Community Conversations with Provost Joseph Helble: October 28 Show

welcome everyone to our 16th community conversation addressing planning response and operations in the time of covet 19. i'm joe helbley i'm the provost at dartmouth college and i'm joining you once again from the star instructional studio in berry library on this fall afternoon wednesday october 28th and for those of you not in hanover i will note that when i was out on my early morning run today there were a few flakes of snow falling so we know that winter is indeed coming but it's still fall and i'm joined as always by justin anderson our vice president for communications from another studio here on dartmouth's campus justin and i will be joined today for a conversation focusing on the arts at dartmouth in this time of virtual and coveted restricted operations by our colleagues mary lewaleski the howard l gilman 44 director of the hopkins center for the arts marylou came to dartmouth in 2017 after serving for 12 years as the director of the new haven international festival of arts and ideas walter cunningham in his 18th year at dartmouth the director of popular music ensembles at the hopkins center the director of dartmouth's gospel choir and the producer and creator of dartmouth idol now in its 14th year and by john stomberg who is approaching his five-year anniversary as the virginia rice kelsey 1961 s director of the hood museum of art immediately prior to joining dartmouth john was director of the mount holyoke college art museum today we'll follow our normal format with a campus update live q a moderated by justin and then a conversation with mary lou walt and john about what has been happening in their areas and their plans for winter term and then ending with an opportunity for them to answer your questions directly today i'd like to provide our regular update on testing talk a bit about the logistics of voting next week and provide the latest update on our planning for the start of winter term first let's turn to testing dartmouth continues to conduct approximately 4500 surveillance tests of students and employees each week as of yesterday as part of the surveillance testing effort dartmouth had conducted nearly 34 000 tests with a total of 10 positives a positive test rate of just under 0.03 percent information continues to be updated daily on the dartmouth together covet 19 dashboard where we also report information on numbers in quarantine and isolation as well as information on our open quarantine and isolation capacity as of yesterday it showed that more than 98 percent of our quarantine and isolation capacity remains available as it has throughout the course of fall term testing this term will continue in leverone field house through the end of the term testing will in fact continue according to the same schedule for employees and graduate students even after the end of fall term through december to accommodate election polling next week however there will be no covid testing at leverone field house on monday november 2nd or tuesday november 3rd hours instead will be extended to 4 pm on thursday the 5th and on friday november 6th and leverone will also be open for covet testing on saturday november 7th from 10 a.m to 3 p.m so all of those who are scheduled to get their regular covet test next week will be accommodated testing will also continue to be conducted at williamson at dartmouth-hitchcock medical center on tuesday november 3rd as scheduled from 7 am to 3 pm now turning back for a moment to the results of the testing it's worth noting again this week that the data from our new england peers continues to mirror our own experience our new england small college nescaf peers remain in the 0.01 to 0.03 positive range with two nescat campuses slightly higher in the 0.1 to 0.2 percent positive range the university of vermont continues to see positive test results similar to ours with their latest data reporting a positive test rate of 0.03 percent and the university of new hampshire unh also remains low at 0.12 percent several research peers that we track are comparable to unh also around 0.1 percent while many colleges and universities are making their way through fall with manageable case counts the broader picture in our country continues to be different nationally positive case counts have risen 40 percent in the past two weeks in new england that number is 70 the baseline however in new england remains low relative to most of the country but the rate of growth is something as i have said before that we are watching very closely here on campus we're nearing the end of week seven of the undergraduate fall term we still have several weeks before the term ends and we do have winner ahead of us but let's take a moment to reflect briefly on what all of these numbers mean and mean for us at dartmouth despite a surge in cases nationally for more than a month and despite a substantial increase in new england these past two weeks alone as i said last week in my email to the dartmouth community the incidence of the virus has remained low in our community but this is not the time to take our eye off the ball through your efforts through the efforts of everyone in the dartmouth campus community by continuing to take precautions against the virus masking hand washing social distancing limiting gathering sizes and by continuing with regular surveillance testing we can continue to be outdoors continue to see one another at a distance and continue to maintain some semblance of human connection in an incredibly challenging year looking ahead to winter we know that we will all be spending more time indoors we also know that winter brings with it cold and flu season and as a result continuing to take precautions against the covet 19 coronavirus remains essential to support community health through the winter and to help reduce the number of dartmouth community members who would need to enter isolation for symptomatic reasons seasonal flu shots are even more important this year for the 20 to 20 for the 2020-2021 flu season dartmouth therefore expects that all members of its community including all students who are approved for winter term residential education and all employees whose work will have them on campus even for limited time periods to receive the flu vaccine i'm pleased to announce that we have already this year and administered more flu shots to date than we have each year for the last five years total thus far this year 2488 students and 544 employees have been vaccinated at dartmouth now those of you who don't regularly receive the flu vaccine may be asking how to go about it if you're enrolled in any of the cigna health plans through dartmouth college the flu vaccine is covered under your medical benefit so you can receive a free flu shot with zero copay your primary care physician can administer the flu shot dartmouth hitchcock medical center and local pharmacies also offer clinics where you can make an appointment or in some cases walk in or drive in to get your flu vaccine and dick's house here on campus is offering flu shots to students and to those employees who are currently approved to work regularly on campus dick's house flu clinics will take place at lever room field house every thursday including tomorrow from 10 a.m to 2 p.m and this will continue through thursday november 12th so if you have not yet made your way over to dick's house to get your free flu vaccine at the dix house clinic i would encourage you to take a walk over tomorrow on one of the upcoming thursdays up till and through november 12th now for any of you who may have questions about getting a flu vaccine please contact your primary care provider for more information i ask that you also visit both the dick's house and employee wellness sites information on flu shots will also be available shortly in the testing and health section of the dartmouth together covid site next tuesday of course is election day and as i mentioned leverone field house will not be open for covet tests next monday nor next tuesday so that it can be used as a polling location from 7 a.m to 7 pm as per the town of hanover all in-person voters and everyone working in or entering the polling station will need to be masked and maintain social distancing and as per the town anyone who is unable or unwilling to enter the polling place with these conditions will be accommodated through an outdoor location where absentee materials may be completed hanover town manager julia griffin who joined us for our last community conversation two weeks ago has indicated recently that the town is still registering people to vote and this includes dartmouth students and the town will continue to do so up to and including on election day the town is however encouraging people if they can to register before election day at town hall and notes that one can in fact register at town hall request an absentee ballot fill out the ballot and submit it back to the town all in one visit now over the past week we've also gotten questions from a few students regarding their ability to participate locally in addition to potentially voting in new hampshire specifically we've been asked whether students can help by being authorized election workers if they've made arrangements with a local town or through organizations such as vote saver an organization started by two recent dartmouth alumni without violating the terms of the community expectations agreement that all have signed the answer to those questions is yes as long as students remain masked and socially distanced and do not travel outside of the area they are allowed to participate in these vote supporting activities travel is still restricted for our student communities as per our community expectation documents and our travel policies which are accessible through our dartmouth together covet 19 website but as long as these policies are obeyed and followed dartmouth students are eligible to contribute to supporting election turnout now dartmouth is also sponsoring many events associated with the election both next week and through november the events which are listed on dartmouth's website and can be found through the dartmouth guide to election 2020 link provide information on a range of activities including on election night tuesday november 3rd the nelson a rockefeller center for public policy along with the office of student life the college governing board and the student assembly will be hosting an election night watch party with cbs journalist chip reid as the website indicates this will be a virtual event but some small group gathering spaces will also be available on campus by appointment on thursday november 5th there'll be an online post-election panel discussion also sponsored by the rockefeller center entitled what now moderated by assistant professor of government mia costa who teaches classes on american politics soapbox sunday hosted by the leslie center will take place on sunday november 8th a post-election conversation hosted by the rockefeller center with journalist jake tapper will take place on november 12th in a post-election discussion of the future of u.s foreign policy hosted by the john sloan dickey center will take place on monday november 16th dartmouth is also offering a podcast series supported by dartmouth alumni relations and hosted by government professor and former dean of the arts and sciences faculty mike mastinduno covering timely topics related to the election in the time of covid new 40-minute episodes are being posted up until election day and are also available through our website now looking beyond the election and looking ahead to winter term as i announced here two weeks ago and as my email to the dartmouth community last friday confirmed the start of winter term 2021 will be delayed by a few days specifically undergraduate winter term classes will begin on thursday january 7th and will end on wednesday march 10th thursday january 7th will also be the first day of winter term classes for thayer and guarini students tuck and geisel winter term programs will not be affected by these scheduled changes and will begin on their planned and scheduled dates now for those students who'll be living on campus dean of the college catherine lively has indicated that the waitlist process for on-campus housing for winter term has been completed and that all upper-year students who requested on-campus housing for winter term were accommodated specific housing room assignments should be finalized by the middle of november as well as arrival date assignments being confirmed by the middle of november a reminder again that student arrival dates will be staggered as they were for fall term students should therefore await information on their arrival dates before making travel plans for their january return to hanover now as a reminder we'll be utilizing the same arrival testing protocol as we did for fall term specifically pre-arrival testing will be conducted as it was during fall term and details will be provided to students well in advance of their anticipated late december at-home testing dates arrival week testing will also occur on days 0 3 and 7 once again as was done during fall term we anticipate however making a change in our surveillance testing protocols for both students and employees during the winter quarter for the duration of winter term we are likely to implement a twice per week surveillance testing protocol for students and for those employees regularly working on campus this increase in frequency of testing during winter term along with our expectation that everyone will receive the flu vaccine is an important component in our effort to support community health during winter cold and flu season details including winter term testing and location will be provided in advance of the start of winter term for now i simply ask that everyone anticipate that our testing frequency will increase to twice per week throughout the winter term now one final note on winter and the start of winter term before we turn to q a and then a conversation with our arts presently dartmouth is scheduled to close for the extended winter holiday break from thursday december 24th through friday january 1st for all workers other than essential personnel whose jobs require work or on campus presence to help maintain essential services as is the case every year and is outlined on dartmouth human resources website but as we head towards what seems like a distant holiday break i can see that everyone here on campus is pushing to the limit to support our operations to support our students our community nights weekends and all while juggling newly complex family care challenges working from home interrupted bandwidth zoom fatigue restrictions on travel and all of the uncertainty associated with the national global pandemic has taken its toll and yet i see everyone here at dartmouth doing this without complaining understanding the challenge committed to furthering the education and research training of our students committed to keeping our community and the local community as safe and healthy as possible given this president hanlon has therefore decided and i am pleased to announce that this year we will be extending our winter break by three days dartmouth will close starting monday december 21st 2020 and remain closed for two full weeks through friday january 1st 2021 with the usual exceptions for those performing essential services including administration of any programs ending in that period details will be provided through hr to supervisors and employees in the coming weeks but for the most of you what this means is a full two-week extended break at the end of the year to help everyone have a chance to recover from this challenging 10-month stretch that we've been working through to the dartmouth community thank you for all that you were doing and all that you have done to enable us to navigate this year this successfully to date i hope we can all use this much needed time to catch our breath to be with our families as we can to rest and reset before stepping back into what we know will be a busy winter term thanks again for all you're doing to make this term possible and to support the education of our students justin let's turn to questions uh thank you so much joe and nice to see you today um see you as well a lot of questions already um i'm i'm gonna put um i'm gonna put the first group of questions in the winter is coming category um question and most of these questions in in involve uh whether or not there will be more um social spaces for students um more mobility particularly inside because unlike the fall which has actually happened to be relatively speaking quite warm we can't have the same expectations for the winter and so what are the plans to create more space uh for students to move around um uh inside uh protected from the elements um and several people are asking about whether or not students will be able to travel from resident hall residence hall to residence hall um to to visit um their friends and then likewise unlike fall term when students arrived with everything they can carry um that's different when you're carrying shorts than when you're carrying bulky uh winter coats and boots and so how how can we accommodate for the very real uh a change in in what people are going to need when they do arrive right yeah that's so thank you justin there's a whole series of good and really important questions there and i i can't provide specifics for many of them but i can say that there are groups actively working on this we are abundantly aware that winter is different than fall and we can't utilize the outdoor spaces on a day-to-day basis certainly we can't have students or community members sitting outside in a tent having a meal most days in the winter things needs to change and so we have a group as part of the task force that is very specifically looking at ways to provide more indoor mobility and open up more indoor spaces one of the things that catherine lively the dean of the college has heard over and over again from student assembly and from the students she meets with is the absolute importance of having more indoor spaces where they can spread out and study because we recognize and we've heard this from our students that if you are bringing meals back to your room sleeping in your room studying in your room taking classes in your room you could easily spend nearly 24 hours every day in your room and we know that that's not ideal for anyone and so we are working on ways to open up more spaces that students can access to just spread out and study or go somewhere different with their laptop and not be in the room we have a group that's looking at activities indoor and outdoor that can engage more of the campus in collective activity over the course of the winter i may have said this before but i'm personally intrigued as someone who enjoys the outdoors and has learned through my time here in hanover to embrace the outdoors even on the coldest days and even on the coldest nights whether there are ways that we can structure activities that would give our students a chance to experience a part of winter in a way that they hadn't previously before coming to dartmouth and make it something special and part of the winter term experience so more details to come over the course of subsequent community conversations this fall but let me just say we are looking for ways to address all of that we are aware of the concerns and we want to find ways to make this a supportive experience for our students joe between uh the last uh community conversations and uh and today's we we we've been able to talk much more about the plans for winter term um and someone writes in asking as we get a sense of what winter term uh is going to look like do we know how that will affect the budget deficit um right that's another very good question and i i just earlier today was at a board of trustees finance committee meeting speaking about the fy21 operating budget and looking ahead to the next fiscal year and that of course is something that's top of mind we have a pretty good understanding of what winter quarter is going to look like and winter quarter is going to look like fall quarter like fall term and so the loss is that we were projecting the operating losses from lost revenue and also the increased cost associated with the measures we've put in place the extensive testing regime being an important part of that are going to continue at scale through winter term and in fact as i've announced we are going to double the frequency of our surveillance testing so our testing costs are going to increase all of that is still within the range that we projected for fall quarter and winter quarter and so right now the great unknown is spring quarter we are anticipating as of today that spring quarter will have the same reduced enrollment 50 percent on campus undergraduate enrollment as we've had fall in winter but there are some optimistic notes associated with vaccine development employ and deployment that suggests that there may be vaccines becoming accessible and on the market in the january february march time frame we don't know how the disease is going to progress over the next six months we may be able to through measures such as masking and social distancing and being better about hand washing and adhering to group size limits nationally bring this much more under control these sorts of things make it possible that we might in fact be able to bring back a different number of students spring term so that's a long way of saying winter term will look like fall term the budget projections we made at the start of fall term hold through winter term spring term i want to hold out hope that it might be a little bit different and a little bit better but time will tell um well speaking of spring term uh we have a question about spring uh study abroad programs and whether or not those uh will be happening yeah we don't yet know the answer to that question justin some of our viewers may have seen that tuck today the tuck school announced that all tuck go international travel programs would be canceled for this academic year most of those were scheduled to take place during the break between winter and spring quarters but tuck made a decision that those programs would not get go forward our task force in the group that works on travel is still exploring opportunities for spring quarter travel programs off-campus programs we anticipate being able to make an announcement by thanksgiving so students will know fairly soon whether spring quarter international travel programs are going forward but i have to say i think at this point everyone who's working on this will acknowledge that the chances that spring-term international travel will be supported are fairly small more likely we will be able to support a small number of domestic off-campus programs but even that is something that's being very carefully scrutinized and assessed by the task force so i hope to have an answer by thanksgiving but i will say in the in the spirit of transparency that it's not looking likely for undergraduate off-campus programs either at this point in time um joe uh we spent a lot of time at the end of the summer talking about uh the logistics of moving in and we've already started talking about the logistics of moving in uh in winter term uh somebody uh writes in and asks what about moving out um and and what are the logistics and what is the plan for uh for leaving uh uh campus at the uh end of fall term i i so that's a question i will have to defer to the dean of the college area to catherine lively and mike wooten because i honestly don't know justin i my anticipation and expectation was that students would be moving out as they finish in a way that they normally would we will be asking students to continue getting surveillance testing right up until the time that they depart because we would like them to know and we would like to know that they are healthy and free of coven 19 as they are stepping off campus to begin their travel plans um if they are not going to be back winter term we are asking them to take their belongings with them as we would in a normal transitional period i think because of the uh because we have some flexibility of a few days around the end of the term we are expecting that the move out will be spread over a few days but uh it's a really good question actually and so let's make a note to ask catherine and mike to communicate that a little bit more directly to students because i don't presently know the details of the plan uh well um i i i'm going to ask you this next question realizing that it also may be one that we have to defer to uh our colleague uh lisa adams uh i mentioned lisa adams because this this question is about wastewater testing um which i know is something that she uh when she was on community conversations she spoke about it with um with a fair amount of excitement um and so uh someone writes in to ask what we have learned uh from wastewater testing so far we've talked a lot about the testing um that's happening in leverone but what about the waste wastewater testing right so interestingly justin and so this is something i do know a little bit about i don't have this week's data but as of a week ago we had had no detections of the virus in the wastewater samples that we were collecting over the course of the term and that's not surprising in many ways because our surveillance testing of students living on campus has picked up a handful literally single-digit numbers of positive tests over the course of the term so the wastewater testing is very helpful and sensitive in being an early an additional early warning sign of an outbreak if there are several individuals in a residential community who are shedding virus and shedding virus at high load what our surveillance testing has done is enabled us to catch it at early stages of infection and move individuals into isolation so we haven't seen as i understand it the spikes that would occur in residence hall waste water if the students had not been moved had been allowed to remain in the residence halls and had not been moved to isolation and so in some ways it's working as expected it's consistent with our very low numbers of positive cases and our ability to identify those very quickly and move the students out and into isolation um joe we have time for for one more question before we uh transition to the guests and uh i'm gonna ask this of you but i suspect that each of our guests might be able to to chime in um because this question is about um the the student experience um during um the pandemic living on campus during a pandemic and their ability or inability to really do all of that much and and how are we thinking about you know ways to further engage um students you know outside the classroom so to speak um to keep them engaged to keep them uh energetic um to enable them to to meet and interact with both friends and and and new people so uh i'll put that question to you realizing that hopefully we'll hear answers to to those kinds of questions from our guests yeah let's uh so thank you justin and let's be sure to put that question to our guest as well and i i think just very quickly it's a it's a multi-part answer first as i answered in response to one of the earlier questions we are looking at ways to give the students opportunity to potentially gather in larger groups state public health regulations allowing during winter term certainly in larger organized structured groups and enable them to do things outdoors and do things in groups that we've not been able to do so far so we're looking to expand those activities we're looking to find ways to give students more outlets outside of the residence halls and the student programming group in the dean of the college area is also working hard at this and things that they might be able to do as are the house communities several months ago i convened the center and institute directors and mary lou and john were part of that conversation and asked them given their role of providing intellectual engagement and artistic engagement outside of the curriculum to think creatively about things that we might do to provide opportunity for students to learn to socialize and to take part in all that this campus has to offer they've all come up with some pretty creative things and i know they're thinking hard about how they can continue and build on that during winter and so i'm optimistic about there being more opportunity for students to engage in and participate in outside the classroom in january and february and and i think we should turn to our guests and ask them what they're doing specifically and so with that and that question thank you justin and thanks to all who wrote in with some some really good and interesting and thoughtful questions including one that i i couldn't answer but we will work on getting back to you with the details on that i'd like to turn now to ask my three colleagues to to join me so appearing with us on the screen should be mary lewaleski who's in our fourth year as the howard gilman 44 director of the hopkins center walt cunningham who is in his 18th year at dartmouth as the director of popular music ensembles director of the gospel choir and producer and creator of dartmouth idol and john stomberg who is in his fifth year as the virginia rice kelsey 1961 s director of the hood museum of art so john walt mary lou great great to see you all thanks so much for for being with us today thanks for having us joe so i'm going to ask a few questions i'm going to ask questions of each of you and move around a little bit rather than going in any particular order as you know if you've seen prior versions of community conversations and then i'm going to turn it back to justin in a few minutes and we'll see what questions are on the minds of our audience and so i with that background i'd like to start with you first mary lou and just speak a little bit about what's been happening at the hop we all know that performing arts organizations everywhere have suspended live performances because of covid and my recollection is in fact the last live performance that the hop conducted i remember being with you mary lou and you walt at the finals of dartmouth idol back in march but rather than standing still when we had to take the extraordinary step of closing the hop to live performances you and your colleagues pivoted really quickly and created the hop at home series so can you tell us a little bit about that what were you hoping to accomplish what inspired you and how has it worked out sure joe thank you and yes march 6th it was and um actually the that final uh dartmouth idol event gave us a little bit of a springboard into what the future might look like that night dartmouth idol was oversold and we knew that the pandemic was emerging so we offered uh live streaming to anyone who had a ticket if they wanted to stay home and see the event and it was a very high quality streamed event and um the good news was that the audience actually grew because there were so many people who joined us online that gave us an instinct that coming together being a community together and sharing the things that we love was going to be an important thing for us to do going forward so very quickly um rather than thinking about what it was we were programming we were thinking about how we program how do we program in a way that creates the sense of community that we always have when we are together in the hopkins center was our primary goal so our goals were how do we bring together our far-flung isolated community because at that point we had all been dismissed into our our worlds of isolation how do we uh how do we have a live or seemingly live experience that's participatory and that was distinctive at that point there were many many opportunities to see high quality artistic uh work happening from our the archives of famous organizations all around the world but we wanted ours to be dartmouth-centric so how could we bring our community together and make it feel like it was a dartmouth experience and um and so we went about developing ways in which we created live experiences that our community could come together and and chat in the chat while they were experiencing watch parties and really interact and you know lo and behold what we learned was that there was almost a larger audience for hop programs beyond the upper valley than there was in the upper valley and in some ways it was also some of our upper valley community that just wasn't mobile enough to get to the hopkins center so right now we know that uh over 50 of our audience for hop at home which is the virtual stage that we created uh comes to us from beyond the upper valley and 10 comes from international communities so alumni students uh parents of students all coming together in a way that we wouldn't be able to uh convene if we were in the hopkins center only well that's really interesting mary lou and so you've in many ways extended your reach or extended the reach of the hop because of being forced to make this pivot and doing it creatively exactly thank you so walt i want to turn to you next with a quick question although i am going to ask you about idle i want to start with a question about the the gospel choir it's an incredible ensemble long standing at dartmouth you've done so much with them through the years but it's it's not an understanding an understatement to say that having to operate in this coveted environment where we can only get small groups of students together have to do things virtually makes it harder to work with ensemble groups that are singing groups tell us a little bit about how you've been working with the choir in the past eight months are you doing everything virtual or do you have a mix and how is it coming together well first joe thanks for having me i appreciate being invited um yes we've been totally virtual the the realization was that doing synchronous music making was really not a reality and so we had to embrace how do we go about providing the same opportunity for artistic creation and to do it in a way that respected our limitations and our realities and so interestingly enough the gospel choir like my colleagues um with the other ensemble continued meeting on a weekly basis in fact we met twice a week and what we learned is that the meeting was particularly important for providing for our students and our constituents a chance for connectivity and community and i think that what we realized as ensembles we could provide that differentiation for our students you know we realized that while we had to be socially distanced did not mean that we had to be emotionally disconnected and so we continued to gather and continue to provide opportunities albeit um in the virtual world but interestingly enough you know i'm pretty proud that my colleagues and i had the opportunity to still produce these virtual artistic offerings and so when you think about the end of your events joe particularly the conferral degrees as well as the um baccalaureate my colleagues and i coast dartmouth wind ensemble the symphony glee club and the dartmouth dance ensemble we collaboratively had an opportunity to produce all the artistic content for end of year so the virtual um um gathering while it did have its limitations did have its silver linings a few of those if i may elaborate um the first of which is that we can involve like mary lou said our constituencies grew so people who could not be on campus because they're either off term or a lot of the alums we just saw that expansion happened exponentially and these were people that longed to stay connected but now this virtual world provided an opportunity to do so another silver lining in this virtual environment was that our upperclassmen could rise to the level of leadership because in this opportunity not only could they assist with outreach but they could also assist in this virtual world when we go into various breakout room opportunities they could be in leadership capacity with that so i think it's been a very interesting challenge but we've been able to really rise to the occasion and and now in this hybrid opportunity we've allowed first paradigm shift and my colleagues who are in person can assist those of us who are not and by utilizing the the tent capacity that you've so generously set up they can meet with students and can connect the virtual students with people on campus so it's working out for us right that's fabulous so i didn't realize that the gospel choir was using some of the tents to combine the virtual and the live that's great that's exactly the kind of thing we hoped might happen spontaneously and creatively when we put these tents in place thank you walt so so john let me turn to you and i want to ask actually first about one of the things that you've been doing outside of the hood and that's engaging utilizing public art as a way to get the community to explore and think about the art around them so tell me how that came about and they're one or two interesting things you've learned in setting up this this programming through the hood sure so first of all the community is the key word there the re-emphasis on public art came through our work with k-12 education and teachers in the community because that's really one of our big audiences as families in the upper valley and we realized they couldn't come into the museum how were we going to continue to help out with the teaching work that the teachers in the area do and of course it came to us that of course everybody can go outside and look at this artwork that we have on campus at the same time we're getting a new great sculpture by ursula writings bard which is now standing next to rollins chapel it's a tremendous piece and as we worked further we realized that of course our students on campus as they are spending 23 and a half hours a day in the dorm room needed to get out and have that kind of interaction with art before the museum was opened up again so we've been setting up rather casual encounters with the public art in small groups it's a member of the hood staff and three to five people walking around and having deep conversations about art and the context of public art and i think it's been really enriching for a lot of people and we've also been able to share that with hanover schools lebanon schools and other people in the area who can actually come in stop their car and go engage with these works of art great so thank you john so i'm going to come back to you with my next question and i'm also mindful of time and want to make sure we give the viewers a chance to ask questions so i'm going to ask each of you one more question i'm going to ask you to be brief in your answers and then we're going to turn it back to justin so john starting with you i know you've done we've talked about this over the course of the past few months some pretty creative things to engage small groups of students and even allow them to have access to the museum off hours tell me tell me a little bit about what inspired that and how that's working well we got to thinking okay we can't have 300 people in the museum at once we can't have that kind of mass uh visitation but we can make some really great experiences for a few people at a time so we're open for about five people at a time they set up sometimes it's just two people it could be a date and they get to either have a really mediated tour like i myself am doing these tours and i can talk you know my big surprise i can talk for a long time about the art or i can let them go and they can just have their own conversations but the idea is to let people feel like they really own the hood because one of our mantras has always been this museum is here for the students and as you can see there's lots of room uh so that's really what we're trying to do is have small groups have great experiences so a curated tour led by the director that sounds fabulous to me will that continue during winter term and how do students sign up absolutely they can sign up online uh we're using eventbrite so as mary lou and walt were saying we've really kind of adapted to the whole virtual world as well and so we've had to start using new tools that we didn't used to have to use that these guys are long familiar with like eventbrite uh but they can sign up and have a tour and uh so far it's been a lot of fun at least for us great thank you john so mary lou let me turn to you next and as we met over the summer and talked about the challenges imposed by the quarantine that students had to encounter initially you immediately raised your hand and said the hop can partner with the montgomery fellows program with the dickey center with with rocky with others around campus and we will put together programming for those first two weeks and you had a great series of events welcome week events where you brought in alumni who were active in the arts in in journalism what brought that about how did that go and are you thinking about doing anything like that winter term yeah it was really an exciting opportunity for us to not only bring in uh broader audiences but interesting perspectives to the conversations our alumni were so generous we collaborated with jake tapper and rocky and chris miller and phil lord with the film society and and then montgomery fellows with trevor noah i think first and foremost it was really wonderful to be able to have students involved in those events all of them had students as the lead questioners and hosts of those events and so there was a sense of agency among the students to bring those events together which was really fun um and the other thing was that we had an opportunity to see these uh alums and these speakers from a different perspective so although jake tapper was with us to talk about his book outpost and the film that followed we got to hear about his work from a political perspective and a governance perspective by collaborating with rocky so those are the kinds of things we want to do again they were wildly popular and among some of our most attended and viewed events and um now we're working on things that we might do with collis programming board to try to have some recurring social events that were that are available in the fall and then into uh the rest of the fall and then into the winter term in fact we're launching something called tent cop thursday nights are always sort of fun nights at the hopkins center so we're gonna do a three-tenth visit starting on thursday this thursday night celebrating the day of the dead and uh we're gonna hopefully celebrate many many things over the course of the winter term as well on thursday nights in various places so um yes those collaborations have been great we've been able to leverage a lot of resources in terms of doing things together and uh generating larger audiences and deeper exchanges that's great mary lou so are the details on the day of the dead tent hopping program on your website how can the student find out about those absolutely website yep perfect thanks so well let me let me turn to you at the last question before we turn to justin and i can't let you go without asking about dartmouth idol it's certainly on my mind i'm sure it's on the mind of many so it's very different this year it's been virtualized and i understand that you have is it the semi-finalist is it auditions or semi-finalists coming up soon but won't you tell us just very briefly about that and how it's going to work and how students can watch sure so we've got auditions coming up and typically dartmouth idol unfolds in the winter but we realize because of it being virtual we need a larger time frame so we're going to do is we're going to start auditions in fact you can start auditioning with submitting a virtual audition whether you use your phone iphone computer you submit it you can go to the hop website to find the link to do so and then what we're going to also do joe is because it's virtual we're going to bring people behind the veil so to speak so they can come and see what this process looks like so we're going to create compilation videos to give people insight as to what is happening then joe on november 13th will be dartmouth idol semifinals virtual and again that's going to be part of the hop at home offering and people can come and see and still be able to vote online and then finally that is all happening when we finish in the fall term we will identify the six finalists and we will go into the winter and the winter term will start an episodic approach to dartmouth idol finals where you're going to see dartmouth idol in episodes again all being virtual and we're creating much of the experience in the filming so we're excited tell folks that they can still be involved it's still going to be the usual dartmouth idol experience but yet done virtually all right that's fabulous thanks so it's been incredible walt to see how it's grown over the 16 years that i've i've been here and i look forward to something new and creative every year so i'm really looking forward to seeing what unfolds this year thank you so thanks all of you for the discussion i now want to turn to justin who will be relaying some of the questions that have come in from outside justin uh thanks a lot joe um and i'm just gonna i'm gonna stay with walt and stay with idol because um that is such a popular topic and and uh one question which actually is a question that i had um uh in addition to the person who sent it in um this person acknowledges that idol is usually if not always sold out so by doing it virtually does that mean that that uh an unlimited number of people will be able to see it and an unlimited number of people will be able to vote again the silver lining of virtual the answer is yes and so that's particularly exciting because we're not limited by the confines of our inpatient even though marilu mentioned we had streams offered in previous years so yes it's unlimited people will be able to partake and again we want folks to not only be able to take part of the actual end goal of the show but also we want to give them insight into the making and the process which also can be incredibly entertaining um john i'm gonna i'm gonna go to to you um uh with a question about um about visiting the museum you clearly you are in the museum right now uh unless you have the best office uh on campus um uh but there uh a person writes in asking about access to the museum is the museum open um and also can the public go to the museum right now yeah so we have a very very limited occupancy possibility for the museum right now and we're reserving it just for students so for now we are open but only for students the numbers are so tiny that to turn away students would be heartbreaking so we we ask everybody to have patience with us every exhibition is being extended even the really important uh ones reconstitution foreman relations these are you know uh canon busting major exhibitions they're all being spread out to be year-long events so everybody will be able to see them eventually nobody will miss our shows um mary lou a question for you um you know one of the things that we have asked uh faculty uh when they come on is you know what they have learned during this experience by uh teaching virtually that they're gonna bring with them uh to the classroom when when they ultimately return um and somebody writes in and asks whether or not like how you will incorporate uh a virtual when you put return to live performances with a big audience is are you thinking about this as a way to expand the reach of the hop and to share what's happening with the hop with more people on a on a regular basis absolutely i think this experience has changed us uh uh fundamentally changed us forever and it's that's a good thing because it creates increased accessibility so i can see us doing uh live performances in the venue with streamed opportunities at home i could also see us doing a lot more conversations with artists and a deeper look at the behind the scenes kinds of things that even walt is talking about as it relates to idol but also visiting artists who might be here for a longer period of time making things with our community and letting our community sort of visit backstage and look under the hood a little bit and see what the what the sausage making looks like so i i'm really i'm really hopeful about the future because i do think we'll be able to engage more people more directly um walt uh a question for you um and this is a really really good question um i wonder if walt cunningham has been inspired by this very strange time when pulling together songs and themes for his singers wow um that's a great question and i'm glad someone asked that because what this has caused me to do with my particular artistic offering is to be more intentional and purposeful obviously you know it's not just around quarantine but it's around the treatment of underserved um underrepresented communities and the inequities and injustices and i have been inspired and and so to speak um what i try to do thematically i've tried to do in the past but more intentionally now in the in the spring we looked at because of the fact that we were socially distanced i looked at trying to pick songs that had messaging around connectivity and unity now in the fall and we're looking at greater levels of divisiveness and we're looking at a challenge where our country is divided i've looked at um a message of healing and i was particularly motivated by the mother of jacob blake um who said you know where she clearly went and could have said i'm praying for healing for my son when she was on television she said i'm praying for healing for our country and so um it has inspired the work and it clearly is the impetus behind everything that i'm trying to do moving forward is how can it be thematic and be impactful and hopefully ultimately bring about meaningful and lasting change so yes it has absolutely um john if i could go if i could go back to you uh a questioner is asking about how uh faculty um are able to use uh the hood collection um to teach students when folks can't physically be in the hood all together so the hood is based around the idea that object-based learning is very effective learning the virtual shift hasn't changed that in fact you know we had professor caviaka in here recently doing three-dimensional modeling live with their students and by the way the cinematographer was one of our museum guards so who is now a cinematographer um so we we have this whole shift in what people are doing here but uh we have turned the bernstein center for object study into three studios where we can do live filming and we like to joke that it's now the bbc the bernstein broadcast center um mary lou um uh questioner asks about um students who are uh who are performing or rehearsing um uh in in the hop um how are the safety precautions affecting students ability to do that you know i remember when we were talking about coming back in the fall we talked a lot about the importance of allowing students who are in the performing arts in the performing arts to be able to come together because it was it was such an essential aspect of of studying the performing arts and being in the performing arts so what are the safety precautions like at the hop to enable that to happen well right now justin we do have some uh our students performing together live in our tents and our singers actually have what we call broadway masks which are designed for an additional catchment to make sure that they are well protected and of course distancing is a big part of that we're in the process of trying to figure out how to translate that to an indoor environment for the winter our wind players are also uh looking at ways to bag uh the bells of their instruments and uh their vocal their their mouthpieces so uh again that is happening in the tents now and we're looking to figure out how to translate that into the winter experience the other thing is that we we do have a lot of people on a lot of students who love our workshops and they have been so successful in reaching out to students and delivering maker kits to students directly and then hosting talks and demonstrations so that we can still have jewelry and ceramics and woodworking going on so uh it's still at a distance but we're getting closer and closer and uh learning the science behind it um walt i'm gonna go i'm gonna go back to you uh with a question about um uh what's sort of a two-part question one is how how are you motivating uh students right now during this period and is it something that you have to do like how are you doing that virtually basically how do you motivate students um inspire students uh to perform uh uh in in this sort of unnatural way for for for uh groups that come together uh literally in the same place uh to to to perform so how are you handling that again another very good question um i think that part of the thing is i think something we can't take credit for i think art and involvement in our performance is motivating and of itself um i think that we are the differentiation from in these students when you're looking at the opportunity of being zoomed for long days i think that they come into our world and it's kind of a breath of fresh air and not to say that academic experience is not one that's refreshing but nonetheless when they can come into our world it's something different so that's the first aspect but secondly um i think by tapping into deeper purpose of our work you know particularly i know i try to tap into the the um activism aspect of much of what i'm doing personally so i try to make it not be just about the deliverable of a music or an art product but what is the impact that that particular offering has and hopefully tapping into a deeper sense of the purpose of their work beyond the experience but i think the other thing we have to do is recognize that this virtual execution is hard um it's new you know many of these participants for the first time have to self-record themselves using technology and software and data that they've never done so we give them permission to say this is hard this is not comfortable and what we do is by utilizing our leadership our student leadership our alum leadership each other we we walk them through we provide tutorials we create learning guides and we just try to inspire them and say you know something try it we get it's going to be hard we acknowledge that but we just try to encourage them and so that's kind of the way we try to approach it and hopefully it's been working um we have time for just one more question and i'm going to go back to you uh john for for for the last word here um this is not so much a question as an observation but but it's so interesting that i can't help uh but bring it up uh someone writes in and observes that you know for your first uh two or three years here the hood was closed for renovations um and now we find ourselves in the pandemic and you continue to be somewhat limited uh in how you uh interact with the public and with students and share the hood's work so um uh how do you feel about that and how are you how are how are you reckoning with that and uh might you write a book about this experience uh first i don't want to get known as like the museum director for closed museums i mean that would really be a terrible place but honestly i think that the belief that the hood is not just a place it's an idea it's an experience it's a series of engagements and there's lots of ways to get that experience you know when we were closed for renovation we had the hood downtown and we had other galleries we also had public art and it's the same thing now and we have discovered that the virtual isn't airsoft it's simply virtual and it's a really amazing experience and it has allowed us to include a much broader audience uh well thank you for that and the virtual is an amazing experience um so i think we'll we'll end right there um thank you john thank you mary lou thank you walt for everything that you are doing for dartmouth and for dartmouth students um it's so appreciated [Music] thank you yeah my pleasure thank you for having me likewise it's been it's been a joy thank you justin and mary lou john and walt thanks again to the three of you i've had the pleasure and privilege of working with each of you over the years and it's really exciting and in many ways inspiring for me to see how you are creatively engaging students in the broader community here on campus and also at a distance and not just keeping the art alive but thinking about new ways to expand the audience and expand the reach of the work that you do so i'm no pressure really looking forward to seeing what you're going to put in front of us come winter term thanks so much so that's all everyone for this week's episode of community conversations thanks so much for joining me and joining us we'll be back in two weeks excuse me on november 11th wednesday november 11th and my guest will be president phil hanlon and we'll have an opportunity to have a far-ranging conversation about leadership in the time of covet about the budget challenges that dartmouth has been working through and making good progress on about his long-term vision for dartmouth as it heads in the seventh year of his presidency and also a chance to talk with him a bit about what it's like teaching a math class virtually in the midst of covid this fall term so thanks again everyone stay healthy and stay safe and i look forward to seeing you again in two weeks

Channel: Dartmouth

Views: 1,118

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: Rx6uLVVNPGU

Length: 64min 10sec (3850 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020