Many of us had a tough time staying connected with our Indiana University research communities starting in March 2020.
While some activities stayed at or came back to “near normal” more than others, in many areas, we’ve missed the energy that comes from working and socializing together.
And we are not alone. Research shows we feel this way across the nation’s campuses. Some feel disconnected, are not sure how best to re-engage and may feel less confident in the risk-taking required to re-enter the communal research process after a lengthy period of relative isolation.
For example, I am about to go next week to one of my first in-person conferences after a long time, and I find myself wondering what it will be like!
My colleagues across the university and I have brainstormed some ideas for this summer in an attempt to create structured engagements to foster learning, collaboration and community as we move forward in these challenging COVID-era times.
These plans create an interactive (and safe) summer research experience for Ph.D. students and faculty. Our goal is to:
- Help us articulate our summer research ambitions, forming into groups that will give feedback and form collaborations.
- Normalize working on campus again and figuring out space needs for everyone to feel comfortable and safe (for those who can be on campus).
- Foster a virtual social space for staying in touch (e.g. Slack, with separate channels for specific research sub-groups) and coordinating research projects (e.g. Trello). E-tools like these were very helpful for workflow and help avoid the more formal nature of email and delays in synchronous zoom scheduling.