Dear CHC Community,
Replacing my CHC acting dean hat with a CHC faculty-in-residence hat this past spring, I attended several CHC thesis defenses, all of them held remotely, on Zoom. As many of you know firsthand, thesis defenses are typically exciting enough events when held in person, as students present on their research and field questions from their faculty readers and audience, and then wait with anticipation for the defense committee’s pronouncement.
There was a different kind of magic in these Zoom defenses. In one defense, the student’s grandparents beamed with pride from their home in Wisconsin, as their grandson answered questions about his research. In another, a faculty member from University of Texas, Austin turned up on the screen. It turned out that he was the student’s new advisor from the PhD program she will be attending in the fall, and he asked her questions about how her undergraduate thesis research would connect to her graduate research in his lab. In a third, a group of fifth-graders from a class taught by the CHC student’s aunt listened off-screen to a CHC student talk about the beef industry’s role in food swamps. In these and many others, the remote environment allowed thesis defenses to be moving communal celebrations of student research and preparedness in ways that none of us could have anticipated.
We are all eager to be back in Chapman Hall in the fall, teaching classes, advising and supporting our students face-to-face, and sharing some of the incredible energy makes the CHC experience unique and special. At the same time, we learned a great deal that was positive about ourselves, our students, and our mission during the past sixteen months. Over the summer, we’ll be exploring ways to take that learning into the future, accelerated by our students’ enthusiasm and optimism.
Wishing you a healthy and enriching summer,
Carol (and Monty)