Tomorrow we are having a three hour google hangout check-in for all my seniors - to see each other again, to think of some plans to research careers and specializations, to be creative and supportive as we move into some alternate projects to build on the internship hours everyone has experienced, the research completed so far. I actually meant to schedule two hours, but apparently my hand slipped while I was mousing around in google calendar, so that's my afternoon - but I had barely posted it in the calendar, when the automated invites returned one ping after another - five students accepted in the first seven minutes. I guess we miss each other! I am not really a google hangout person - I love my students in person. On the other hand, I won't accidentally spit on them when I get excited and talk too loud. So, you see the upside. (They probably do, too.)