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Princeton Theological Seminary recently doubled-down on its commitment to residential theological education. As you can imagine, the transition online for an institution that has no online degree programming has been a shock to the system. However, last year, the seminary opened an Office of Digital Learning. With attentiveness to the needs of learners during this unprecedented time, we have been able to transition smoothly and have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from both students and faculty. As the Digital Learning Designer for the seminary, I have three suggestions for effective theological education during this crisis that I would like to share with you. I hope these ideas will inspire meaningful teaching and learning now that you’ve done the challenging work of transitioning online. #1 PRIORITIZE CONNECTION Right now, students may be feeling particularly unmotivated if what you are teaching seems abstract or disconnected from their lived experiences during this pandemic. By connecting your teaching to what they are experiencing, you will deepen the learning that takes place.  Here’s what one PTS faculty member said about how they’re doing this:   In today's class it was clear that many--especially those with children--are highly anxious. We tried to channel that anxiety--and the class's broad level of concern for what's happening in the world--directly into our discussion. . .  if they were going to take time away from their families under these circumstances of global crisis, the class by golly had better be worth it. It had better be relevant to the crisis they/we are all experiencing. I found this to be very profound and instructive for seminary education in general. I will try to carry that sense of urgency and relevance into the other class as well to try to generate more investment on the students' part.  Draw upon what’s going on in the world and in students’ lives right now and integrate that into your teaching. The best learning takes place when students are motivated and when content is relevant to their lives.    For more, click here to read an article by Craig E. Abrahamson, a Professor of Psychology at James Madison University, about motivating student learning through personal connection.  #2 CHOOSE LEARNING OVER CONTENT TYRANNY Content tyranny is what happens when you prioritize your content over student learning, when you become more focused on covering material than on cultivating growth. Your content is valuable, and you are most likely passionate about it. However, by letting go of some of your content, you may free up your students to learn better. If the current situation has forced you to drop some course content, let this reassure you. More content does not necessarily lead to more learning. Rather, students will learn better when you select your content carefully, deliver your content thoughtfully, and connect your content intentionally to their lived experiences.   For more, click here to read an article by John G. Radzilowicz and Michelle B. Colvin from the University of Pittsburgh about reducing course content without compromising quality.  #3 EMBRACE A CREATIVE SPIRIT   You are all probably already doing this! The best teaching is a mix between science and art, and, in times like these, pedagogy feels more like artistic expression. If you are still engaging in synchronous learning, each online class session will be a practice in improvisation while teaching. Any number of difficulties might arise, but you can handle these with confidence and grace if you embrace a flexible and creative spirit. As a theological institution with a Reformed heritage, the faculty and staff also trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in the teaching and learning endeavor and in your creative improvisation. Even if technology fails and your words seem jumbled, we trust that the Holy Spirit is at work.   For more, click here to read an address by Emilie Townes, the Dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School, about teaching and the imagination.  Taking classes online within a few weeks’ notice is no small task for faculty, students, or staff. At Princeton Theological Seminary, we are learning just how important each individual person is in the process of creating a robust learning environment. We are also learning how essential it is to be attentive to learners’ needs, to be willing to prioritize learning over content, and to be open to the imagination. May you all engage in meaningful connections with your colleagues and students and may you be open to the creative work of reimagining pedagogy during this pandemic. Has your institution embraced or struggled with these elements over the past few weeks? Has there been monumental growth, or is this culture of teaching already well established? Would you add a fourth insight to the list?

One of the most significant challenges of teaching exclusively online is the balance between synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning times. I have found a balance to be necessary, as not all material is conducive to engagement during an eternal, synchronous, live Zoom meeting. While we may feel pressure to spend a certain amount of time on synchronous meetings in order to demonstrate academic rigor, the fact is that a lot of learning does not necessarily take place there, unless the time is highly structured and engaging for everyone. First, we need to think through which learning tasks are best achieved asynchronously. Which tasks are relatively simple to execute, best done at one’s own pace, and purposeful toward achieving a greater learning goal? While reading articles and books certainly fall into this category, so do creating video responses, contributing to asynchronous discussion boards, and taking short, open-book quizzes to check for understanding of the basics. I recommend synchronous sessions only those tasks which cannot be completed asynchronously to the same effect. These sessions should be a time for students to share their discoveries from the asynchronous time, ask questions of each other and the instructor, and they should not be too long. I find a structured discussion achieves these ends, keeping everyone engaged while digging deeper into a reading assignment. The blend of the synchronous and the asynchronous creates a rhythm, something I think each of us craves in this uncertain time. The following rhythm has been working for me and my students as we adjust to learning exclusively online. In short, the rhythm goes like this: Begin a reading assignment, along with a reading guide, like this one. One, asynchronous video check-in via FlipGrid with initial thoughts about the reading One, synchronous online “fishbowl” discussion during the week In the live, online “fishbowl” style discussion, some students participate in the conversation (inside the ‘fishbowl’), while others observe, take notes, or present different material. Here’s how I structure the discussion, which could work on any video chat platform: 🖐️🖐️ Role: Live discussion participant Live discussion participants answer questions asked by facilitators and ask questions of each other, as needed 🤠🤠🤠 Role: Facilitators Facilitators create questions based on the text and ask them of the group in the order that seems most appropriate. Gather questions on a common document prior to the conversation. 📕📕 Role: Vocabulary Vocabulary leaders prepare Google Slides featuring four vocabulary words from the text, along with their paragraph numbers and definitions; present live before the discussion. 📚📚 Role: Background research Background researchers create Google Slides featuring information about the author and publisher of the reading. Include at least nine facts. 🤐 📝 Role: Note taker Sample notes pages  Role: Live Kahoot Maker The live Kahoot maker will listen carefully to the conversation and create a Kahoot for everyone to take immediately after the conversation. The winners will get a prize!! There are many ways to modify this structure—perhaps hold two sessions with micro-groups of people or require different elements from each role. It’s my hope that a highly structured online conversation will clarify everyone’s role in synchronous meetings, encourage deep, sustained student engagement with the material, as well as surface new learning that can only come about from community discussion.

With the spike of mental health issues, and the fear, loss, and uncertainty students are facing in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic, connecting with students is critical. In some cases, life-saving. Yet, amid our transition to online teaching, the complete disruption of “normal,” and personal issues to deal with, creating a connection with students can seem prohibitively difficult just when we need it most. Can this time of crisis present an opportunity for us to be conduits of hope, assurance, and inspiration to students? In a time when students are fearful as they face unchartered territory, we can help calm their fears and encourage them, by sharing our own struggles and how we overcame them. Our personal stories of overcoming challenges communicate to students that everything will be ok—that they will make it through this dark time. When my institute, Palm Beach Atlantic University, responded to our county order to close the campus, many students were distressed and scrambling to find a new residence. Seniors felt great loss as the reality sank in that they may not see their roommates, classmates, or professors again, and that there would likely be no graduation ceremony. How could I reassure and comfort the class? In our live conference, I talked about my own struggles. I began by admitting that I had uncertainty—I couldn’t yet answer most of their questions about residence, graduation, or internships. I disclosed that for me this pandemic had triggered memories of a trauma I experienced several years ago and had heightened my anxiety, and that with the world “falling apart,” I, too, was finding it hard to stay focused and motivated. I added, with a bit of humor, that the most stressful item keeping me awake at night was fear of running out of toilet paper and diapers for my baby! (Focusing on the minute is a typical response to trauma.) Then, I shared the story of when I survived a near-death experience and a difficult recovery. I made it through, and in the end, I was much stronger for it. Sharing our struggles builds immediate rapport with students. They realize that we’ve lived through hardships like theirs. We survived, and so will they. Our times of crisis—whether relational, health, financial, or otherwise—built our character, made us wiser, helped define who we are today, and revealed that we were stronger than we thought. This is a message that our students need to hear! It’s risky and humbling to share the story of one’s trauma or hardships, but our vulnerability creates a safe space that invites students to respond with openness and honesty. Letting students get to know us provides the personal connection that increases student learning. This atmosphere of student learning and engagement is vital for our current online settings. How can you connect to students in your online classes? Here are some practical suggestions: Create time and space in your class for connecting. Set aside the first few minutes of class time (or a conference) to give the students an opportunity to discuss how they are doing. It doesn’t need to be emotional or drawn out—you can say, “We only have a few minutes, so just take just a few seconds each and let us know how you are doing.” Assure them that it’s fine to be “great” as well. Jot down any major issues. Follow up with those students when the class is next together—perhaps invite them to give an update. (Remembering their comments and following up is a powerful demonstration of a truly caring professor!) These few moments provide insight into how the class is doing overall and can help you know their learning needs. Tell the students you support them, you care about them, you are thinking about them. These simple words can be life-giving—assuring the students that they are not alone. Remember, many of our students lack positive role models and a support network. You might be the only voice of reassurance and comfort to your students in this time of crisis. Communicate to the students that you understand and can relate to the struggles they are facing. This has never been easier because we actually are facing the same issues! Share some of your own difficulties in working off campus, changing your routines and schedule, and needing to stay isolated. Create a venue for students to share with one another and support each other, such as a discussion group. Have you connected with your students in other ways online? Please share below.

Without fail, every recent conversation that even remotely touches upon assessment leads to an increasingly intricate and technical discussion about how to prevent the cheating, presumed to be rampant, now that we’re all online. Should we use Lockdown Browser? Should we enable webcams? But what about smart phones? What proctoring services are available? Will time limits help? How many questions should we have in our question bank? What’s a good proportion of questions in the bank to questions drawn for the exam? Should we shuffle questions? Should we show only one question at a time? Should we allow students to see their incorrect answers right away? The questions concerning cheating proliferate—with each solution presenting further considerations and, often, new challenges. These conversations can’t help but remind me of one of the many theories for the pandemic “panic buying” of toilet paper: psychologists claimed that such hoarding was an attempt to retain or regain a sense of control over an uncontrollable situation, in which feelings of fear, disorientation, and overwhelm (in addition to actual physical danger) abound. We can’t control Covid-19 (yet), but we may be able to control how many toilet paper rolls we have stashed away in our homes. Perhaps teaching online feels similar to instructors: something that was thrust upon us, something most of us didn't want to do, something that most of us probably aren’t doing very well (either by default or by design). Trying to tamp down on cheating may be the academy’s version of toilet paper hoarding. When I’m part of these conversations, I keep James M. Lang’s Cheating Lessons in mind. (If you don’t have time for the whole book now, he wrote a series in The Chronicle of Higher Education that offers many of the same insights in shorter form.) Here are a few important considerations about cheating: • So far, we don’t have evidence that students are cheating now more than ever—though our worries about cheating have obviously increased. Even typical indicators of cheating, for instance, fast time on a test or an unusually high score, may be attributable to other factors. One colleague told me that some of her students were studying more at home, without all the distractions, and were more relaxed about taking tests—which led to better performance. • Most students in any given class won’t cheat (even if most people admit to having cheated at least once over the course of their lives; I know I have); this seems to be an especially important time to be viewing our students charitably, with positive regard, and avoiding a “deficit” lens. • Why do people cheat? Well, among other reasons, we know that certain conditions in a learning environment can incentivize cheating; one example is a single, high-stakes assessment for which students have been given little to no practice or preparation (e.g., one exam worth 50% of their course grade). To the extent that we can give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate knowledge or mastery of a skill, to the extent that we can offer them practice and timely feedback, and to the extent that we can help reduce their anxiety at this anxiety-inducing time, we will go a long way in creating conditions where they will not make the choice to cheat. • What is cheating anyway? We can’t assume students will know in the context of our specific class; even within the same field, the same department, these definitions and expectations may vary (just as there is no consistency across what we mean by different assignment types). Some students, like the first-generation population, are severely disadvantaged by this kind of “hidden curriculum.” The less that’s tacit, the more that’s explicit (or “transparent”)—on cheating and otherwise—the better for all students (but especially for underserved populations). • But okay, let’s assume, for a moment, that students know it’s cheating to look up answers online or in their books, and they do it anyway. One colleague of mine said, “Who cares? The point is I want them to learn. Maybe looking up the answers will help them learn.” What is our end goal here? How can we leverage or even embrace (perhaps newly) open testing situations? • Or, rather than focusing on the cheating that we defeatedly accept will occur—and trying to prevent the inevitable with complicated surveillance and other apparatuses—perhaps we might sidestep the issue entirely by designing our assessments to be as “cheat-proof” as possible. Questions of foundational knowledge are easy to look up; “higher-order” questions—application, analysis, evaluation, or creation—are not. (“Which of the following is the best definition of karma”? is easy to find in the textbook I use. “What would a Marxist interpretation of this [current news headline about religion]?” isn’t.) For those teaching large classes, those with heavy teaching loads, those without TAs, those stretched to capacity already, etc., these questions needn’t be asked only in short-answer or essay form, which can take way longer to grade. Multiple-choice questions can work here too, even if we don’t usually think of them as such. (A caveat: some folks find these kinds of multiple-choice questions harder to create.) I’m not convinced that we have to accept cheating as inevitable, even now. We, as instructors, have some control(!) over the learning environments, the testing conditions, and the assessments themselves. Let’s continue to use the influence we do have to encourage authentic, deep, transformative learning—not short-cuts or hacks.

Like semesters before, Spring 2020 began with little “pomp and circumstance.” After four semesters on-site, I had finally adjusted to the rhythm of university life as a rookie faculty member. My courses, students, and committees had become old, reliable friends; everything was predictable, or so I thought. In the “blink of an eye,” my students, colleagues and my old, reliable routines were swept into a new, unpredictable world. Courses were canceled, closed, or moved hastily to online formats. Our students were forced to return home or find new places to sleep—all while dealing with the financial strains and stresses that this pandemic has brought. Yes, the old is very much gone, and the new “normal,” whatever that might be, now reigns. What exactly is this “new normal?” I wish I could look into a crystal ball and tell you, but I can’t, no one can. But I do know that in these last few days, universities, their administration, faculty, staff, and students have done something just short of incredible. At my university, for example, over $100,000 has been raised by alumni, faculty, students, and staff to help support current students who are finding it hard to pay rent or buy groceries during these uncertain times. Lending support like this to our students will free them from some anxiety about their basic necessities while trying to finish their courses, or even college careers. I hope that these types of financial support continue well beyond this pandemic. What a beautiful “new normal” this would be.  Regarding instructional design and teaching strategies, teaching during these times has allowed some fresh air to flow into the field of education. Teachers, veteran and rookie, have been provided a gift to re-think old teaching styles and try out new ones. Although it would be nice to jump back into my normal course routine and see my students in person again, I have found moving my course online to be largely enjoyable given the innovative support and great conversations that this move has stirred among my students and colleagues. The sharing of ideas and collegiality that has arisen among colleagues who are searching for new ways to keep their students engaged has broken down many of the instructional silos that have stood for far too long across the vast fields of higher education. This “new normal” is also one that I hope remains long after we return to campus. The “new normal” that I enjoy does not come without its share of difficulty. For one, although I have enjoyed testing new online teaching strategies, I have also had to re-think others and even eliminate some in response to the “new normal” my students now face. Like many of my colleagues, my students have been separated across the country, each living different experiences at the hands of Covid-19. For some of my students, other than being at home and taking courses online, life is normal; for others, life has become unbearable. I have found that most of my day is spent less on teaching, and more on “checking-in;” cheering on my students that “they can do this!” Many of our conversations and discussion board posts have been designated as points for quiet reflection and solidarity. Within these conversations, I have learned to be more pastoral and better at letting go. The exams, quizzes, and daily assignments can wait—the personal needs of my students cannot. This “new normal,” although hard to navigate, is also one that I hope to hang on to for as long as I can. As awful as this pandemic has been, I have learned a great deal about myself as a professor of theology and religious education. And I have learned an even greater deal about the lives of my students and my courses. How I teach will never be the same and that, I have found, is the beauty that lies just beyond the “new normal.” May our “new normal” continue to breathe fresh air into what we have done—may our teaching never be the same.

Students are in crisis. How can they keep up with their academic life when the pandemic has all but assured that their personal and emotional lives are experiencing some measure of turmoil or trauma? The novel coronavirus has upended every area of society. There is no sector of public or private life that it has not affected. Faculty at institutions of higher education have been reeling from figuring out how to transform their in-person classes into a virtual format in the blink of an eye. On the other side of these virtual classrooms, students are themselves reeling from all of the changes. Professors are telling stories of students flooding their inboxes with messages expressing anxiety, an inability to focus, and an inability to keep up with their assigned work. As a result, many realized that students are carrying so much emotional and psychological distress that they need professors to be sensitive and mindful of their circumstances outside of the classroom. Without a doubt, they are right; students are drowning and they need faculty to throw them a lifeline. Professors are seeing that they need to “shift gears” to exclusively online formats and shift their expectations and requirements for students. Higher education in the age of the Covid-19 has professors making changes that are sensitive to what is happening in the students’ lives outside of the virtual classroom. Many have taken their cue from those like UNC-Chapel Hill Professor Bandon L. Bayne who made headlines after he amended his own syllabus and expectations for his students when classes were forced to go entirely online. Bayne explained that he discovered that his students not only had “a whole range of differential access to material,” but also that students were all treading water trying to navigate their own anxieties about the pandemic and their varying family and life contexts. Thanks to the pandemic, many in higher education are realizing what has always been true--that they must keep in mind the whole student when teaching. They are learning that teaching during a pandemic means that being an educator entails more than pedagogy, it includes structuring classes around the premise that student circumstances outside of the classroom have a direct impact on their ability to navigate the classroom and to meet classroom expectations and requirements. Faculty are learning that this was always the case, even in the pre-pandemic world of higher education. In our current Covid-19 world, many rely on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for guidance and updates about this relatively unknown virus. Yet, the reality is that the CDC had already warned of a public health issue that has a direct impact on the functioning of students in higher education before they ever heard the words “Covid-19” or “coronavirus.” In November 2019, a few months before Covid-19 began spreading across the globe, the CDC declared trauma a public health issue. Additionally, before the CDC made this declaration, faculty across disciplines were seeing college students navigate what seemed like ever-increasing mental health crises. Increasingly, students have been dealing with mental health barriers coupled with rising rates of mass gun violence and campus sexual assaults. Experts have long suspected that many college students carry the effects of childhood trauma well into adulthood, in addition to having to navigate the challenges and realities of modern college life. Many of us who teach in higher education can testify to this pre-pandemic reality. We have known students whose educational experiences have been marred by mental health crises. Many bright and promising students are forced to forgo their educational pursuits in order to tend to untreated and unresolved trauma which commonly manifest themselves during the college years. Other students may not forgo their educational pursuits, but lean on maladaptive coping mechanisms or sacrifice the quality of that educational experience with an academic performance that is not indicative of their ability. These are all pre-pandemic realities. As a result, the needs of students during this pandemic is teaching educators to always be mindful of students’ circumstances outside the classroom in order to educate the whole student in the classroom. The students of this pandemic are tasked with more than meeting the expectations and requirements of the classroom (virtual, or otherwise). In this respect, while everything has changed, nothing has changed.

By this time in a semester, the ebbs and flows of a well-designed and well-facilitated class would, in normal circumstances, have allowed a community of scholars to flourish. These learning communities help promote critical dialogue with academic peers and help to foster a pluralism of varied perspectives that ultimately serves to elevate the collective outcomes. But what if this process is arrested before this can be achieved? The on-going pandemic has created a reality unlike anything we’ve seen, but, as educators, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that these features can continue to persist. Synchronous virtual instruction (Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, etc.) aims to take the place of the in-person component of our traditional means of teaching. While there is a distinct pleasure in being able to ‘meet’ as a class, the interpersonal conversations are limited and real connections are more challenging to create. In my experience, one reason for this is that virtual sessions are planned to be delivered in an online reality and not as a virtual representation of a normal reality. The best virtual session I ever planned with my students happened by accident because I did not plan it to be virtual. A sick baby necessitated an in-person session becoming virtual, so I adjusted my completed (in-person) plans to fit a virtual lesson setting instead. Findings from this fortuitous accident--shared below--have helped frame how my fellow faculty and I view online instructional delivery. In the scope of my normal lesson planning structure, I generally aim to promote engagement and discussion via a variety of activities that tend to be relatively short in length (~20-30 minutes). To accomplish this within a Zoom, I plan for small bits of synchronous time balanced against asynchronous tasks and breakout rooms to encourage engagement and to ensure that sessions are not rote or boring. By sharing the time amongst different components, lessons become more natural, and the time goes by quickly. Another hallmark of my instructional planning approach is that I strive to offer students opportunities to engage with one another around critical issues and to leverage their budding expertise to share their thinking with their peers. To translate this to a virtual environment, I rely heavily on Google Slides to build a mechanism whereby students can collaborate and engage with one another. For instance, to replicate a gallery walk or anchor chart presentation, I design a template slide for each group that gives students instructions and frames their work. From there, I share this document with each student and change the sharing privileges to “anyone with the link can edit.” This document then functions as a collaborative space for groups of students to work together on a task that they can then share with their peers. To broaden the social/connection aspects of this activity, I utilize the Breakout room feature in Zoom to assign students to random groups. A final area of focus when thinking about delivering instruction in a virtual way is to fashion opportunities for students to engage with one another on a more personal level. To help with this, I open and close with do now exercises and exit tickets that have less to do with the explicit content of the session, and more to do with promoting the well-being and engagement of students instead. While we always want to maximize the amount of time that students are exposed to instruction, in the unique environment of a Zoom, taking some time for these kinds of activities pay off. When all is said and done, our duty as educators requires us to do what we can to help lead our learners towards achieving their potential. As we continue to learn more about how best to work with our students in these uncertain times, a great first step is to think through planning and delivery using this lens: Plan as though you are delivering your lesson to a full class of students, Incorporate virtual techniques to approximate in-person experiences, and Allow yourself (and your students!) grace to spend time with each other and to value the benefit of social interaction. While learning will continue for many, for some, this transition to a virtual classroom will be crippling. Recreating a learning community in a virtual setting will help those students reestablish connection with their peers and their professors, and hopefully offer an avenue for all to reach higher levels of achievement.

March, 2020    I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;      and to the heavens, and they had no light.  I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking,      and all the hills moved to and fro.  I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,      and all the birds of the air had fled.  I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,      and all its cities were laid in ruins      before the Lord, before his fierce anger (Jer. 4:23-26, NRSV)   Positively Outraged.  Hello, COVID-19:  Yes. I said, “Hello.” I still have my manners. You, on the other hand, are rude.    You burst onto the global scene, rampaging across spaces and time zones, bearing death with you and compelling individuals and entire communities and nations to “shut down,” to become diseased, misaligned, and dis-eased. I am not infected with you. I am affected by your boorish behavior and way of being. I am positively outraged because wherever you reside, physical death or a heightened threat of physical death manifests in the form of social death – “ghost towns” are left in your wake, or in anticipation of your arrival, as visual remains of your invasion.   I am positively outraged because you compel internal alienation. You force me to run away from my multiplicity, to become alienated from it and to see it as a threat to my existence. I must retreat from public spaces into private quarters. I am forced into exile, barred from towns and schools and churches and synagogues and mosques and malls and stadiums; from those places and times where the routineness of life intersects with modes and forms of communal art and ritual, with shared affect and accountability, and with corporate play and carnival. And now – because of you, because of your mode of public presence – the burden to secure and nourish the survival of my kind falls on the shoulders of a few – those who provide “essential” services. They must now do their jobs with the added anxiety of knowing that contact with another of us might strike a death nail. Visits to the grocery store are anxiety ridden – should it potentially cost life to go and purchase a loaf of bread and juice? Six-feet separation is the road I must travel, in order to avoid going six-feet under. This pollution, this outrageous burden, that you have unleashed cannot be inhaled.    You fouler of the air – which belongs to nobody but which everybody must have – will not permit social intimacy in the daylight and, so, I perform forms of Passover in the night as sheltered existence for survival. You restrict my ability to think BIG in the BIG places and BIG waves that have shaped what until now has been my life. Instead, I must think BIG from behind closed doors, sitting in front of small screens – tv, tablet, phone; technological BIGNESS that shrinks space and time, and puts it all at my fingertips. Do you realize the kind of ideological and epistemological heresy and horror that this can produce? The world at my fingertips? I have learned that this kind of consolidated power is ominous, and can be deadly when put solely, singularly, into the wrong hands. The world is a darkened nervous place, not because we have chosen it but because your presence compels it upon us. I am positively outraged. Nations of people flee robust urban centers to remote urban spaces. But you are the monster inside of we. Already inside of we. A part of the world around me. And you insist on becoming incarnational in the forms of job losses and food insecurity and illness and sudden death, while you also bully us into cramped corners and steal our breath. This offends we. While inside, you take away the things we have learned to depend on, the things that have nourished us: experiencing material interconnectedness with others as a resource, not a risk; celebrating the fleshiness of existence and its modes of fleshy social and communal intimacy; social education from the rich traditions – handed down from our forebears – about sitting under the palm tree or out front on the yard, with large amounts of food and palm wine to feed all – immediate and long distant relatives and friends. Because of your assault on these things, I freak out. I panic. What should I do? And then you force me – us – to take my – our – anxieties and anguish home to secluded places. The moral pandemic that your presence generates ends up lodged in secluded physical, spiritual and social places – the places where the poor and marginalized live. This makes my blood boil. I am too closed-in with family and friends to strike out. If this keeps up many of us might end up permanently lodged in the underside of history. I am positively outraged because you have also attacked our social nervous system and, so, it is possible that we’ll mistake survival for virtue. It is when we make proclamations that detach time from place or that attempt to throw this moment and every moment of communal trauma into social amnesia – as if it didn’t happen, or as if the future belongs only to those who survive this moment unscathed – those who are able to afford the costly price of admission advance into that future. But because that future is deadly costly, you have placed the proverbial tree of the knowledge of good and evil next to the tree of life, forcing nurses and doctors in medical centers to make horrendous choices between saving one life and letting go the other. Because of your seemingly insatiable desire for bodies – your propensity to consume the bodies you infect – the tempting fruit of survival is etched to the austerity and deficiency you represent, and, then, placed next to the tree of lives. You COVID have forced us to create from austerity; you have deprived us of multiplicity, and I resent this trespass! I am told that you have a family and that we have met before. Are you the trunk of your nuclei family tree, or are you its crown? We remember your family visit from the 1918 influenza wave, and – much closer to your genealogical birth date – the HIV/AIDS outbreak in the 1980s. Your visits seem to be happening with greater frequency – or our consciousness of your presence seems to be picking up pace. Over the past 20 years, we have encountered your kin many times: Anthrax in 2001, SARS in 2003, Salmonella and E-coli in 2008, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012 (and 2015), Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016, to name a few. In fact, since ancient times, your family has made spectacular and spectacularly damaging visits to the human species, sometimes because we ourselves violated the ecosystem, and other times because we chose to abuse your role as virus among breathing creatures. Your arrival in 2019 hit an already sore nerve in our communal body, which is still reeling from the afterlives of your predecessor-kin virus outbreaks. And that soreness reminds us that we will encounter you again. Our bodies have kept the score, as Bessel van der Kolk has taught us. With each return from you, we face the mental pressures that come with uncertainty about who has, and who doesn’t have, a part of you – who you have or haven’t invaded to take. Some have survived your invasion, and may form the basis for our herd immunity. Yet, news feeds have live updates of the increasing number of infections and deaths. Many hospitals and funeral homes are overwhelmed because you – COVID – are quickly relocating many bodies from homes to hospitals to funeral homes or ice trucks and to mass graves. The pace is astounding – and likely underreported. In the process, you are reshaping visual and material representations of our collective psychosocial and communal body. Empty streets, parks, schools, restaurants, churches, houses, mosques, and synagogues; overcrowded hospitals and mortuaries; overworked medical officials and farmers and sanitation workers; mentally and emotionally exhausted friends and kin and neighbors, all trying new and old ways of gathering, searching for lost or broken or abandoned places and neighbors. You have caused many to depart from us. Somehow, in their untimely departures, they have taken parts of us. Their departures have produced something of a new coveting in us. From Positive Outrage to Riposte: COVET THIS Affected by COVID-19, I begin to COVET anew, and desire takes me to back to my future in community. I COVET belonging – the kind that has formed me and formed the things you are taking. Hear me. I am an African descended biblical scholar. This means, among other things, that I tend to think in waves, often from the backside, the other side, of communal survival and flourishing. I am the product of a community of colleagues and parents and friends and children and siblings who have taught me how to covet communal health, how to read and interpret written and oral texts by also paying attention to the cracks of history, and to those who live on the other side of history’s “official” tracks. It is learning from a history and a life of grit and pain and grief and tears, of mass graves and genocide and holocaust and Maafa. It is also learning from a history and life of joy and generosity; a history of the creative side of politics and religion; a history of Ubuntu and its epistemological preference for communal life and wellbeing. Understand we. I COVET meaningful listening. Through our griots and seers, our ancestors and our yet unborn children, the harshness of historical colliding is wrestled and transitioned into tangible imagination. It is not a trick of the mind, a fantastic escape mechanism. No. It is a marshalling of communal attention and focus, a calming of the restless and bitter soul, a tuning of our communal radars, a widening of our peripheral vision, and a listening to the rhythms and rhymes of history and herstory – all in order to distinguish between different kinds of tears running down many cheeks. Are they tears of joy or of sorrow? I have learned that to read the flowing tears of a people without attention to the causes and afterlives of those tears is to misread. That is what one of our brightest minds, Toni Morrison, told us about and named rememory.  Rememory me. I COVET interpretation. Great artists, lyrical composers and prophets have taught me how to read your rueful visitation. A Psalmist’s inquiry as to how responses to history’s horrors are etched and coded unto the communal, spatial, epistemological, and spiritual body and, also, unto The Book; Moses and Jeremiah writing the “laws of history” on hard, rocky, and brittle stone tablets, as well as on the rhythmic movements of powerful human heart muscles; Ezekiel speaking and working, like an African medicine-man, trying to transform dry bones into a fleshy-lively-strong community; Miriam in prophetic laboring and ritual chanting to heal a plagued and socially distanced community that is struggling to come to terms with surrounding dead bodies and polluted waters. This interpretive struggle – this coveting of something new – connects liberating genealogy, story and mythology. That is how I understand the ancient biblical Hebrews summoning their warrior and breasted one to address the advent and manifestation of a wave of plagues during their struggle for freedom. I know why the ancient Greeks asked Hephaestus to grapple with similar questions of communal wellbeing. I can follow the narrative of the First Gospel and see Jesus’s healing act of a single uncontrollable man that lived among the tombs, refocused into the quelling of rampaging legions hogged up inside of him. During a period of turmoil, citizens of the medieval kingdom of Old Mali used the epic of Sundiata Keita to ask similar questions about the intersection of deformed bodies, political ambitions, Islamic and traditional African rituals, the powers of griots and the healing powers of a baobab tree. This is what I know; this is how I desire to know. Watch us. Stingy and singular, you – COVID – cannot be my teacher. Survival with you makes space and place and time rare commodities; they are made rarer by political, spiritual, economic and cultural demoniacs who find shelter inside those with compromised immunity or those of different demographic constituencies and, then, jump off the cliff. Decades and centuries of colonialism and racism and xenophobia and ecological abuse taught us how to wash and sanitize and mask against the monstrosity of a singularizing now-moment that manifests as a trauma that doesn’t go away. Vacating our public spaces, we withdraw from a bountiful and crowded world, stilled at last. Then rememory kicks in, and transitions coveting into covenanting. From COVET to COVENANT Are you looking for a ransom? It’s not like we have an option not to pay. Even so, I suspect that you – or one of your kin – will come again. And if we can imagine that future encounter, without succumbing to flights of fancy, we learn how to think and emote with corporeal and communal forms of improvisational solidarity glued together by our treasured rememorances. Those repurposed memories of other places and times are the coin-of-the-realm by which we build multiple forms of presence – sight and sound and prayer and ultimately even touch – that approximate the corporeal forms that have nourished us, and open up vectors for new rituals of gathering. We transition from coveting to covenanting. The great religions of the world have given us many gifts, one of which is to ability to engage the (costly) failure of imagination not with forms of social Darwinism of the survival of the religiously, politically, economically and technologically fittest, but with corporeal and communal forms of improvisational solidarity. Many African philosophers, religious leaders, and epistemologists call this Ubuntu, the notion that the individual is always already the product of the communal, and that that relation is not only bilateral and multilateral; it sustains itself by its ability to be multiple, to be generous and therefore renewable. The ancient Hebrew poets called it Hesed – steadfast love – and described its character as being renewable everyday so that it produces not just a single great all-embracing faithfulness but many daily faithfulnesses (Lam. 3:22-23). The gift is the multiplicity that allows – that compels – us to stand with our differently abled local and global bodies, as they struggle to endure the latest manifestation of erasure, enormous loss and alienation. We have learned some covenanting skills. Some of our communities have given more than others to your high and costly demands. We have already paid heavily for – what?  Species survival. What does it mean to inhabit, to somehow survive, and ultimately to demand release from the spaces and places of disposable life, and more importantly from the ideology and mechanisms of disposability? Does one “rise” in the form of dust, rise from the dusty wreckage, as the caged bird sings? Your pervasiveness, COVID, forces us to ask how we can hold all of life together – including the life you have relocated to Sheol, to the Deep. We are told to wash our hands routinely, to keep ourselves from being infected, and in turn infecting others, and worse, being relocated to Sheol. This ritual act of life is healthy only if the water is clean. We have lived with and struggled against water pollution for long – with Flint Michigan as one of many such realities around the world. We have also lived with, and struggled to deal with other forms of water pollution – water polluted by the transatlantic slave trade and genocide, as well as in modern genocides such as Rwanda, where the water became the coroner and custodian of dead bodies. Like Jonah, I have a nagging suspicion of such waters because there’s something fishy about them; they have been made to swallow up bodies and then spit them out on the shores of imperial cities that seem capable of momentary repentance only when threatened with extinction. And so, we connect the physical waves to another form of wave, the epistemological wave. We may or may not swim again in the oceans, but we can produce artistic and ritual activities that simulate our experiences of erasure and alienation, and transition out into openings for new beginnings. We may yet stand beside John the Baptizer, stand between the wilderness and the water, to ensure that weary pilgrims are refreshed and sinking bodies rise from deep seas. This is the work of trauma-hope; the weaving of the fragments of history into new futures. Are closures what you demand?  So we shut down, shelter in, stay home, stop shaking hands and say we are strong and in this together. You slow but don’t cease. We wash down and mask up. Sure you wane but continue to wonder to and fro like a thief and where you’ll strike nobody knows. Is it a question of prediction or about divining the future?  Prediction juices the sensory organs for an unfolding present-future yet undetermined. But the alerted senses must then do the work of preparation and resilience production. That is how African Americans have developed and used “The Talk” to prepare young men when they go into public spaces. The child who has received that “Talk” from a parent, a mentor, a priest, scholar, counselor, sangoma, or ancestor (living-dead, to quote the late John Mbiti) goes into the public knowing that they are not alone. Their resilience and ultimate survival of the dangerous public space is a function of the fact that they become a multitude, a legion, when they reengage the public space. The ritual character of that “Talk” does more than transfer information from mentor or parent to child; it also shares epistemology and tactic and strategy and even presence. The Talk, the Prayer, the Kiss on the forehead – these become communal shawls that connect the child to their larger family. A model of The Talk is found in sacred scripture: Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deut. 6) And it is this truth claim that underlies the African COVENANTING saying: “If you want to go fast, you go alone; if you want to go far, you go together.” We must go together, for we are Many!

My teaching style has always been a bit on the lighthearted side; I crack jokes, use ridiculous metaphors, draw inelegant pictures on the whiteboard and make my students guess what I’m trying to convey in an odd version of academic Pictionary. Being funny is a great way to keep students engaged! But now that my school, along with everyone else’s, has gone fully online for the duration of the semester, I’ve had to reframe my humor–what I usually think of as a useful teaching tactic, I now see as an indispensable tool for teaching effectively in a global pandemic. It’s already cliché to say that everybody’s stressed out by this health crisis, but the sheer variety of ways to be stressed is staggering, and my students seem to embody every one of them. I teach at a women’s college where traditional undergraduates learn alongside non-traditional working students; about a quarter of whom are parents. We’re heavy on the health sciences, so while lots of our undergrads are suddenly unemployed from their server and retail jobs, those who work in pharmacies, elder care, and hospitals are being begged to pick up extra shifts. My classes are an eclectic combination of the desperately bored and the profoundly overworked. The only thing they all seem to have in common is how badly they need a laugh right now. I can’t cure their anxiety, but I can offer them a momentary opportunity to forget about it while they’re smirking at one of my quips. These little breaks are a big part of how we can cope with our new normal. I usually rely on reading a room for my jokes, so I’ve had to get more creative. I’m terrible at creating dynamic PowerPoints, for example, and I’m now using them for nearly every lecture. To keep things interesting, I insert snarky comments into my slides making fun of my own dismal formatting and don’t call attention to them while I present, leaving them like Easter eggs for the attentive watcher. When I require Zoom meetings, I ask every attendee if they have a nearby pet or small child they can put on screen for the rest of us to coo over before beginning our discussion. I’m still teaching loads of content in the midst of all these less-serious moments, but it’s obvious that the content flows better when I make space to be a little silly. When my students pop up on webcam to talk about their upcoming papers, they’re visibly tense–this disappears almost immediately when I say that I do want to talk about their paper, but I also insisted on this meeting because I’m lonely and want to be reminded that other humans exist. They smile, I smile back, and for a second or two, they feel better–and then are better able to listen and learn. Beyond benefiting my students, prioritizing humor also helps me look forward to teaching and gives me a hint of that refreshing energy I used to get from being in the classroom with so many personalities. Staring at my laptop for hours on end is a little more bearable when I’m also thinking about whether there’s a way I can insert a picture of a chicken into my presentation so it’ll flash on screen at random intervals while I’m talking. Teaching is a haven for me amid my own apprehension, and it feels even more purposeful when I can try to make it haven for my students too. There is no one teaching style that will spell perfect success in this tumultuous time, but for even the most serious professor, I urge you–try for some silliness! Change your Zoom background so you look like you’re lecturing from the middle of the zombie apocalypse, offer pictures of your  pet as a reward for students completing required tasks, come up with a rude nickname for your online learning platform (I like to refer to Canvas[1] as “that jerkwad”) and use it whenever part of your haphazardly constructed course site doesn’t work the way you thought it would. Give yourself the gift of being a little ridiculous, and you’ll find that your students’ attitudes–and their work–will benefit from the break. [1] No offense to Canvas. It is a beautiful, elegant system, even when I can’t for the life of me figure out why it keeps taking assignments off of the student to-do list.

Moving abruptly online during the middle of a semester is tough. It requires translating on-ground pedagogies for online environments very quickly. Though, as tough as it is for instructors, we know that this transition is tough for students as well. Students need consistency; they need reassurance and predictability. Students need more than just online course content, they need the full pedagogical weight of the institution behind them. They need the support of institutional mission. Each accredited college or university has one, an institutional mission. This mission, if well implemented, not only structures the institution but also gives meaning to the academic life of the institution. It characterizes the type of community that the institution forms. Mission gives institutional on-ground education a sense, a feel, that is distinctive to that institution. It promotes an ethos and a directionality unique to the institution’s culture. This is particularly the case for confessional academic institutions for whom mission has religious significance. It is now more important than ever for higher education institutions to provide consistency to their students by communicating mission pedagogically in online environments, to keep students engaged with the institutions to whom they entrusted their academic careers. Consider three ways to accomplish this: Draw from institutional symbols. Symbols bring people together to form community, and institutional missions tend to be built on symbols distinctive to the college or university. Your online environment can be enlivened through the process of identifying what these symbols are and evaluating how these symbols can be pedagogically leveraged to invoke your distinctive institutional ethos and culture. Three types of institutional symbols are useful for consideration. 1) academic themes or virtues (such as “social justice,” “service,” “wellbeing,” “hospitality”) that characterize the institution’s expression of academic excellence 2) documentary symbols such as strategic plans, the mission statement itself, student codes of conduct, academic integrity policies, etc. 3) initiative-based symbols such as athletic or wellbeing programs, community engagement programs, institution-based institutes, etc. Institutional symbols are particularly helpful when they are diverse. Diversity gives students multiple entry points into the communal life of the college or university and allows them to express themselves in a way that is most comfortable to their experience. What are some of your institution’s symbols? How can these be incorporated into your online pedagogy to create a more supportive learning environment? How are these symbols diverse? Invite the wider campus community into learning spaces. Modeling mission in online learning environments is one way to communicate the mission to students. This can be done by drawing from those campus-based resources that were able to be moved online. For example, if your college or university librarian is now online, inviting him or her into the online learning space helps students to reconnect with the broader campus community supporting their learning. Similar assistance can be gained from resources such as guest lecturers, diversity and inclusion initiatives, campus ministry, career services, etc. When the larger campus community provides support according to the institution’s mission, the community models its mission for students and expresses a sensibility consistent with their prior on-ground educational experiences. Do you have members of the wider campus community whom you can draw from? How can these persons contribute to your course? How do they model the institutional culture? Engage students in practicing the mission in the online learning environment. The mission is not something that institutional employees “give” to students, but something that the institution as a community enacts together. Once missional symbols and modeling are pedagogically incorporated into their curricula, students are initiated into the mission as active participants. As participants in the mission, it is important for students to develop their own creative take on the mission and what it means in their lives. Formative and summative assessments oriented towards evaluating student appropriation of the mission can help students practice the mission and help them come together as an online community.  What could the institutional mission mean to your students? How do students exemplify the mission in their relationships with one another? How can you help strengthen their relationships through the institutional mission?