[bioundgrd] Election day

[Alan D Grossman]

Dear Biology Majors,

Next week will bring a national election in the midst of a global pandemic and a time of heightened tension and division in our society. This is stressful to many/most of us who are worrying about the election process and outcome while trying to keep up with the demands of school and everything else. We understand that life events are affecting you. They are affecting us.

On Tuesday, November 3 (election day), our in-person lab classes have been cancelled. Some faculty have also decided not to hold class that day. As has been true all semester, almost all of our classes are recorded and available asynchronously for those who decide not to attend class synchronously. This will be especially useful for those who need extra time to vote, who will be working at the polls, or who are helping to get out the vote.

In these difficult times, when there is a heightened feeling of so much going on that is out of our control, it can be difficult to cope. An approach that we find effective is to focus on things we can control. We can control whether or not we vote. We can control how we interact with and support one another, and how we work to create an open, accepting, and supportive community.

If you are registered and haven’t voted, PLEASE VOTE!  Have a look at https://vote.mit.edu/.  MITvote is "a non-partisan student organization at MIT, MITvote is currently working to increase voter turnout and student engagement for the 2020 general elections."

In addition, we encourage you to talk with each other, with friends, family, us, and/or with MIT support professionals. Information about many of the support services available at MIT is available at https://studentlife.mit.edu/support/support-services.

We very much hope you are doing OK, but we understand if many people are not-quite-OK (or really-not-OK) right now. As always, let us know if we can help, and please take good care of both your physical and mental selves.

Best regards,
Adam, Cathy, Alan



Alan D. Grossman
Professor and Head
Department of Biology
Building 68-530
M.I.T.
Cambridge, MA   02139

(617) 253-1515
adg at mit.edu<mailto:adg at mit.edu>





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20201028/2787b3a4/attachment.html