I love the weeks after Thanksgiv-ing. Everything flies by in a blur of cookie-baking, cocoa-drinking and ornament-decorating events, brighten-ing the stressful weeks before finals. Of all the things that COVID-19 has taken from us, pictures with Santa in the ISUB should probably fall pretty low on the list. It just seems like we deserve a normal holiday season after this difficult year, but instead we’re being encour-aged to bunker down at home with our families until January.
Last Monday evening, I joined a virtual meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Sciences Department of the College of Natural Resources to talk about inclusion. As our country grapples with a long-overdue conversation about systemic racism, I am proud of my department for releasing a statement on the importance of diversity and equity.
We all remember toward the beginning of quarantine in the U.S. when the viral photos of dolphins and swans in a crystal-clear Venetian canal gained attraction on the Internet, right? The caption declared that humans are the real virus and without us “nature is healing.”
Last week the skies in my hometown turned red, then black. My family evacuated our home in Canby, Oregon, loading what they could into our small camper and leaving to stay with friends on the west side of the Willamette River. From 300 miles away in Moscow, there was next to nothing I could do for them while they wondered whether they would have a home to go back to the next day.
