Dear CHC Community:
Just a year ago, I cancelled a trip the students in my Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing course were planning to take to the Oregonian, to get additional insight from editors and journalists about what it means to write for public audiences and how to continue to improve on the editing and writing skills they had been working on throughout the winter of 2020, in those few short months before the world changed.
I’m teaching the Calderwood seminar again this winter, not in the convivial atmosphere of Chapman 105, but in what used to be the spare bedroom in my house. For nearly three hours each week, my smart and resourceful students meet for class (WiFi willing, which it isn’t always), tethered to screens in our separate Zoom rooms. Sometimes we get distracted: one student’s beautiful cat is nearly as big as she is; my dogs erupt when our mail carrier (Trevor—we’ve gotten to know each other over the course of the pandemic) comes to the door. Sometimes, the sun puts in an appearance and even over Zoom, I can see what a temptation a sunny winter day in Oregon can be.
Every time I connect with my class via Zoom I am sad all over again that I can’t be with my students in Chapman Hall, sharing the enthusiasm and collaborative energy that come from working and learning in the same space, interacting with each other as living, breathing human beings spontaneously, and not through the curious mediation of the Zoom platform.
However, as this winter gives way to a more hopeful spring, I am also awestruck by what all our students are doing and making in this strange space, and how by turning this necessity into something meaningful and transformative, they are showing us the way toward renewal.
I hope you will join me in celebrating all of our accomplishments.
Warmly,
Carol Stabile
Acting Dean