Now More Than Ever

Recently, as I was running an errand and enjoying just being able to drive someplace in my car, I happened upon an old song by the Doors, Strange Days. The song begins with a lamentation, “Strange Days have found us. Strange Days have tracked us down. They’re going to destroy our casual joys. We shall go on playing or find a new town.” Though released in 1967, the words struck me as being especially relevant to our current circumstances. We are indeed living in Strange Days! The beginning of the new 2020-2021 academic year is like nothing that any of us have ever known. Our campus is largely dormant and still. Most faculty and staff are working remotely, the University Center is closed, there are no fall athletics, and only about 8% of our classes are actually meeting on campus—mostly labs and some specific courses tied to special equipment needs. For once, parking is not a problem at the Dearborn campus! All kidding aside, this new reality, is a trying one for many. The need to learn and master new technologies, erratic and/or no access to consistent internet, a lack of direct face-to-face contact and the isolation that can accompany virtual learning, the necessity of reimagining course curriculum and laboratory components, the demands on our community members resulting from the disruptions in our childcare and k-12 environments, the financial difficulties brought on by COVID, and the worries about the pandemic and the health and well being of one’s students, family and friends, are all weighing heavily on the minds of CASL community members. At the same time, however, the promise of a new academic year and the excitement of welcoming new students into the college offer us all a much-needed distraction from the worry and uncertainty. More important still in accounting for the enthusiasm I am seeing around the college, however, is the realization that, now more than ever, the things that the college has to offer in terms of curriculum and faculty scholarship, are of critical importance. Indeed, if one hopes to understand and really address the myriad problems confronting our state and our nation, one must begin with the arts, sciences, and humane letters. It is CASL that offers students the opportunity to understand the history of race relations in the United States and the ways in which racism is stitched into the very fabric of our being. Likewise, CASL courses help to explain the gender and racial determinants of health disparities and give students the chance to connect these disparities to public policy and structural economic issues. As hundreds of thousands flee their homes in the American west in advance of unprecedented fires, as the gulf coast is being hammered by hurricane after hurricane, and as local weather patterns become more extreme, courses offered in the college facilitate student understanding of environmental change and how to prevent/counter this change. And, of course, the novel coronavirus itself (and other disease) and the ways that it spreads and impacts human health, is also a core area of study in the college. These and so many other critical contemporary issues (the psychological consequences of the pandemic, the best ways to balance economic security and public health, the use of data to better understand/predict the path of the pandemic, the tools necessary to critically understand/analyze the flood of information (both valid and not) washing over us on a daily basis, etc., etc.) are all areas of study and research here in the college. The consequences of this current pandemic are profound and far reaching but the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters is very well positioned to help both our students and the world outside of our classrooms make sense of what has happened and to inform our choices regarding what course to chart going forward. It is this realization that fuels much of the enthusiasm that I am seeing this September. CASL embraces the challenge we are facing and is eager to help our students and our broader community with the myriad problems that they are confronting. Here’s hoping that the next song I hear when I am driving (if it must be from the same era) is Here Comes the Sun!