You may know already that there a hurricane around these parts this week.
Hurricane Ian came to town. Or came to the state. It had a lot of destructive fun in Florida, left to get stronger in the Atlantic again, made a left turn and made a second US landfall in South Carolina.
The university was monitoring the situation. Class was going to be on site this Friday. And then it was moved virtual. And then classes were cancelled altogether for Friday. This was done out of an abundance of caution in case there was power outages across the state.
I thought this was very responsible of them. The PhD cohort I am part of it scattered across much of the midstate, from the South Carolina border to Raleigh and the state capital. Any one of these areas, but especially the Charlotte region, could have been impacted by the hurricane. Due to the power outage and wind and rain.
This was the best decision they could have made. To protect the teachers and the students.
Of course, now there is the evasive maneuvers to add the classes that would have occurred on Friday into the class calendar for the rest of the semester.
This is a very busy time for the university. We’ve been in school for nearly 2 months, and are looking down the barrel at midterm exam.s
The university and the professors have been emailing us all about the plan that will be the plan going forward. Syllabi have been adjusted, exam schedules and presentation have been adjusted. And life will go on through the semester.
The lessons from the pandemic have been well learned. Be nimble. be able to adjust and protect the students and the faculty members.
And be prepared to take evasive maneuvers to do all of the above.
How did I spend my unexpectedly free Friday? Not doing homework, that’s for sure.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 