To set forth toward class

It does not look like the following essay will be published anywhere other than here in my blog :(
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With the novel coronavirus firmly establishing itself in the country, and with my university’s budget managers contemplating laying off a few faculty, I have been waking up these past summer mornings wondering if I will ever “set forth toward class,” to use the memorable phrase from William Stafford’s charming poem Old Prof.

Early last March was the last time I “set forth toward class.”  During that final face-to-face meeting in the winter quarter, students had questions in plenty, from arrangements for the final exams, to whether they will be able to come back to the dorms.  I suggested to them that they should take all their valuables when they go back to their homes and assume that they would not be back on campus for a very long time.

Their facial expressions and body language broke my heart.  “Keep calm and carry on” was one of the many clichéd words of wisdom that I shared with them.

The spring quarter that followed was completely virtual.  Logging into the learning management  system from my “home office” was all I had to do in order to set forth toward class.

Virtual classes are not new to me—I have been teaching courses online for two decades, starting at  California State University, Bakersfield, when having a DSL line at home was a luxury and when most had only dial-up modems.  However, twenty years of online teaching did not prepare me for a  completely virtual term with students I had never met in the real world, including a section of  true freshman.  It was unsettling.

Like William Stafford’s “old prof,” will I ever “set forth toward class” again after drinking freshly brewed coffee in my office?

It has been five months since I last saw my office, which, I imagine, would be gathering cobwebs but for the custodial staff keeping calm and carrying on.  In my office and in the classroom, will I be able to once again have meaningful interactions with students, especially the likes of Samantha and Nellie?  (Real names withheld.)

At the end of spring, which also marked the end of a lengthy and circuitous road to her degree, Nellie, a mother of three, wrote in a touching email, “The next time I am on campus (and it is open again) I would enjoy stopping by to say hello, if that's okay.”  Will there be a next time when we will be on campus?

Samantha did not want to wait.  She emailed requesting my home address to which she wanted to send a gift and a thank-you note.  A couple of days later, the parcel arrived.  The thank-you note  was a two-page letter!  “You have set me on new paths, and a little bit of you will be pushing me along in every step of the journey ahead,” Samantha wrote at the end of her letter.

I have prominently displayed Samantha’s gift and letter in the dining room, where we used to  entertain friends before the coronavirus arrived.

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 a financial crisis.  “Our goal is to retain as many employees as possible,” noted the president in mid-spring, in a three-page, single-spaced memo to the campus about the process of rightsizing the university. Two months later, another three-page memo arrived in early summer, in which the president described how the program curtailment and retrenchment process will be carried out.  The fact that faculty who will be pink-slipped will get a 12 months’ notice was not comforting.

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

The weather outside does not care for the coronavirus nor for dollars and cents.  The glorious  summer in the Willamette Valley here in Oregon is back after the months of overcast and misty  conditions that characterize this part of the Pacific Northwest.  But, instead of the usual celebration that summer is here, there is a constant nagging worry in the background that I might never “set forth toward class” again.

William Stafford has prepared me for such situations too.  In The Way It Is, Stafford wrote:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

I will hold on to the thread. Ever so tightly.