In-Between Days

A shorter blog this week because I am in between a whole bunch of things which I think is the same for so many in higher ed right now. When the calendar turns to August 1st there is a real palpable feeling of anxiety ramping up and a sense of the need to get one's pedagogical ducks in a row for the fall. Some of you are starting classes in about a week, some of us (like me) are still only ending the summer term in a week and have to finalize end of term grading before fall courses are even a reality in our mindspace.

I have been listening to The Cure's In Between Days (link opens to captioned video of song, [3:09]) a lot lately. This song is very much a song of my youth. I listen to it and remember parties when I was 15 with this blaring in the background. I am listening to it now, as I try to get these few words out in between cleaning up, obsessively refreshing websites, and trying to entertain visiting family. I am thinking about how much has changed in the last three years in academic spaces. How three years ago we were trying to get ready for a whole term of emergency remote teaching and learning. Now three years later all the accessibility lessons from that time have been willingly erased and the focus instead is being put on generative AI, as though those are two separate concepts that have nothing in common. 

So many people in higher ed are burnt out, instructors, staff, students. One of the biggest reasons for that burn out is because there is no time to stop and reflect and plan for what is coming next. Everything is reactive; all days become in-between days. And until we accept the need to slow down, to reflect, to be proactive in academe we will continue losing colleagues, students, and the social capital that higher ed assumes it will always have, but is being erased rapidly by reactive decision making. As Robert Smith sings "without you," is going to become much more of a real theme in the academic spaces we find ourselves in, and at some point I hope people will stop and realize it before it is too late.

 

I have news to share but I will only do that in a few weeks when everything is hopefully a bit more sorted. I will be taking a break from the blog until September when I will start again with new term thoughts and ideas and reflections on what I am seeing in higher ed spaces around me.