Thursday, May 14, 2020

A video-chat meeting with my department at school today.  Sharing some elements of the ‘plan’ for the fall, which involves 8-week terms each with half-courseloads for both faculty and students.  The claim is that this makes us more ‘academically nimble.’  Without even noting the implicit oxymoron at play here, I really have absolutely no idea what that phrase is supposed to mean, nor how this arrangement is a benefit.  But, at the same time, I don’t see this scheduling as any worse than a single extended (15-week) semester, as is the usual.

The meeting involved an explanation of the plan to use/assign/trace practice rooms—these are 6’x8’ rooms with small pianos, for the most part.  Really would need a small army of people to disinfect every room after use for these plans to be workable.

Classes would likely involve half the class attending 2x/week, and streaming the class to them the other 2x/week…then a fifth meeting purely online for all.

Ensembles?  Nope, can’t happen.

We can certainly do private instruction via video meetings and occasional larger conferences, but students really can’t work on any projects that involve larger groups of players in traditional arrangements.  This, I hope, will generate creative pursuit of writing for solos, writing in a way that incorporates some interesting spatial distancing, use of larger spaces, out door spaces, etc.

As for the classes, though, I just can’t believe we’ll have any face-to-face experience, even as the university is explicitly making such plans. 

The weather’s beginning to turn summery here now, with today in the higher 70s, and the next week heading into the mid-high 80s.  I do prefer to get on the yoga mat on our small mat, so this is a good development…until we get well into the 90s/low 100s.  enjoy the moment.

And a slew of wonderful pictures of Jackson made their way to us–thank you Cristin! A few here…

happiness is a warm dog…though not sure Ellie feels the same way