Little to no office hours as work is completed at home and appointments with advisees is done by Zoom. All dissertation defenses and presentations are completed by Zoom. Efficiency is increased leaving more time for study. Absence of collegial in-person relationships reduces much of the interactions and sharing of thoughts and ideas.

Other than daily temperature checks and remaining at home except for essentials, I pay little attention to the information, but do know where my community stands in terms of infection rates.

(About handling stress:) Exercise.   

(About work life effects:)   Noted previously, except that wardrobe issues and standards of dress have been lowered somewhat.

My home office is dedicated to work time with laptop surrounded by the usual desktop items such as writing instruments and note paper. Nearby are stacks of reading materials, student rosters, etc.

For doctoral courses, I have successfully converted a few activities and games from in-person to online. With bingo-like chips, I call out an individual's row/space number to gain responses. I use a small whiteboard for any diagrams or descriptions I would use in the in-person classroom. Zoom breakout rooms provide small group opportunities to replace in-person groupings. I have increased the use of Socratic Seminar procedures. Resources uploaded to Moodle have grown and an expectation that students access them independently has increased. I use very few presentation resources such as PowerPoint, although there are some available to students on Moodle.

In addition to using Zoom for classes, I use the application to coordinate the doctoral field experiences. In the past, the coordinator assigned the responsibilities of field supervision to individuals who made in-person contact. Now, all contact is made using Zoom and as Zoom has allowed candidates living at a distance to participate, I assign a number of candidates to my own caseload and serve as field supervisor, holding meetings with them and their mentors in school districts. This has been better overall, although I miss the experience of visiting schools and school districts from pre-pandemic times.

Previously, posting and holding office hours has now become almost 24/7 availability. Working with doctoral candidates who are employed as teachers and administrators can be challenging given that their time to work with me is limited to after-hours. A major time use is in editing dissertation drafts and, while faculty communicate that turn-around time can take as long as three weeks, I make efforts to return feedback within a few days. I also offer regular

check-in meetings for advisees and schedule several on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Most contact is done by email; however, there are times during monthly faculty meetings and weekly staff meetings to interact with them. Honestly, that is a part of life that is missed the most.

Other than Zoom, I continue to use those that were in place previously: Moodle and gradebook, Turn It In, Dedoose, etc. In preparation for accreditation, we are now using Microsoft Teams which has several benefits.

Faith, family, friends (although the latter two are on-line). I direct a charity in our son's memory that collects, rehabs, and donates musical instruments to children, youth, and traumatically injured soldiers. That work continues (in 11+ years we have donated 2600+ instruments and awarded 32 scholarships) and provides some coping help, although donations have slowed while schools are closed.

(About new normal:)  I suspect that most, if not all work done now online will continue and that returning to an office will be severely curtailed or eliminated. We have found it possible to complete the work under these conditions and have found advantages that will be continued.

(What I will remember from this time:) Having survived the 60s with assassinations, civil unrest, and a trip to Vietnam, I believe most will remember this time with the pain of personal loss that

will fade somewhat as did memories from that earlier time. The experiences of the pandemic, racism, and a government in chaos will change the American culture, hopefully, for the better.

Is it possible to prepare for a pandemic? Without getting into all the governmental issues and problems, our universities must continue to be the beacon of our society and not give in to current attacks. We must cherish research in every field, especially in science. I am pleased by the almost seamless transition that took place in our work with graduate students because of the leadership that came forward.

Continued collaboration among institutions of learning, whether horizontally among universities or vertically from PK-12 to graduate schools, will benefit everyone. Competing with one another and operating with little or no communication across organizations will greatly handicap our future.

Dr. Harold B. Frye may be reached at hfrye@bakeru.edu.