The new norm

March 30, 2020

As I write this, we are two weeks into this new and altered way of work life. It began with a rapid transition to on-line delivery and decisions about how we best complete our courses. I’m sure many of you, like me, wondered: How am I going to accomplish all of that? I still use a paper day timer, so now you know where I’m coming from. But, I have managed. A final capstone writing assignment is being handled electronically in my undergraduate course, and my knee-jerk reaction was to cancel their final presentations.

Indeed ‘cancellation’ has largely been a ‘go to’ option. For example, my research group had several conferences to look forward to during the next two months. Abstracts had been drafted, re-drafted and submitted, and even a very sharp poster had already been made by one PhD student. I get it. There have been (and still are) dynamic changes on so many active fronts! We can all deal with only so much, and we need to prioritize.

But I would like to suggest that it is also now time to actively consider and pursue options to normalize, best we can, the graduate student experience. Within two days of our new existence, my colleague and close collaborator, Roland Hall (Biology, UW) purchased a one-year subscription of Zoom. I had occasionally used Skype and Skype for Business for various research purposes, but I was certainly no expert in these virtual platforms. Zoom has now become my new best work-friend – a lifeline of sorts. I too have now purchased a subscription.

We are using Zoom for all meetings with our research group. During the past two weeks, we have re-established two virtual gatherings per week, which also importantly serve as check-ins for Roland and I. On Tuesday mornings, a student leads discussion of a publication they selected and that we have all read. On Friday afternoons, students share their research progress via Zoom by taking advantage of the ‘shared screen’ option to practice delivery of their latest results and to gain feedback. At the start of our Friday sessions, we have a roundtable where everyone shares accomplishments of the past week and uses this as an opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns. The formal part of the Friday session is followed up by a ‘virtual visit to Grad House’ (at UW, which is a long-held tradition since my PhD days in the 90s) to enjoy a beverage and banter about science, our new working environments, and, of course, that other topic that is constantly on our minds (how to cope in the Covid-19 era).

While we have operated in this fashion for many years, albeit all physically together in one room, these now virtual activities are, perhaps, more important than they have ever been. As we have heard, social distancing does not necessarily need to mean social isolation. Indeed, we need to guard against the negative consequences of social isolation.

For Roland and I, our minds are also firmly focused on the spring/summer term ahead. Our collaborative research program is hardly Covid-19 proof. We conduct fieldwork in northern Canada, and we have laboratories and specialized equipment at University of Waterloo and Laurier that our students need in order to generate data and new knowledge their thesis research aims to achieve. We were to launch a new project, and the required fieldwork, in NWT this summer, and had committed to bringing on a new MSc student.

Here also is where we need to be flexible and creative to ensure progression. In our group, those who that are potentially most affected are 1st-year MSc students who are in the midst of the laboratory component of their research. While they are still wrapping up courses and TA assignments, soon after they will progress by drafting (and re-drafting) and defending their research proposals. That will buy us some time, but we may very well need to modify expectations or consider alternate pathways to completion. Many of our other graduate students are being encouraged to use the time to develop and draft manuscripts. And new ideas are emerging. At our most recent Friday session, a PhD student, upon encouragement from another PhD student via a prior Zoom call, ‘made-up’ some data to simulate an outcome. He now has a ‘Covid-19-inspired’ testable hypothesis that he will be able to follow-up once we can get back in the lab. I’m not so sure that level of creativity would have happened under more normal circumstances.

These are still early days, and no one has all of the answers. Much uncertainty remains. Still, I have a sense that members of our research group look forward to our twice-weekly sessions even more now. And there can be some unexpected silver linings. During our ‘virtual Grad House session’ last Friday, we were joined by a former MSc student, now living and working at a ‘dream job’ in Victoria. There we all were, on the screen reminiscing and laughing about past escapades during conferences and fieldwork. It was almost like the real thing. I learned later that many of the students and former students continued the Zoom meeting for several hours after Roland and I had left – a testament that social interaction, even if only virtual, is of intense interest for our students.

Brent Wolfe, PhD

Professor, Geography and Environmental Studies
Associate Dean, Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies