Dear AAALGrads Community,

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Welcome to the Fall 2021 issue of the AAALGrads Newsletter: “Looking Forward: A Return to Normal or New Beginnings?”

 

When we decided on the theme for this issue, we were looking towards post-pandemic times and asked authors to question some of the “new normals'' that have emerged within our academic communities. We wondered if these new normals were really “new” to begin with, if they would remain, and/or if they were ever equitable in the first place.

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In writing this letter now to introduce the Fall issue, it is clear and we are not yet able to put challenges like Zoom burnout, screen fatigue, and the ongoing digital divide behind us. Nor can we forget about sociopolitical issues that continue to divide our communities. New COVID variants have been identified and with cold winter weather upon us, it is accurate to say that we might have spoken too soon about transitioning to a post-pandemic time. We can, however, still learn from our experiences since March 2020 and discuss what we can/should carry forward. Indeed, we are still at an intersection of old versus new, of returning to "normal" or embracing new normals as we continue to navigate through one of the most trying times in recent history.

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Of course, our hope is that as a community of graduate students, we can find our way out of the lingering fog left behind by our ongoing hardships. We can do this by sharing our ideas, predictions, and suggestions for best practices moving forward. In that regard, we feel that this Fall 2021 issue delivers.

 

We are grateful to all of the authors who contributed to the issue and who were patient with us as we bounced ideas back and forth, suggested revisions, offered praise, and, overall, worked as a community of graduate students intent on producing a newsletter brimming with relevant ideas. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

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Sincerely,

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Nathan Thomas, Katherine Kerschen, Mariana Lima Becker, and Sooyoung Kang, Co-Editors

 

 

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