A Message from Jim Hesselman, Dean of Arts & Letters

Perhaps like many of you I keep thinking (hoping) that I will wake up from this dream (nightmare) that I’ve been having for six months now and all will again be “normal” again.

What is normal?

Shaking hands.

Smiling (and having someone return the smile).

If hurricanes and fires happen it is on such an infrequent basis that when they do they surprise you and top the day’s news stories.

Hugging.

Meetings where everyone knows the appropriate garments to wear.

I could go on but even listing the things that define normal to me make it seem like I am still asleep.

Normality is simply things we expect to happen. And things we expect to be able to do. It comforts us and gives us a sense of purpose.

When those expectations are taken away we find out very quickly how much time and effort we are willing spend on having them return to our everyday lives.

On a college campus students’ and faculty’s normalcy is the expectation to be able to share in and relish moments of learning. To spend a few short years spent together on creative, social, and intellectual exploration.

Over the past several months I have observed and taken part in extra-ordinary efforts to hold onto that particular piece of normalcy — educating. Whether it is taking and teaching classes online, in a zoom room, or committing to the IU Southeast safety measures in order to actually come back to campus, the task has been above and beyond anything we have had to face and accomplish in higher education — ever.

Take a minute to realize that. With all that our lives have become at this moment, take a little time each day to realize the monumental efforts you have put into this endeavor and be proud of yourselves. Also be grateful to all the people in this with you. I know I am, because none of us are doing this alone.

What I have also observed in the past several months is that when we come out of this (and we will), there will be an awful lot that we will have learned. It occurs to me that much of it are things our grandparents and great-grandparents learned during the world wars or the great depression. Maybe we have simply had to re-learn them. No matter, they are things that will enrich our lives from now on:

Appreciation for how fragile our world and our country really are.

How important everyone’s contribution is to our society and how easy it is to take each other for granted.

And finally, simple things like empathy, freedom, and kindness.

I was in New York City on 9/11/01. I spent ten days after the attack trying to get back home and experiencing the best and worst of humanity all at the same time. I “vowed” then that I would never be without certain things again. A flag pin on my jacket for one. Next year it will be twenty years since those days I spent in Manhattan. My flag pins lasted almost five. It is not that the experience didn’t change me and that I don’t reflect on it often. But the strong emotions I felt were not sustainable on a daily basis. I had to go on living. It takes a bit of doing to see and hang on to the positive that comes from difficult experiences, but it is well worth the effort.

We will someday be free of these current living conditions. We will go back to “normal”. Here is wishing that we take with us all the gifts these difficult weeks and months are giving us.