Character is Formed
in the World’s Torrent[1]
Covid-19 has provided a reminder on our campus of the
profound value of a liberal arts education. We teach our students to navigate
difficult decisions with many thorny variables and specters of the unknown.
This is what members of our campus community and leaders of organizations across
the nation and around the world have been facing as the pandemic spreads and
concern rises.
Science, logistics, ethics, and economics all come into play
in each conversation, and each next step is found somewhere in the interstices between
them all. What has struck me on our campus is that each meeting has taken the
form of a seminar. I regularly tell students and their families that we learn
best in community, and we have been living that maxim as we negotiate uncharted
challenges together.
There are a number of students already on campus for whom
travel home is problematic, so we will remain their home away from home. Groups
of faculty and staff are making sure everyone remains well-fed and safe. That
includes our colleagues as well as our students.
I have been so proud of my colleagues across the Susquehanna
campus for their spirit of collaboration and their collective commitment to the
health and safety of our students and each other. They have been equally
committed to sustaining the education of our students through a yet undefined
period of disruption.
At present, we have extended our spring break by a week to
allow time for adequate planning and preparation for alternate modes of
instruction. We will resume classes one week from now. For students who elect
not to return to campus, online options will be available. If we need to suspend
face-to-face instruction for some period of time, we will be prepared for that.
All students will have the opportunity to complete their courses and their
degrees on schedule.
Applied coursework will involve varied and special
challenges, but our remarkably creative faculty and resilient students will
find ingenious solutions. That’s what a liberal education prepares us to do. We
learn to untie Gordian knots, and piloting through our current obstacles is an
object lesson in applied ingenuity.
Goethe wrote that character is formed in the world’s torrent.
It is certainly revealed by the actions taken in torrential times, and the character
of this great university community could not be more admirable.
In these challenging times, I wish everyone could be
surrounded by as thoughtful and compassionate a community as thrives at
Susquehanna.