To set forth toward class amid uncertainty

(My commentary was published on November 4th in The Oregonian)

Early last March was the last time I “set forth toward class,” to use the memorable phrase from the late William Stafford’s charming poem “Old Prof.” 

Since then, I have been waking up wondering whether I will ever set forth toward class, especially with my university’s president contemplating faculty layoffs and other cuts primarily in response to the pandemic.

During that final face-to-face meeting in March, students had questions in plenty, from arrangements for the final exams, to whether they will be able to come back to the dorms.  Their facial expressions and body language broke my heart.  “Keep calm and carry on” was one of the many clichés that I shared with them.

That was the last time I saw students in person. 

Work has been completely virtual since then.  Logging in from my “home office” is all I do anymore in order to set forth toward class. 

Every day, I end up asking myself the same question: Will I be able to once again have meaningful interactions with students? 

As if the pandemic weren’t enough to take away those interactions that I cherish, there is one other, and more important, reason for me to worry whether I will ever “set forth toward class.” 

Like many regional public universities in the United States, my university too is dealing with financial crisis that had been slowly developing and which the coronavirus accelerated.  “Our goal is to retain as many employees as possible,” noted the president in a three-page, single-spaced memo to the campus about the process of rightsizing the university.

In a couple of weeks, we will find out about the president’s plan to “align faculty resources with enrollment trends to reduce faculty expenses in academic programs.” 

Will I be informed that I will not be needed after June 2021?  How will I feel if I stayed on, but favorite colleagues are laid off? 

Of course, there are no clear answers in life. 

Even if I am laid off, as a citizen and a (former) educator, I will continue to worry about public regional universities like WOU. These are often the institutions that provide valuable learning opportunities for students who might be the first from their families to attend a four-year college. 

WOU and other similar colleges are increasingly the ones that serve the “non-traditional students”—adults returning to college after various life experiences. They welcome mothers and fathers, who decide that completing a college degree is way too precious. They open the doors to military veterans, who without fail are the only students who insist on addressing me as “sir.”

Among all the different types of students, I have especially been blown away by the dogged determination of students who are mothers, whose superhuman ability to juggle classwork and family life is simply beyond my wildest imagination. Their roads to degree completion are long and circuitous, but the value of their college degrees seems incomparably more than what a straightforward path from high school might deliver.

Will I never set forth toward class again and work with students, like how I have been doing since joining WOU in 2002? Only time will tell.