Email from Stephen M. Coghlan, Jr., Associate Professor of Freshwater Fisheries, Ecology Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology, University of Maine to the Provost Office describing how he incorporated the COVID-19 pandemic into his class WLE 220 Ecological Statistics in the Spring 2020 Semeste

Coghlan, Jr., Stephen M.

English

University of Maine

The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture University of Maine Departmental Records 4-23-2020 College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture_WLE 220 Ecological Statistics Description Stephen M. Coghlan, Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/c19_nsfa  Part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Higher Education Commons, History Commons, and the Medicine and Health Sciences Commons This Email is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact um.library.technical.services@maine.edu. Robin Delcourt <umprovost@maine.edu>pandemicStephen Coghlan <stephen.coghlan@maine.edu> Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 10:21 AMTo: umprovost@maine.eduDear Provost - I received an email that asked "Are you including lessons or discussions about the Pandemic in yourcourse work? We want to capture that information. Please send it to umprovost@maine.edu with Pandemic as thesubject line."I am doing so. Here is a brief descriptionI am teaching WLE 220 Ecological Statistics this semester, and 90% of my students took my WLE 200 GeneralEcology course or EES 351 Energy, Wealth, and Power course last semester and thus are very familiar with conceptsof  ecological footprint, limits to economic and population growth, planetary carrying capacity, and overshoot-collapsescenarios. Several students asked me if I thought the pandemic was "the big one", or at least the trigger that started it.I suspected (and hoped) most would want to talk about the pandemic, so I surveyed my students and asked whowanted to keep learning "statistics as usual" vs. who wanted opportunities to replace or supplement statistics-relatedassignments with pandemic-related assignments. About 1/4 want to incorporate the pandemic into our coursecurriculum, and all said that no other professor had offered to do so, so I have obliged. I have organized twice-weekly"COVID chats" on Zoom and as many as 12 students at a time have participated. I have organized "PandemicPalavers" where students can post essays or short videos of themselves discussing how the pandemic has personallyimpacted them (I posted my own to get the ball rolling) and so far 4 have done so. I have offered up to 5 assignmentsthat students can complete for either extra credit or replacement of statistics assignment, and they can personalizehow much work they want to do for how much credit received: 1) discuss how the pandemic has impacted theiremotional health / mental well-being; 2) make predictions about how they think future is likely to play out, and critiquetheir mental-modeling process that yields those predictions; 3) use the pandemic and its corollary effects (e.g.,negative oil prices, financial collapse, declining pollution, massive increase in debt and unemployment) to generateand test hypotheses about connections between our economic system and our ecosphere; 4) compare and contrastthe social-geopolitical-economic-environmental implications of this crises with similar crises from our recent history -Great Depression / Rise of Fascism / WWII in 1930s-40s and Energy Shocks / Stagflation of mid 1970s-mid1980s;and 5) compare and contrast the pandemic with the climate catastrophe.If you're curious about how students are receiving this, I am happy to provide names and you are welcome to contactthemIn addition, I sent the following email reaching out to all students in EES and WFCB inviting them to take part in myclass discussion:Dear students – I suspect that just about everyone is feeling some degree of anxiety, uncertainty, apprehension,fear, sadness, grief, etc. And why wouldn’t we? You’d have to be a sociopath not to have nega ve emo ons abouta global pandemic, economic collapse, and poten al unraveling of civiliza on. This was not the sort of future thatour system (your elders? the “experts”? ) promised you, even though percep ve thinkers have argued for someme that promises of a perpetual “American Dream” are awfully hard to keep for more than a few genera ons,especially on a finite planet. Many of you are isolated from friends and family, not able to work for even a modestpaycheck or focus on remote‐learning assignments that seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, and not in aposi on to take much control over your situa on. You paid a lot of money and made great sacrifices to a endcollege, with hopes that your investment will pay off in a few years and over your en re life me. Has any aspect ofyour expensive University educa on actually prepared you to deal with (emo onally, economically,philosophically, prac cally, existen ally) a scenario like this? Maybe you haven’t yet made a significantaccomplishment or contribu on to sa sfy your personal or professional goals, but felt on the verge of doing so,just as soon as you earn your degree or get your first job. Some of you really want to help others in some capacitybut don’t know what you can do. All of this probably makes you feel powerless and at the mercy of forces muchgreater than you. Now that you’re quaran ned and can hardly leave your living quarters, but s ll haven’t finishedyour educa on, what can you possibly accomplish or contribute? And how can you possibly prepare for such anuncertain future? Although I am not a life‐coach or personal success technician, my answer is “probably moreUniversity of Maine System Mail - pandemic https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f3cb0c1a6f&view=pt&search=all&...1 of 2 4/23/2020, 11:28 AMthan you think”, but it will take crea vity, determina on, mental for tude, and hope (hey, what’s going on here ‐Professor Coghlan is telling his students to have hope about the future? What kind of bizarro‐universe is this!?!).Now more than ever we need an en re genera on (that’s you) of cri cal thinkers to mobilize and engageproduc vely towards changing en re systems ‐ systems that have been squandering your future and, to put itbluntly, have been feeding you bullshit sandwiches while scolding you to be grateful for venison backstrapsprovided so generously. Disclaimer – that is my opinion, and I guarantee that high priests in charge of maintainingsystem orthodoxy disagree with this. You can decide for yourselves whether you’re ea ng venison or being force‐fed bullshit.Well, what can be done? I have a few ideas, and many of you have more and be er ideas, and I think we shoulddiscuss them. In the longer run, I am trying to change University curricular goals and see this as a way for studentsto contribute towards building a more relevant educa onal founda on. In my WLE 220 class I have offered somealterna ve assignments covering pandemic‐related issues and started hos ng semi‐regular “COVID chats”, and amtrying to turn this into a “teachable and learnable moment”, although impacts will last longer than meremoments. I will open this opportunity to any student who wants to engage, and although I can’t offer you “points”unless you’re enrolled in my class (but maybe your other professors will? It can’t hurt to ask them!), you mightfind this beneficial nonetheless. Right now I’m constrained to doing all of this through my course Blackboard pageand Zoom mee ngs, so I would simply give you access to my Blackboard and you can read COVID‐related pos ngsand engage in discussions at your convenience. There are several folders and discussion threads that are labeledclearly and should be self‐explanatory. If anybody has a be er idea to organize this, I’m open to sugges ons. If youare interested in par cipa ng, send me an emailTake care of yourselves –SteveDr. Stephen M. Coghlan, Jr.Associate Professor of Freshwater Fisheries EcologyDepartment of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology, University of Maine5755 Nutting Hall, Room 234Orono, ME 04469207-581-2880http://umaine.edu/wle/faculty-staff-directory/stephen-m-coghlan-jr-2/    andDirector, Maine Chapter, Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economywww.steadystate.org"It is intellectually dishonest to talk about sustainability without stressing the obvious fact that stopping populationgrowth is a necessary condition for sustainability" - Dr. Albert A. BartlettUniversity of Maine System Mail - pandemic https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f3cb0c1a6f&view=pt&search=all&...2 of 2 4/23/2020, 11:28 AM

College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture_WLE 220 Ecological Statistics Description

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=c19_nsfa

College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture_WLE 220 Ecological Statistics Description

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