These are trying times — times that put the discourse of “resilience” on trial. Our first priority, of course, must be the health of our community. We should work to forge and reinforce networks of mutual aid. We should seek out those especially isolated by social distancing or quarantine. Continuing to teach — with whatever adjustments to workload are necessary — will surely provide students with an important experience of connection despite disruption, so faculty have an important role to play. But we will want to emphasize intellectual and social engagement, and not try to perform the impossible task of providing “the same” education by remote means.
Of course we all hope that contagion and social isolation will soon be behind us. But the future we imagine ought not to be a return to the status quo ante. We need to remember the unsettled condition many experienced before COVID-19-from the economic precarity of graduate student workers across the UC, to the Arts & Humanities departments likely to suffer most over Berkeley’s “Finance Reform” proposal, to the 82 graduate students at UC Santa Cruz who were terminated by UCOP, losing jobs, and in some cases student status, although they have recovered their health insurance – an important victory.
We should support each other. We should support COLA4ALL, our striking graduate students, and our contractless lecturers as well. And we should carry forward the fundamental project of a public university, in the service of its democratic and engaged citizenry. If not now, when?
Wendy Brown, Michael Burawoy, Celeste Langan, Leslie Salzinger and James Vernon