When the coronavirus crisis hit, we started trying to think about ways to maintain closeness and community amidst growing physical distance both small-scale (social distancing and campus closures in Cambridge) and large-scale (as Sarah returned to Canada while I stayed in Cambridge), Williams said via email. We thought that making our conceptual podcast a real podcast could be one way to do this.

In addition to their usual humor, the pair discuss the psychological aspects of coping with the pandemic and share some tips they learned in a Harvard University Health Services workshop, Managing Emotions.

I just love this because its so good for mental health and well-being, Yun said of the fellows latest effort. Its hard enough to be a Ph.D. student; it is so incredibly isolating and our population has a tendency to isolate because the work that theyre doing is asking the big questions in lonely libraries. So Im just so grateful that our students are trending forward trying to say, We need to stay connected to each other during this time.

With so many feeling overwhelmed by the abrupt changes and confused by the rapid pace of information coming at them from so many disparate sources about the COVID-19 pandemic or where to find help for difficulties, graduate students Gwendolyn Lee, M.D./M.P.P. 20, and her sister, Alexandria Allie Lee, M.S. 20, thought students could use a central repository to find and share the most accurate, useful information and more easily communicate with each other. Ideally, they hoped this would empower students to take action to begin solving the many challenges of the current public health crisis.

On March 13, the student-run group Students vs. Pandemics created a Google Sheet with sections on how to stay healthy, where to find resources, ideas for having fun or bringing about systemic change, and complain + fix, where problems are identified, and then go about trying to fix them. Students are encouraged to add ideas and share information on the spreadsheet. So far, more than 30 students have contributed, and theyre hoping to recruit others. Ideas include starting a COVID-19 hackathon for students to identify digital solutions, drafting policy memos to send to the Massachusetts Legislature, and helping other universities launch similar task forces.

We talked with many friends and classmates who felt like so many changes were happeningtous andthatotherswere making significant decisions affecting our lives. That often happens in times of crisis, and we wanted to empower more students torespondandact. Students are very good at identifying needs and gaps, and we wanted to give them a platform to connect with others to innovate solutions, said Gwendolyn Lee, whos studying health policy at Harvard Kennedy School while also pursuing a medical degree at UCLA. Allie Lee is earning a masters degree in epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.

Even as the group confronts the immediate COVID-19 crisis, Gwendolyn Lee said its also building institutional knowledge so that its better prepared for future disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.

More fundamentally, we would like to work toward building a model of prevention, she said. Students vs. Pandemics hopes to advocate for and help achieve preventive behavior so we wont find ourselves in a situation like the one we face today.

In times of struggle, many take comfort and refuge in religious and spiritual gatherings. With that currently out of the question, some religious groups at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) are considering alternatives. The HDS Disciples and United Church of Christ Worship have begun shifting the weekly worship services and prayer times online, connecting everyone via Zoom. The first online service begins today.

Early last week, HDS students began contributing inspirational posts to the Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Lifes Facebook page and Instagram accounts. So far, the posts have drawn on a variety of texts, from the Bible to Harry Potter.

Harvards move to online teaching and learning presents challenges for disciplines where the work is almost entirely physical and doesnt easily translate to 2D formats such as video at least not without sacrificing essential components of the work.

At Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Dean Sarah Whiting and the faculty have been taking advantage of the popular Zoom platforms draw-over and annotation tools, particularly for crits, the one-on-one sessions in which a professor reviews and critiques individual student work, said GSD spokesman Travis Dagenais. Rather than hanging project renderings on the usual pin-up boards, theyre turning unused laptops into digital pinboards so professors can review the work on one screen while conducting the crit on another.

I was just so impressed that even though all of their lives were sort of cast into chaos they still were really committed to building community and finding ways to continue to connect GSAS students.

Jacqueline Yun, executive director, GSAS Student Center

The School is still determining how faculty juries will conduct final reviews, which typically involve models, large drawings, and other physical elements, without being able to see these components in real life.

For those already tired of looking at home-office backdrops on Zoom, or who just want things to go back to normal even for a few minutes, a cheeky pair of Masters in Design Studies students have created an assortment of colorful Zoom backgrounds from spaces in and around Gund Hall. The backgrounds have become a minor hit with students and even a dean or two.

One unexpected positive is that prior to the campus closure, GSD offered only one online course, the popular The Architectural Imagination on edX. Now, suddenly there are dozens of GSD courses going online, adapted and produced in short order and being tweaked in an ongoing manner. Its been a tall order. That contrast in number and scope illustrates our challenge as designers: Design pedagogy is uniquely difficult to conduct in a purely digital format, and this shift has been nothing shy of fundamental for us, said Dagenais.

For fourth-year students at Harvard Medical School (HMS), the third Friday in March is a date they have dreamed about and worked toward for many years. On Match Day, the National Resident Matching Program notifies graduating seniors at medical schools across the country where they will serve their clinical residencies. At Harvard, the milestone usually takes place in the atrium of the Tosteson Medical Education Center at HMS, with students and their loved ones gathered, waiting for the dean of students traditional bell ringing at noon that kicks off the envelope-tearing, excited squeals, and hugs. This year, the matches will arrive via email, and Dean Fidencio Saldaas bell will be livestreamed to the approximately 165 seniors. The School has set up a social media account so students can share their celebrations, but from a safe distance.

Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews.

Read this article:
At Harvard's graduate Schools, reinvention on the fly - Harvard Gazette