It’s Fall 2020 and we are living through a global pandemic. We are witnessing and experiencing racial violence and police brutality. Our friends and colleagues have been laid off or furloughed. We are worried about our own financial security. Our campuses have become labs for coronavirus experiments. It’s a consequential and contentious election year. The job we applied for is not the job we are doing. We have pivoted in our roles more times than we can count. We have had to take extraordinary new measures both personally and professionally. We are being pulled emotionally and physically in many different directions. So, how do we continue to show up? How do we show up for our students, our colleagues, our supervisors, our teams? And, ever so important, how do we show up for ourselves?
This town hall format around “working through Fall 2020” will be moderated by the TPE Committee. Our personal and professional lives have never intersected more and we cannot “leave our personal feelings” at the (virtual) door. We can be grateful to have a job while still acknowledging how hard this all is to endure. The TPE Committee, led by Chair Brenda Ice and Chair-Elect Kirby R. Gibson, will provide brief thoughts around showing up for work during a time of national distress before opening the session up for questions or comments. This town hall is a place and space to connect with other student affairs professionals and to share your feelings and experiences around showing up in fall 2020.
Presented by the 2020-2021 TPE Committee
Chair: Brenda Ice - Assistant Dean, Director of Campus Life - Scripps College
Chair-Elect: Kirby R. Gibson, Assistant Director of Residence Education, Michigan State University
