Andy continues the conversation with Dr. Ellane Park about how we are adapting and trying to create a new normal during this crisis. Dr. Park shares her process both about the personal and the professional front of the struggle. They acknowledge the tension of holding onto serving the whole while also addressing the issues surrounding the atmosphere of assigning blame in a time of fear. Finally, Dr. Park gives tips on how to support campus faculty during this time.
LINKS:
We've created a website (updated daily) full of resources to help you with Ministering Digitally Through COVID-19: intervarsity.org/online.
Andy continues the conversation with Dr. Ellane Park about how we are adapting and trying to create a new normal during this crisis. Dr. Park shares her process both about the personal and the professional front of the struggle. They acknowledge the tension of holding onto serving the whole while also addressing the issues surrounding the atmosphere of assigning blame in a time of fear. Finally, Dr. Park gives tips on how to support campus faculty during this time.
LINKS:
We've created a website (updated daily) full of resources to help you with Ministering Digitally Through COVID-19: intervarsity.org/online.
Andy Kim: 0:12
Hey, everybody, you're listening to the Ministry During the Disruption podcast. I'm Andy Kim. And on our last episode, we got to hear a powerful story from Dr. Allene Park, a professor of chemistry at Rollins College, and how she scrounged up caps and gowns and diplomas to give her seniors of very special and a very sudden graduation ceremony. If you haven't listened that episode, be sure to go back and take a listen. But in this episode, we're gonna continue our conversation. And I'm gonna ask Dr Park about what's the current state of the college campus in the mist of this crisis. How are faculty managing and how to navigate all the different tensions of responding to pandemic and responding to crisis Let's take a listen.
Andy Kim: 0:52
What do you observe as kind of the current challenges right now in this pandemic for the college campus? And what are some of the issues that your students, your colleagues and your staff, what are they dealing with right now?
Dr. Ellane Park, PhD: 1:06
It's interesting because there is the personal front and then the professional front of the struggle, right? I think that on the personal front, we're worrying about our own families. Friends in the area. Maybe our elderly neighbors. We're worried about maybe our church community. But then, on the professional side, I think the challenges are as a professor, how do we adapt our classes to online and still be able to connect with their students and teach them effectively whatever the content is that we are scheduled to teach. And the struggle, I think that I personally have, and I think some faculty can relate to this is, how do I maintain the rigor in my class while showing compassion and grace during a pandemic like this? Right, is something that I think all professors are grappling with, figuring out, how do I adapt this class in a way that still honoring the curriculum but you know, their circumstances that are just that have not been foreseen, that we need to all adapt and be understanding of the student situations.
Andy Kim: 2:16
Yeah, and it feels like this season of crisis has been for a lot of us navigating tensions where it's not one or the other, but it's trying to hold them while we're going through all this stuff, and it feels, like, even are like institutions and organizations and churches and campus ministries we're navigating all those tensions. And so, you know, one of the tensions I'm feeling as a Asian American in this country and in my ministry has been thinking through all the tensions of on one hand, we're trying to serve the greatest needs and we're trying, we're all hands on deck to solve these problems. And then, on the other hand, in a part of what InterVarsity is, our value for multi ethnicity and justice and reconciliation. And so I've been tempted in this time to say, 'Oh, maybe we need to put some of those things on the back burner because we have all these immediate crises right now .' And so it doesn't feel like an either or to me, but it feels like there is a way to do both and thinking about the whole, but also thinking about particular marginalized populations and different groups. So I'm wondering, as a faculty member, as a professor, how are you holding those things in tension of serving the whole and then also thinking about ah specific groups that may be more marginalized under resourced or may be vulnerable?
Dr. Ellane Park, PhD: 3:29
A couple of thoughts came to mind was as we're talking about the Asian population and then the tension about how do you, I guess, balance the tension between the original plan that we had in mind and then evolving to address the needs or issues that are hand. I realized that one thing that is really nice about these online classes is to try to achieve some new normalcy for our students, for all of us to get our minds off of the pandemic for a brief moment, you know, whether it's ah, an hour class session or an assignment that kind of keeps you, your mind a little bit more occupied and off the news. That's also kind of a nice saving grace in the moment of a time like this, right? Because if we were on social media online all the time and just reading constantly the news that's developing, which is hourly, it is overwhelming if you stay in that space. So I think it's nice to have that tension of something pulling you back and taking classes, for example, or designing classes, for example, if you're a professor. Um, the other side of what you mentioned about issues like the increasing number of incidents happening where they're racist, xenophobic attacks on Asians right now, at a time when I think everyone's wanting to blame Asians or blame someone for this pandemic, I know that my students who were of Asian descent or international Asian students who are here studying at Rollins, their emotionally, getting, um, somewhat harassed by people. Thankfully, none of them have gone physically harassed. But I think just emotionally they're getting harassed by people who don't know better right now, right? Like they just want to shift the blame and say that you're the reason why we have this virus in our country and unrealistically assigning like trying to find a scapegoat in the time like this, right? That's how they address their fear right now. And so I have had conversations with my church pastors about addressing the racist attacks that have been happening to Asians and most of the people here, the co leaders and church members here that I've spoken to and even even some of my colleagues, they were so unaware of the fact that this was happening, I thought, 'Well, if that's you guys, most people in the church might not know that this happening them?' Could you consider basically integrating a conversation that this is happening so that people are aware that it's happening? So it's just something to think about, I guess.
Andy Kim: 6:01
What are ways that we could support faculty during this time? Or what are things that we could do for you and other faculty members who are working right now?
Dr. Ellane Park, PhD: 6:09
Is this for Intervarisity or...
Andy Kim: 6:12
for anybody listening a student, a staff, Intervarsity?
Dr. Ellane Park, PhD: 6:16
So to the students, I would say be gracious and patient and open minded to what you're about to receive, because the faculty members across the country, especially if you're in a small institution like Rollins, where you are used to the face to face, I think you have to be patient with how we're gonna adapt this class to the online. Most of us haven't done it, because that is not what most of these in like liberal arts colleges are about, where we pride ourselves in the small classroom environment where we get to know our students and we're in the flesh in the person interacting with you as students. And I think recognizing that some faculty members, especially if they're an older generation are less maybe tax tech savvy and them having to learn something overnight. This is not an easy task. Um, and then for the InterVarsity staff, uh, who are, I guess listening. I would say that reaching out to your faculty or students at a time like this making adaptations to what you're in person Bible study looks like online for the students to faculty, um, connecting with faculty in an online forum like this morning. Ah, the staff member in the area, Lily had planned ah, call for faculty to pray together. And it was just such a sweet way to connect. And especially for some faculty who are widows or single. Um, it was really nice way to connect with the community when physically, you might not be near someone. So if if a InterVarsity staff member has has, ah, some time to be creative about gathering, you know, whatever Christian faculty contact, you have to connect and organized, a zoom call or something to get faculty connected to ask and check in how are you doing? And to asked like, How can we pray for you? I think that's a good start.
Andy Kim: 8:08
Well, thank you. Dr Park. As you and thousands of other faculty of the country are creatively adapting, in InterVarsity we're trying to as well. We're putting together and curating all of our best tools for doing online ministry at intervarsity.org/online. We have webinars. We have articles on how you can do online ministry. How you could have Bible studies. How you can have prayer meetings. How you can even build community in some creative ways. And yeah, Dr. Park, we're really all in this together. We're figuring it out. We're building the plane in mid air. It's been such an encouragement to talk to you and can I just pray for you as we close this podcast?
Andy Kim: 8:47
Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for Dr Park. I want to thank you for her colleagues and faculty and administrators around this country. I want to thank you for the ways that they have stepped up in a time of crisis to love students beyond just the academics, but their whole person. We want to pray for students around the country, especially our seniors as they are navigating the next phase of their lives in the midst of this pandemic. We know that you are sovereign. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.
Dr. Ellane Park, PhD: 9:17
Amen.