Category: Featured

Note from Brianna:

I was feeling really under the weather the day we filmed so I’m sorry for the miserable face. I love you all! Feeling better now!

Transcript:

Professor Kung: Hello everyone, we hope wherever you are, you’re safe, you’re well, and you’re hanging in there. Clearly, this spring isn’t what any of us expected. From an educational standpoint, for the rest of the semester, my advice is simply to focus as much as possible on your love of learning. Stay in communication with your professors, expectations are clearly quite different now. No one’s gonna be penalized for circumstances outside of their control. You can do this, you can do this well. Eydie…

Eydie: Hi guys, I know this is hard for you, this is hard for us too. But maintain your sanity by taking care of yourself, your parents, your cats, your dogs. Go outside, get some fresh air, throw a ball around. Talk to each other and find a way for comfort. We’ll be back at the townhouse as soon as we can, the coffee will be rolling and will have plenty of snacks when everybody gets back. Miss you guys, see you all soon. Josh, off to you.

Josh: This is a really rough time for everyone, we just want to recognize that as a staff, we want to say that yeah we’re here for you, we care about you. We really care about community as a program, as hopefully you already know, and we are doing our best to translate that digitally with the digital townhouse project. They’ll be another note about that. So yeah, stay connected, stay with us we care about you. Passing it over to Ben…

Ben: Hey everybody! We miss you guys, we hope everybody’s doing well. This is just a note to say Honors advising is still in business. We have advising ability for you scheduled on the UHP website as usual, and we will hop on a WebEx call and be there for you for anything. Don’t be strangers, continue to reach out if you need anything, Brianna and I are here for you. And I’ll pass that on to Brianna…

Brianna: Just wanna echo that we’re here for you guys as well. Just anything at all, just reach out and we’re here for you.

Professor Hammond: Just want to echo what everyone is saying, that we’re here for you in the community. Definitely reach out, whatever you need, whether it be class stuff, non-class stuff. And for me my main thing for you all is making sure you’re taking care of yourself, taking care of those around you, and being mindful of your mental health. Doing what you need to do, and recognizing where you need to step up or step back, and you know, taking care of you. Passing it off to Mark…

Professor Ralkowski: Hey guys, Lola is here as well. She wanted to say that she misses you all, but she also sees a silver lining in coronavirus in that she gets to spend a lot of time with her family, take lots of walks, get lots of attention, but she does miss you all and she’s excited to see you all in the fall. Two thing I wanted to say are: I think it’s really important to stay connected during this time. It’s only been a few days of this social distancing, I’m already feeling it, I can imagine you all are as well. So, when you’re thinking of things we can do for you, one thing that’s easy for us to do is create spaces where we can just get together virtually and just chat. It can be about nothing, sometimes those are the best conversations. And the other thing I’ve wanted to say I’ve forgotten so I’m just gonna pass it off to Eyal next.

Professor Aviv: Hi everybody! So I’m echoing what Mark just said. I’m here, I don’t have anything to do other than be with my family and working, prepare for classes, but I’m really happy to talk to everybody who wants to chat. And I just want to hope that all of you are good in health and spirits, and you’re spending good time with your family, and keeping touch with your friends. I know that these are times of change and they’re really scary. I myself woke up today at 5AM for fear of the world, but I also hope that this is an opportunity for change. And I’m really looking forward to see everybody when we get back and keep making this world and our society a better place. So, thank you, and I’m passing it to Joseph I think…

Professor Trullinger: Hard to follow up on so many wonderful, beautiful things that have already been said. But I guess this is something that i try to remember during hard times, which is not to let school get in the way of your education. I suppose what I mean by that is that all the formal mechanical structures of school that we all get wrapped up in, I think it’s really important to try as best you can to put those to the side and remember the intrinsically good things that are there in learning: the sense of connection, the sense of intellectual discovery, even just the sense of escape. Just being able to imagine a  different world, a different way of doing things, a different environment than the one you’re in now. Things will be better, and I do believe we can stick with one another throughout this, I am available just like everybody throughout this. And that’s all I have to say. 

Professor Kung: I’ll just wrap up by saying that, unfortunately not everyone could be here today, but all your faculty are thinking of you now. So please be in touch, and good luck!

Professor Christov: Hi everyone, I know this is a very unusual and very stressful time, with the Coronavirus, but Im here to tell you: let’s take care of ourselves and take care of each other. Now I know many of you are quite anxious, I know that I am. How do we learn from our online classes? How do we graduate without even walking? Many of you may even be thinking, the economy’s tanking, how am I going to get a job? What will my future look like? Now I cannot tell you what the answer to these questions might be, but I’m here to tell you one thing: practice kindness. Show accountability and fairness, resilience. Show respect and grow in your fortitude. We all need to practice those things right now, and doing so will also make us appreciate the human contact that truly matters in our lives. And remember the Taoist philosophy in finding your internal peace: “Govern yourself by doing nothing that goes against nature.” Govern yourself by doing nothing that goes against nature. So you can now tell yourself that it is okay to be anxious, it is okay to feel anxious. And doing so will help you lessen your struggles. So go forth, stay strong, and until next time!

Hello, UHPers!

We know this is a rough time for everyone due to the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) outbreak and the precautionary measures everyone is needing to take at this time. We have some updates for you about UHP operations, and then a note from the Director of the program about the shift to online instruction, as well as tips for you as you navigate being students in that context.

UHP COVID-19 Related Updates:

All UHP courses will be taught online from March 23 through April 5.

• The UHP Townhouse will be closed to student socialization during that period, as group gatherings on campus are being discouraged…
• …but, we are going to be launching the Digital Townhouse Project during this time! We want to make sure you can still have spaces to engage in community, even if you aren’t on campus. To learn more about it, click here.
• WebEx virtual one-on-one advising meetings will be available – you will sign up online as usual.
• First-year small group advising will be shifted to online virtual sessions – attendance
  remains mandatory. You will receive more information on how to access these sessions from Brianna and Ben soon.
• Trivia Night (which would have been held on March 29th ) is cancelled :(.
• If campus does fully re-open on schedule and you are unable to make it back on time (for example, if you become ill or are quarantined), please let your instructors and Ben or Brianna know!

A Note from the Director:

As GW will now be officially moving instruction online from at least March 23 through April 5, let me take a moment to talk about how UHP faculty and staff hope our students will react to this shift. I will also provide some tips for maximizing your learning in the online environment. First of all (as has been said before) please plan to be patient and flexible. Some faculty have never taught online before and so a learning curve is to be expected. For a planned online course, an instructor would have spent many months beforehand training on the relevant technological tools and designing the course specifically for the online environment. Obviously, this won’t be the case for your current classes. That said, please know that your instructors will be doing their absolute bests over the next few weeks to make sure you continue to master course content and skills.

We always talk about the “intellectual omnivorousness” of UHP students – which must, by definition, include a willingness and desire to be a truly self-directed learner. This interest, independence, and self-motivation are key to helping you succeed intellectually for the remainder of the semester. We hope you choose to envision a few weeks of online learning not as a burden or a “less-than” experience, but as an interesting educational experiment and an opportunity to mature and develop as an adult learner. Effort will be required, but if you put in the effort you will be rewarded with knowledge.

Communication is going to be incredibly important in the coming month. Please read all email very carefully and check for Blackboard announcements regularly. Be in contact with all your professors as soon as possible if you expect any technology challenges while off campus (for example, if you won’t have access to a stable internet connection). Some faculty will hold class using synchronous (real time, interactive) online sessions. These sessions can only be held during the standard class time band (e.g. a course that meets M/W 12:45-2pm EDT can only meet online during those exact times) – this is to ensure that no student will have a time conflict between two different online sessions. This means, however, that students who will be living outside the Eastern Daylight time zone may need to attend a session at an odd local time. You should communicate directly with your professor if this is the case, but please realize that faculty members are not authorized to change class meeting times and may still require you to attend.

Even online, collaborative work with your peers is likely to remain an important part of your learning. Working with your peers online requires clear peer-to-peer communication, of course. Plan to use various online tools that are designed for distance collaboration, such as Google Doc and Slides. GW students also have access to WebEx, which will allow you to work directly through video conferencing and desktop sharing.

Finally, a quick guide to being an online learner:

How to be a student in a synchronous online course:

1. Prepare just like you would for any class session (complete the assigned reading, come with questions, etc.).

2. Find a quiet place with a stable internet connection where it is also okay for you to talk aloud if the course will include a discussion component. Whenever possible, use a computer with a camera and microphone (if need be, however, that you can login to Blackboard Collaborate via your computer but then use a phone to call in/speak). Before you activate your camera, check around you to make sure nothing embarrassing will show up with the camera field of view!

3. Login at least 10 minutes early for the first online class meeting to make sure that the software is functioning correctly.

4. In Blackboard Collaborate, you will enter the classroom both muted and with your camera off. Be sure to activate your camera but keep your microphone muted until you need to speak to avoid background noise (e.g. typing, dogs barking).

5. Use the “raise your hand” button if you have a question. Alternatively, you can type questions into the chat function. Remember to unmute yourself when it is time to speak.

How to be a student in an asynchronous online course:

1. Check for new Blackboard announcements and assignments daily.

2. Consider pretending like the class is meeting at its regularly scheduled time and use that “in class time” to complete online assignments and activities. At minimum, keep careful track of due dates to avoid scrambling/cramming at the last minute.

3. Keep in mind that even if a faculty member will not be grading every assignment you have been asked to complete, you are cheating yourself out of learning the material if you do not make an effort to do the work.

4. If you are asked to participate in a text discussion via the Blackboard Forum, here are some tips for participating in an online discussion board.

5. Read all directions carefully and ask questions if anything is unclear.

6. Make use of instructor “virtual office hours.”

Hello, dear UHPers!

We get that this is a really tough time for everyone right now, and that wherever you end up in the coming days, it may not be the most pleasant of times. So we want to provide you some virtual community! Thus: the DIGITAL TOWNHOUSE PROJECT! We would love for the home-y, welcoming feel of the townhouse to be present with all of you still, despite all the change and anxiety in the air.

That said, we don’t know how this is going to play out at all yet (it’s quite new for us!), and I’d like your help! Below, we’ve got a form with some of the different options we’ve been thinking of. They aren’t things we’ve prepared for yet, but we’d love to get your feedback on all this, and also your ideas!

Welcome, dear UHPers, to the NEW UHP BLOG! This space has a lot of fun new features, like a simplified menu, pages for Community Life and Openings and Opportunities, and a Featured Image of the Week (just a little bit to the right!).

Community Life

On this page, you’ll find the latest posts on upcoming events, peer advisor articles, and other community life news!

Openings and Opportunities

Here, you’ll see a complete summary of the job, internship, and research assistantship opportunities that people want to put before you UHPers, as well as other opportunities like the SURE and Strasser awards.

Calendar

To your right, you’ll see a calendar of our upcoming events, as well as a list of those upcoming events below that calendar.

Submit a Post

Did you know that any UHP student can submit a post to our blog? Now of course just because you submit something doesn’t mean it’ll be approved, but if you have an event or an opportunity you want your fellow UHPers to know about, don’t hesitate to submit a post up there!