This semester has found our UNC Asheville and global community facing the unprecedented challenge presented by the coronavirus pandemic. While we Bulldogs usually enjoy spending time on our beautiful, close campus together, we’re now having to learn to create our community in new ways as classes move to remote instruction, and most of us are learning and working from separate places.
We’ll be bringing you stories from our UNC Asheville community as we learn, teach, adapt, and work together through whatever challenges lay ahead.
Patrick Bahls, professor of math and director of the honors program, shared how he is getting ready for online classes, entertaining himself while practicing safe social distance, and some words of encouragement for his students and colleagues.
He shared a message for students from his home office. "I'm here for you, no matter what you need." Also, "I woke up like this."
"Doc" Michael Ruiz, professor of physics, is known for taking a seat at the piano during his classes--especially his "Physics of Sound and Music" course. When his planned Broadway Musical Appreciation class at OLLI was cancelled, Doc Ruiz recorded one of the pieces he was planning on performing for the class to share with his students: an overture to "Gypsy" played a la Liberace style.
Faculty and staff gather weekly for a special Zumba workout led by Mary Lynn Manns, chair and professor of management and accountancy. With the help of Zoom, faculty and staff--and a few family members--were still able to get moving to help stay healthy and happy.
Keep the kids (or yourself) entertained with coloring pages, word puzzles and more from your favorite mascot.
Associate Professor of French and francophone literature Oliver Gloag
Originally published by Oxford University Press
“As we know, Camus conceived his novel as an allegory for the German Occupation of France from 1940 to 1944, during which families were separated due to the division of the country in two zones, one occupied, one nominally free. In short, the plague is the stand-in for the Germans.
Steve Alford of the Music Department plays a duet...with Steve Alford.
The Chemistry faculty put together a special message for their students.
"The pandemic of 2020 hit our nation like a tsunami wave, engulfing us immediately with the urgent need to send our university students home and move all our courses online. Social Distancing emerged as a new term for living with indefinite predictions for its end. Governing bodies decreed “no public group gatherings” with sizes diminishing down to as small as 10 within two weeks’ time, and then a final decree of “Stay Home – Stay Safe” for home lockdown. Our public theatres are now closed, having no such unified act of such closures due to public health concern since the late 1500s caused by the plague.
Anxious to reconnect with my students and to re-create our sense of community, I sent them video messages assuring them that we would see each other online soon..."
Social Distancing Spirit Week Self-care Highlight:
"I hope despite all the chaos you allow yourself to reset and check in with your mind, body + emotions. Whether you choose to practice yoga (there are plenty of online videos/resources available) simply sit and meditate, or move your body through a workout... remember we will get through this one inhale + exhale at a time." - Audra Goforth, Class of 2017 #BulldogsWhereverWeAre
Professor and Chair of the History Department Tracey Rizzo
“My evolving book ‘Gendering Comparative Revolutions’ now begins with scholars’ speculations about the role of catastrophes in triggering political instability, especially in societies with high wealth inequality, poor social supports, and corrupt leadership. Each of these is gendered, as is the response to the pandemic.
Social Distancing Spirit Week Pet-coworkers Highlight:🐾
"It is an innovative time in education as students and educators around the world take their courses online. I'm proud to have worked closely with the UNC System and contributed to the "Moving to Alternative Instructional Formats" guide. It has been a joy to have my animal companions by my side throughout this journey. Chance the cat has made a few appearances in my "Many Nations: American Indian History" course, and we're hoping she'll soon declare her major." - Dr. Ellen Holmes Pearson, Professor of History #BulldogsWhereverWeAre
Assistant Professor of Economics Kathleen Lawlor
My own research, and that of many others, shows that productive economic activity actually increases in response to cash transfers. In rural subsistence economies, for example, we find that recipients use part of the payments to expand their agricultural production and invest in their small businesses, leading to growths in income beyond the value of the cash transfer. Another common concern is that cash transfer recipients will blow the money on things they don’t truly “need,” like drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Here again, the evidence does not support these degrading stereotypes of the poor.
Environmental Specialist Jackie Hamstead tends to redbud saplings, carefully collected and lovingly transplanted from campus, for students to take home and replant as part of the Honor Your Roots project. The project began in 2019 when graduating seniors were able to purchase saplings to plant wherever they put down roots next; donations from the purchases go to fund scholarships at UNC Asheville.
Professor of Health & Wellness Amy Joy Lanou, who also serves as executive director of the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness at UNC Asheville and Interim Director of the UNC Gillings School’s MPH Program in Asheville, and Assistant Director of the UNC Gillings School’s MPH Program in Asheville Sarah Thach
When we recognize we are all in this together, we look for ways to work together to get through this public health crisis. We look for solutions instead of scapegoating those who are ill, who have traveled, or who have family living in other parts of the world. Our equity lens inspires compassion and ingenuity as we take care of our neighbors, re-tool our businesses to make much-needed supplies, and discover new ways to come together while maintaining our physical distance. Equity demands we don’t leave anyone behind in the process, not only because it’s the right thing to do but because to leave anyone behind makes us all vulnerable.
The AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program is all about providing structure and support to kids who face disenfranchisement in school, so they graduate and make the transition to college – typically becoming first-generation college students. And this spring has brought another huge transition for AVID students and their tutors, turning their in-person relationship into a “Google Meet relationship.”
For the UNC Asheville students who provide the tutoring to some 350 AVID students in Asheville City Schools, it was a transition that had to be made almost instantly. UNC Asheville students Julia Rhodes and Tatyana Barrett were the two AVID tutor leaders suddenly faced with the need to move all of the tutors’ work onto online platforms. “The weekend that we got the notification that everything was closing, I told Kim [Kim Kessaris, UNC Asheville’s AVID tutoring coordinator], ‘hey I’ll try to make a training video for Google Meet,” recalled Rhodes. “I had never used Google Meet before! But that Monday, we were training all our tutors – we’ve all been learning it on the fly.”
Let us know how you're doing, the creative ways you're staying engaged, healthy and entertained, or share something that's giving you hope and happiness. Send us an email, or tag your social media posts with #BulldogsWhereverWeAre, and help us share these important stories.
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