Lessons in crisis: A student during Katrina, now a professor amid COVID-19
Carrie Dolan, kinesiology and health sciences professor at William & 玛丽, has a unique perspective on being a student during a crisis and having to leave campus behind.
2005年8月，卡特里娜飓风来袭时，她正在新奥尔良的杜兰大学读研究生。She had to evacuate at a moment’s notice and didn’t know when she would return.
“I think about that experience often now, in the midst of this crisis,” she said. “我真的很同情我的学生们所经历的一切。”
飓风来袭时，多兰已经在杜兰大学学习流行病学一年了。她刚从危地马拉调研回来，就在电视上看到市长呼吁撤离。She and her husband packed a small bag and headed up to Houston to wait it out.
“我们都觉得这是要快速滚动,所以我们会在几天内回来,但是这并没有发生,”她说。“And then the levees broke, and a few more weeks passed, and we realized we weren’t going back for a while.”
Much like her students, many of whom moved home after spring break without their belongings, she lived at home for a little while — “without my books, no computer, and no calculator, which was a big thing for me,” she said.
当杜兰大学不可能重新开放时，多兰进入了马里兰州巴尔的摩的约翰霍普金斯大学，完成了她的研究生学位。Hopkins ran on a quarter system, not a semester system, and their courses were faster paced. It was a steep learning curve.
与此同时，多兰试图让她在新奥尔良的生活恢复正常——接听联邦应急管理局的电话，关注不断变化的新闻，整理灾难的经济影响。有时很难集中注意力。
她说：“我对学生们和他们的压力程度感同身受，他们不得不转向一种不同的学习方式，然后根据这种方式进行评分。”
With her own experiences in mind, Dolan created a strategy for teaching online during this crisis to mitigate some of the stress for her students. She simplified her syllabus to focus on a few key points in depth instead of broader content more quickly. 她的课程是异步的，所以学生们可以在有时间的时候观看，这对于现在处于不同时区或无法访问可靠互联网的学生来说尤其重要。
It’s been a stretch for her as well as her students to adapt to the new online-only model, but she is determined to focus on the advantages. Her epidemiology students are in the midst of a real-life case study of a pandemic, making their data immediately relevant. She is bringing experts into her virtual classroom via Zoom, and she said she will probably continue to use video elements as part of her in-person teaching because they have been successful.
她还认为，威廉玛丽大学作为一所文科大学，在应对这场公共卫生危机的跨学科研究方面处于完美的地位。
“我认为，这正以我们从未预料到的方式推动着我们所有人前进。And I think that that can be perceived as negative or positive depending on how you want to approach it. 对我来说，我们被推向了一种积极的方式。”
Through it all, she strives to be supportive and flexible, as her professors at Hopkins were during that stressful time. She knows how hard it is for her students, especially the seniors, to be thrust into a situation they didn’t expect.
“I relate to what they are going through because I too had plans that I didn’t get to do,” she said. “I didn't have a graduation like I expected, where my family came and celebrated with me in New Orleans with Tulane’s traditions. 我不得不和这一切说再见了。”
然而，现在，因为他们一起经历了这一切，她觉得自己比以往任何时候都更接近杜兰社区。
“We built a community, even though we were spread out all over the place,” she said. “我从来没有想过我会找到另一个这样的社区，在那里我们都互相支持，无论环境如何。但我在威廉玛丽百货公司找到了。”
