A cold, snowy day here in The Grand Duchy. So, I went a bit more casually nonchalant than usual given our winter weather for my jaunt into campus where the internet is faster and more reliable. Nothing any newer on display here than about eight or ten years although the vintage L.L. Bean Norwegian sweater (Cultural appropriation! Cultural appropriation! Cultural appropriation!) dates from January 1993.
Fine tuning my course webpages during the morning hours before our start of classes next Monday. Campus is still largely empty save for staff and a few students although in-person classes have been switched once again to online for at least the first three weeks of the term. Omicron 101 is the name of the course, and the thinking is that it can be mitigated among the university community by keeping down the critical mass of bodies on campus in close proximity to one another.
Our current president is actually an M.D. with a grasp of communicable illness, so there might be something to this approach. But Michigan is a state with one of the worst Covid outbreaks at the moment, and large swaths of the population remain foolishly and belligerently unvaccinated, so we'll see what actually transpires during the next few weeks.
My courses are already asynchronous online in nature, so no pivoting necessary here if it comes to that by early February, but should our son's school district determine that it needs to go remote yet again, I am not sure what we'll do. He absolutely hated online classes during the 2020-2021 school year and has done really well being back in the classroom so far this year. Even in view of the strict masking requirements for children and teachers.
As I say, we'll see what actually happens. In the meantime, take a gander at that middle-aged clown in the orange corduroy jeans. What a maroon!
-- Heinz-Ulrich
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All opinions are welcome here. Even those that differ from mine. But let's keep it clean and civil, please.
-- Heinz-Ulrich