Timely Reminder

With the end of the fall semester and the holiday season now in full swing I have been served a number of poignant reminders that not everything or everybody is “happy and gay” this time of year. It is, of course, very easy to get caught up in the excitement and joy of the season—the promise of time spent with loved ones, the happiness of gift giving, the celebrations and time away from work and/or school. But it is also the case that the end of the academic semester and the holiday season can be a time of great anxiety and distress for many. The stress of finals and planning for holiday gatherings, the guilt some have for not being in a position to buy those expensive gifts that their loved ones are hoping for, the sense of loss associated with those who are no longer with us during this season of family and friends, etc. Sadly, for many of us, the holidays are anything but joyful. I suppose that all of us are aware of this reality to some degree. Even those beloved holiday shows that are a part of so many family traditions (It’s a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer) are all filled with many moments of angst, depression, deep sadness, and even suicidal thoughts. Our campus community has been prioritizing mental health this academic year and the need for aid/assistance within our community is staggering. Students, faculty, and staff are all reporting greater amounts of stress, anxiety, and depression than ever before. The new realities of the workplace, the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic, the disruption of our traditional patterns, along with the normal stresses of day-to-day life, have many individuals reeling. Fortunately, the university is working diligently to make resources available to those in need and current wait time for assistance is zero. Not everyone, however, is this fortunate. So, as we all go about our lives during this holiday season, and, for that matter, as we go about our lives on a daily basis, please remember that there are many who might be struggling. The bit of patience that you exhibit, that smile of recognition, that small act of kindness, may just be the thing that helps that individual get through their day. Please take a few moments to check in on your family and friends and to remind them that they are loved and remember that there is a new 988 Suicide and Crisis hotline now available nationwide for those in need of immediate assistance. I wish you all the happiest of holidays and a healthy and prosperous 2023!

Making the Grade!

It is so wonderful to be back on campus and to see things returning to a semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy. It is hard to believe but beyond the incoming freshman class and rising sophomore class (who primarily took courses remotely) we also have juniors who do not know our campus very well as they were only able to experience it for part of the academic year pre-pandemic. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed spending time roaming the CASL Building and helping the students orient themselves to their surroundings. There is most definitely a buzz in the air connected to our return to campus. Fingers crossed that we will be able to continue this level of campus presence! Another buzzworthy topic of conversation in CASL is a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education (the nation’s leading source of news about higher education) highlighting the work that the college is doing in the area of high impact learning practices (https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pwsplmnqirhul3/ReimaginingStudentExperience-Fischer.pdf?dl=0) These pedagogical practices (such as Practice Based Learning, Study Abroad, Writing Intensive Courses, Internships, and the like) are clearly linked to retention, student learning, and academic success and they have been front and center in all that the college has done over the last 8 years and factor prominently in its strategic planning moving forward. That CASL is succeeding in its efforts and that others are aware of this success is manifest in this wonderful piece by the Chronicle. Kudos to my faculty and staff colleagues for their hard work and initiative in this vitally important area. Our students are truly benefitting, and your efforts are being noticed both on campus and off! There is much to be proud of, and excited about, in CASL!

What's Going On

Fifty-one years ago this week, Marvin Gaye’s brilliant album What’s Going On was released. Electrified by the civil rights battle raging around him and angered by the stories he heard from his brother who had recently returned from Vietnam, Gaye determined to craft an album that spoke to his community’s anger and alienation. The result, a dramatic departure from the typical Motown fare that dominated the nation’s airwaves, was one of the most poignant and influential records of all time. To this day, songs like "What's Going On," "Mercy Mercy Me" and "Inner City Blues," continue to stir listeners and, sadly, convey the unhappy day-to-day reality (changed little over the ensuing fifty-one years) for millions of our nation’s citizens. The recent mass murder of African American shoppers in Buffalo provides yet further evidence of how little has changed in our nation when it comes to race relations and the plight of American minorities. Anyone who expresses surprise that something so evil could take place in this country is merely fooling themselves. Violence (physical, political, economic, cultural, and social) perpetrated against non-whites is as American as it gets. This violence has, as of late assumed a new form as well—a war to control history and what is taught in schools about American race relations and the nation’s often ugly past. Sanitizing history does not negate it, nor does it help our nation heal. As with any problem that must be solved the first step is to acknowledge that a problem exists. Growing up, as I did, in a segregated neighborhood surrounded by white neighbors who freely used disparaging terms to refer to anyone who did not look/act like them, I remember vividly how Marvin Gaye’s songs along with those of Stevie Wonder and others, songs that played all day long on the transistor radios blaring from neighborhood windows or in neighborhood backyards, provided me with the opportunity to shift my perspective and to consider the world around me differently. When coupled with trips across the city, trips that frequently took me into neighborhoods that reflected a very different socio-economic reality than the working-class neighborhood that I grew up in, these songs provided me an education that had largely been kept from me and, I am grateful to report, enabled me to recognize and challenge the narrow mindedness and bigotry that surrounded me. It opened my eyes and ears to the reality around me and these experiences inspired me to want to become an historian and to share what I had learned with others so that, someday, our children and our children’s children might, by acknowledging the wrongs done and trauma caused, find a way for our nation’s racial wounds to heal. That dream seems further off than ever after the events of the last weekend but as Marvin Gaye reminded us fifty-one years ago, we cannot stop asking the question, What’s Going On?

Ukraine and UM-Dearbron

Like many of you, I have found myself riveted to the news coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Certainly, as an historian, I find myself spending much time thinking about the deep historical roots of the conflict and considering the knotted tangle of circumstances and cultural tensions that have led to this horrific moment. The images flashing across our television screens of cities on fire, of dead and injured civilians, and of terrified refugees are heartrending. It is also the case that my interest in the invasion stems from some personal familiarity with the country—I had the great privilege of travelling to Ukraine in 2017 along with my colleague, Ania Muller, and a group of UM-Dearborn students. Though safely ensconced in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv (a city which, as of this writing, has still not yet been the target of Russian attacks), we were all very aware that we were in a nation that was at war. Only three years removed from the Russian annexation of Crimea and reminded daily of the violence of the ongoing war against the Russian-backed separatists in the eastern portion of the country, the students and I had a front row seat from which to view a determined people in struggle. Indeed, the photo below was taken in Lviv and (sadly) illustrates the point. I have spent no little time wondering whether the young girl in the photo (and the rest of the group of children that she was with) might now be holding the real version of the weapon they played with on that sunny late spring day in 2017. It has been very interesting communicating with these students about their memories and about what is currently happening in Ukraine. Our thoughts, of course, are with those we came to know during our time in Ukraine. We hope for your continued safety and for the preservation of your wonderful nation. Perhaps what makes the current situation even more compelling to me, and the one that prompted this post, is my family tie to the region. Though Polish in lineage, my family traces its roots back to a region that is today part of Ukraine. The reasons for their departure from the region and any tangible links that I may still have to the area have all been lost to history but I, nonetheless, feel personally connected to the conflict and to the history that undergirds it. This last fact quickly led me back to UM-Dearborn and to our student body, so many of whom have been impacted by similar, though (sadly) much less reported, conflicts around the globe. Wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, conflict in Lebanon, and decades of violence in Palestine (to name but the most obvious examples but one might also mention the wars being waged in poor neighborhoods across our nation) have touched the lives of our students and their families in deep and profound ways and served as the impetus for them to leave their homes, their loved ones, and the lives that they knew to take refuge and to pursue a new life here in America. These conflicts and the bloodshed they spawn/spawned, because they involve non-European peoples, have generally not been the subject of intense news coverage or the focus of the sorts of human-interest stories we see flowing out of Ukraine and yet their impact has been equally as traumatic and devastating for many of our students and their families. The grit and determination that they’ve demonstrated as they’ve overcome these traumatic experiences inspires me every day. As we watch the situation in Ukraine unfold, please take a moment to think about others across the globe who find themselves grappling with similar circumstances and to the resiliency and spirit shown by our students and their families. I know that I speak for us all when I say that we all long for the day where no one is subjected to the horrors and terror of war.