Tuesday's journeys

[Bill Maurer]

    Dear all,

    Today was a day of lots of transitions and journeys--people setting
    off on new adventures, finishing up (or almost finishing) projects,
    deciding upon a new course or imagining alternative futures. Back before
    This All Began, large chunks of my Tuesdays were reserved for meetings
    with students, and I am pleased to say that that has continued pretty
    much without interruption since our collective quarantine. One of my
    undergrads is well on her way to her own, independent research project
    (thinking about platform economics and Venmo); one graduate student
    arrived at a new way to integrate her writing to date into a more coherent
    and exciting framework for her dissertation; another has a draft of an
    article that *almost* works (except, ahem, for a lack of a conclusion and
    some sketchiness around p. 9 when suddenly the writing is ALL BLOCK CAPS
    AND NOTES TO SELF). A third is just beginning to do some reading around
    what will eventually develop into a dissertation proposal. A fourth
    shared a really fantastic draft of a summary infographic on Covid-19
    related scams and fraud, to be shared very soon with the wider world
    (probably Thursday!) to help us all protect ourselves and our loved
    ones. On the staff side of things, we had a great All Staff meeting
    where one exciting change was announced (but we'll hold the news for
    now, since other changes are afoot, as well). And in research news,
    we're working with Social Ecology to empanel a small group to explore
    research themes related to the re-opening of the world, yet to come,
    and the futures we can imagine for the world "after" the pandemic
    ("after" in quotation marks because it's likely also to be a journey,
    not a singular event). More on that as it develops.
    
    As you can see, Rufus was quite enthusiastic about ALL of it.
    
    Happy Tuesday!
    
    Bill