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Welcome to the second edition of the Carletonian’s newsletter, The Distance. In this issue, we cover how the Carleton community is adapting to online learning and remote work. We also take a trip through the Carletonian’s archive to examine how the College reacted to a past pandemic. After that, you'll find a trove of sharp student Viewpoints about the emotional toll of COVID-19. As always, if you're interested in submitting a Viewpoint piece, please reach out to Sam (kwaits@carleton.edu) or Katy (gilbertsonk@carleton.edu).
Happy reading,
Sam and Katy, Editors-in-Chief
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Each week, we'll introduce you to a new handful of Carletonian all-stars. Stay tuned for more!
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Zoe Pharo '21
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Staff Writer
Hi from afar! My name is Zoe (she/her/hers). I am a junior Political Science/IR major from Durham, NC. It took me three years to write for the Carletonian and darn it, I wish I’d started sooner. The article I worked on this past week—on the 1918 flu—involved combing through the Carletonian archives, which was both challenging and exciting. Apart from the Carletonian, I enjoy Creative Nonfiction (the magazine, check it out), table tennis, and horseradish.
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Greta Hardy-Mittell '23
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Staff Writer
Hi there! I’m Greta Hardy-Mittell (she/her/hers) and I’m a first-year from Middlebury, Vermont. At the Carletonian, I love getting to interview people from across the Carleton community, and hang out with other curious writer-types. This quarantine, I’ve been enjoying long walks, board games, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
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Jacob
Isaacs '20
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Columnist
Hi, I’m Jacob (he/him/his). I’m a senior English major from San Jose, California. I’ve written and/or edited for the Carletonian for four years; it’s been a thrill to watch both the paper and my writing develop over this stretch. In my copious spare time in exile, I enjoy baking sourdough, going on 4-mph walks, petting my cats, and working on a draft of my third (still unpublished) novel.
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First, here's the latest in News:
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ITS prepares for online classes by training faculty, providing computers to students
Zoe Pharo and Katy Gilbertson
This Spring, Carleton will hold some 300 classes online. Over 230 faculty members will be trained to transition their material to new platforms. As of yesterday, 1,940 students are enrolled to take these courses—students who are now in different time zones, with varying access to reliable technology and internet access.
According to Chief Technology Officer Janet Scannell, Information Technology Services (ITS) is currently focusing on two primary goals: ensuring that all students have access to adequate technology environments and supporting faculty as they redesign their courses.
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College pushes for asynchronous Spring term classes to prevent Internet, time zone inequities
Greta Hardy-Mittell
Carleton students are accustomed to attending in-person classes at regular times for lectures, discussions, labs and more. But this spring, a typical schedule is slated to look entirely different.
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"Asynchronous teaching provides the flexibility that enables class participation even in the face of potential technology lapses."
- Bev Nagel
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Carleton staff rush to keep up with evolving COVID-19 guidelines—and keep campus running
Ellie Zimmerman
In light of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order, Carleton is “encouraging”—but not requiring—all faculty and staff to work remotely, according to the school’s department of Human Resources. Most of Carleton’s operations have been moved online, but you can’t clean a dorm building, serve food, or maintain grounds using Zoom.
All staff will continue to work while classes are online and students are at home, according to Carleton’s Infectious Disease Information site. There was no distinction made between which staff members are “essential” to the functioning of the College and which are not. As an institution of education, Carleton is part of the “critical sector” that is exempt from the stay-at-home order, so whether work can be conducted remotely depends on the department. Inevitably, some staff members are left without the option of staying home.
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And now, a deep dive into the Carletonian's archive: read about the college's past encounter with a pandemic
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The Carleton Red Cross Society at work. / Carleton College Archives, The Algol 1919-1920.
In 1918, the Flu pandemic arrived at Carleton; students were quarantined—on campus
Miles Allen and Zoe Pharo
The 1918 flu killed 675,000 people in the United States, with over a quarter of Americans sickened. Worldwide, the death toll was between 50 and 100 million. This was no ordinary strain of the flu. According to John M. Barry in “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” the 1918 flu was an unusually fatal, hybrid virus that originated at Camp Funston, an army camp in Kansas City. It spread quickly in the trenches, barracks, and hospital tents of World War I soldiers—where students in Carleton’s Student Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) could soon be deployed.
On October 1, 1918, the Carletonia—so the Carleton newspaper was called at the time—hailed the establishment of Carleton’s S.A.T.C. as “one of the greatest and most significant events in the history of Carleton.” In addition to a modified academic course-load, students inducted into the S.A.T.C. would live in military barracks and train in preparation for deployment to the war front.
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Next, students opine on the impacts of COVID-19:
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Making the most of education beyond Carleton
Jacob Isaacs
In that fateful email to Carleton students, faculty, staff, and parents last month, President Poskanzer suggested that Carleton is “not just a physical place centered on the Bald Spot; it is also a culture and spirit that transcends campus boundaries and physical proximity.”
I found much to value in the president’s email, and I wholly believe the College has made the right decision in not hosting physical classes this month. It has taken me no small amount of time, growth, and self-contradiction to be at peace with it, however.
I do not agree with the assertion, to paraphrase, that Carleton is a state of mind. That suggestion reeks of the same kind of logic that Stanford University has used to suggest students pay full tuition, as they apparently can receive the “complete Stanford experience” through a 15-inch screen.
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Love in the age of COVID
Jack Coyne
What do you love? Still, despite it all?
I have a hard time accepting that I can be loving of anything anymore. Days spent in Hell will do that to you. You think you can hold onto the feeling you had as a child. The wonder, the joy, the feeling at the top of your stomach when the whole body rises. But then you doubt yourself. You start to think “I cannot have this. I am not meant for this.” So you recoil. You feel the spit drain from your mouth, and you turn from yourself. It genuinely feels like turning. Your face might be still, your head stuck in place. But you feel the pressure of a hand pushing your head down, toward your shoulder, and you wince for what you know is coming—a sense that you have lost.
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"Connecticut is my first home, and my only true home. In this land, in these people, I feel only comfort. But can I stand comfort now? Can I stand to feel affection, to receive and give? This is a time of crisis. It fills the air, sticks on sheets, carries us back and forth between the living room and kitchen."
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Remote systems can help support students' mental health
Carolyn Wood
After the Moodle forum fiasco on Monday, I had an idea. What if instead of coming together online to debate, we could come together to create new student support groups? For instance, several students mentioned their current struggles with anxiety in the forum. To address the needs of those with mental health problems, who currently lack adequate resources, we could create video discussion groups to share our stories and to support one another. This could be valuable because some students—including me—have more experience fighting through a Carleton term while coping with intense anxiety, and could therefore support students who are facing this for the first time. If we came together to share our struggles and coping strategies, it could help individuals in need, and foster a feeling of campus unity.
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A case for mandatory S/CR/NC
Julie Bailard
At 9:15 p.m. on Sunday, March 29, CSA President Andrew Farias notified the student body that the Education and Curriculum Committee was considering options for changing the grading system during Spring term. The ECC and CSA offered students 16 hours to voice their thoughts, questions, and concerns about these two proposals through a Moodle forum.
Almost immediately after the forum opened, a divide began to form between those who wanted relaxed optional S/Cr/NC and those who wanted mandatory S/Cr/NC. Some supporters of mandatory S/Cr/NC called Option A supporters “classist” and “elitist.” Some supporters of optional S/Cr/NC called Option B supporters “communist” and “anti-choice.”
I grew concerned about the assumptions being made about students’ health, academic motivations, financial stability, and partisanship. And I hope that, in voicing my support for a mandatory S/Cr/NC policy through the forum, I did not widen the ideological distance between two entrenched “sides.”
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Finally, to end on a lighter note:
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Departments adapt to online learning
Jack Brown
Carleton is turning into University of Phoenix (except without the whole subsidy abuse scheme), and for some classes that won’t be too bad. For others though it’s gonna be a bit of a challenge to move the classroom from Northfield, Minn. to the cyberspace. Here are how some departments are adapting.
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"POSC classes will greatly improve as profs will now have the ability mute white men."
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"It’s been working surprisingly well. I just post a video of myself lip-syncing to B.B. King, and my students can get a really good sense of the historical context."
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Professors to offer Spring-term classes via TikTok
Katy Gilbertson
As was announced in an all-campus email this week, Carleton faculty have decided to offer online course material exclusively via popular video app TikTok. Previously, ITS had been recommending that faculty use established, professional platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet, but Carleton faculty are not ones to be held down by “convention.”
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Now is not the time for satire
Jack Brown
Earlier this morning, the FCC issued an official statement in regards to the recent outbreak: “I don’t think satire is the way to go rn.” Many experts have criticized this decision as far too late considering recent news. These experts claim that things have not been good for a long time, and that satire should have been put on hold days or even weeks ago.
Every so often the FCC meets and discusses the overall state of the world. In these meetings they decide just how bad things have gotten and are currently. “There are varying levels of bad,” said one FCC leader. “At some stages we decide to ban observational humor, at others we decide to ban cinematic parody. It really depends.” Some insider sources say that they were even considering urging against puns and memes.
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Okay, that's all for this week! Thanks for reading, and have a good start to classes on Monday!
- Sam & Katy
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"The city's cold and empty."
- The Weeknd
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"I have no ideology. My ideology is health."
- Dr. Anthony Fauci
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