What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?

Illustrations by Mike Carina

Essay Collection

What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?

11 short essays starting with the provocative question “What if?” reimagine the future of healthcare, education, voting, transportation, antiracism, workplace culture, and more

March 17, 2021

BU Staff

It’s difficult to imagine there could be a silver lining in a deadly virus that claimed the lives of more than 2.5 million people (including 500,000 Americans), disrupted the education of children around the world, revealed stark societal inequities, put millions out of work, caused immense stress for families—working mothers most of all—and wreaked general havoc on life as we know it.

However.

Can some good emerge from so much bad? Perhaps. From healthcare to politics to voting to antiracism and from climate change to workplace culture to the arts to education, maybe light can come from the darkness. If we seek it. One year after the coronavirus forced the closure of Boston University’s campus, and with a hopeful eye toward the future, BU Today posed this simple two-word question to experts across the BU community: “What if?” These are their thoughts.

Healthcare

What if telehealth became a widespread, permanent part of better healthcare delivery?

Telehealth has expanded rapidly to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of that expansion, patients can now address many of their health concerns safely, conveniently, and less expensively than they could have without telehealth. They can consult providers without leaving home and risking exposure to COVID-19. They no longer spend time traveling to a medical office, which means less time away from work or childcare. And telehealth may be saving health systems money and reducing patients’ out-of-pocket costs.

COVID-19 has been the catalyst for the removal of many of the existing barriers to adoption of telehealth. In my own organization, Island Health Care—a Federally Qualified Community Health Center on Martha’s Vineyard that’s part of the Community Care Cooperative (C3) Accountable Care Organization (ACO)—federal policy changes and support for telehealth were critical for our transition. Seemingly overnight, we received, through COVID-19-related emergency federal funding, technical and financial support to train staff and patients to use a totally new platform. Other COVID-19-hastened progress, such as changes in reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and federal waivers expanding reimbursement in many states, have helped broaden coverage for telehealth services. Many commercial insurance plans have also started to cover telehealth services.

The enormous changes that we have seen over the past year will likely continue. A recent patient survey with 1,800 respondents found that 50 percent of patients had used telehealth in the past three months and that 83 percent thought they were likely to use it in the future. Providers also seem satisfied with telehealth, particularly if they have input into its development, have administrative support, the technology is reliable and easy to use, and if there is adequate reimbursement for its use. All of us, it seems, patients and providers, are hoping to sustain telehealth’s considerable gains.

COVID-19 was the accelerant for widespread expansion and adoption of telehealth, but to sustain this constructive trend, we need continued investment and support of digital technologies. We now know that telehealth can reduce costs, expand access, and improve quality.

James Wolff is a School of Public Health associate professor of global health, and the chief medical officer of Island Health Care. Together with Jonathan Payne, an SPH adjunct instructor, and Justin Maly (SPH’13), he teaches the course Using Mobile Technologies to Improve Health Outcomes.

Workplace

What if working from home was embraced and more widely accepted?

One aspect of professional sports that I admire is league-level coordination and planning. Individual players cannot just decide for themselves the schedule and locations. For instance, it would be preposterous if Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez and Angels center fielder Mike Trout were currently filling out a Doodle poll to determine their next matchup, and whether the game would be played in Fenway Park or over Zoom.

Yet, in the context of business, when I propose that we ought to have less individual- and team-level discretion about whether to work virtually or from the office, people balk. Managers say, “Haven’t we learned that people want more control and flexibility, rather than less?” Well, sure, that is what people say they want. But you know what they also say they want? Shorter days, fewer meetings, and closer relationships with their colleagues. The pandemic has made those aspirations poignantly salient too.

Looking forward, we must not forget that most work today is team-based, which makes organizations like the MLB a league of teams. You cannot have each individual Eduardo and Mike making independent decisions about where, when, and how they will work without a whole lot of messiness and conflict when every other player in the organization wants to do the same.

So, I suggest companies make the time now, while they are still in pandemic limbo, to start thinking like a sports league. This would involve three steps.

First, set the “game schedule”—in other words, the events that require key individuals and teams to gather together, ideally in person. Major performance reviews, blue sky brainstorming sessions, onboarding new employees, and celebrations are good candidates for those kinds of big onsite events.

Next, the organization should create “league rules” to govern the other stuff that must happen within teams on a regular basis. This standardization across the organization will simplify the decision-making for managers and ensure employees can settle into a predictable routine. The rules should take into account not only when during the week or month, but also where and how, each regular activity should occur. For example, one league rule might be that new teams must keep cameras on during video conferences for the first month to build connections. Or that no in-person meetings can be scheduled on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons.

Finally, the organization should signal what is up to “player discretion.” Once the central activities and guidelines are established, each employee should have plenty of white space in their calendar that can be used as they see fit. In the MLB world, this would be when players do independent workouts, review game tapes with the coach, or spend time with their families. Managers should trust their employees to use this free time however they see fit—after all, if they have hired great athletes, those individuals are driven to maximize their own potential and to win as a team.

The point in all of this is not to rob employees of their autonomy, but to simplify the number of decisions and conflicts they experience in the course of determining how to execute their work. With the routines and guidelines in place, they can free up more high-quality time for work and collaboration—and also get some rest before the next big game.

Constance Noonan Hadley is a Questrom School of Business lecturer in management and organizations and an organizational psychologist.

Public health

What if we found the political resolve to finally end health inequities in the United States, to level the playing field?

The COVID-19 pandemic made for a horrific year domestically, and globally. The United States just surpassed half a million deaths. In the first half of 2020, we had a one-year drop in life expectancy overall compared to 2019. The economic consequences of efforts to mitigate the pandemic continue to have their own health consequences and will for years to come.

Can such a year ever be redeemable? In many ways, the answer is: no. Nothing makes up for the hardships, illness, and loss of life that came about because of this pandemic.

But what if we learned from the moment? What if, as a way of respecting those whose opportunities were curtailed by COVID-19, whose lives were lost, we asked ourselves: how do we use the moment to create a better, healthier world?

While COVID-19 affected all our lives, it did not affect us all equally. Far from it. Persons of color were at greater risk of COVID-19 infection and death from the disease. Employment prospects plummeted for those in low-wage jobs. Children in low-income neighborhoods were more likely to have their education curtailed. While overall life expectancy dropped, it dropped by 2.7 years for Black Americans compared to 0.8 years for white Americans.

And these differences were both predictable, and preventable. Persons of color have long borne a disproportionate burden of poor health, reflecting legacies of marginalization and limited resources that generate health issues. COVID-19 simply elevated what was already there: systemic unfairness, an uneven playing field that mapped onto health inequities. What if, therefore, we had the political resolve to finally end health inequities in the United States, to level the playing field? Doing so would be the right tribute to those lost during COVID-19, a commitment to avoid unnecessary loss of life when we live through the contagion next time.

Sandro Galea is Robert A. Knox Professor and dean of BU’s School of Public Health.

The arts

What if the arts community made experiencing galleries, theaters, and concert halls accessible to everyone?

The global pandemic has taught us that arts organizations can outreach to communities if they make it a priority.

Over the years, I’ve sat in a few too many board rooms in which someone would express a wish for more “diverse people” as audience members. To be clear, there’s no such thing as diverse people. It’s just a phrase that folks use when they worry that how they actually think about people of color might be racist. My response usually is “people know when your outreach efforts are not sincere.”

For more than a year, we have experienced takeout artistry. City and state restrictions have prevented theatres, concert halls, and (to a lesser extent) museums from welcoming in audiences. Impressively, arts organizations have found ways to deliver their innovative, inspiring, creative works to a broad, general public.

Pandemic arts outreach should continue in a post-pandemic world. Arts organizations with a commitment to access, inclusion, and, yes, diversity need to continue to create opportunities for everyone to experience the arts. Free online programming is essential. Live streaming events are needed.

The arts industries must proactively reach out to the folks who they previously overlooked or actively ignored. They need to demonstrate the sincerity of their outreach by continuing to make their offerings widely available, even as they welcome back visitors into their galleries, museums, concert halls, and theatres.

If we commit to the work of inclusion, the arts eventually will be uplifted and supported by new generations of folks who reflect the racial, gender, and socioeconomic diversity of our cities.

Harvey Young is dean of the College of Fine Arts, a CFA professor of theater, and a College of Arts &Sciences professor of English.

Working moms

What if the struggle of working moms is no longer dismissed, but is supported?

It has long been the depressing reality that our leaders love to champion work-life balance and diversity and equity with working groups, statements, and seminars. Alas, our leaders fail to implement the required actions needed for working parents—working mothers, in particular, and mothers of color most of all—to succeed. Maybe it was naivety, but we thought that mothers were valued in the academy.

We thought this even though our stories of struggle were dismissed, our accounts of bullying shrugged off, and our paychecks remained lower. Many of us thought it was us. We bought into this idea that we didn’t belong, that others have succeeded in the system, and if we just figured out how to change ourselves, how to mold ourselves into “them,” we would no longer be imposters. Then COVID-19 hit, and those ideas were shattered.

Overnight we were at home working two full-time jobs with little to no support. Some of us learned how to homeschool, others learned how to Zoom while secretly breastfeeding. We abandoned sleep and any notion of self-care so we could do our best to stabilize our families and do our jobs. Alarms were sounded, but no help came. A year has passed, we get emails now about wellness days and making sure we walk to destress ourselves. And all we can do is laugh as bitter tears of rage run down our Zoom-filtered faces.

This is the moment. This is the moment that our leaders need to make sweeping changes against a system that has long been broken. In this moment, leaders must invest in mothers. We urge our leaders to recognize that equality is not equity. For example, BU has a fantastic childcare center, where they have done a commendable job keeping children safe while learning.

Now, let us offer this key infrastructure along a sliding scale by income, making it more affordable for the entire BU community, not just those who can afford it—that is equity. Instead of simply adding time to the tenure clock, which research shows actually harms mothers, let’s take a hard look at the best way to evaluate promotion. Let us use the latest literature to guide how to judge “merit” and “impact.” Let us ask our donors for bridge funding so that we can keep research going, people employed, and get careers on track.

We describe these strategies and many more in our paper (Fulweiler and Davies, PLOS Biology). We urge BU to take decisive action now so that we can reframe the academic system and build a more equitable and sustainable future. We urge BU to be the beacon for academic mothers everywhere.

Robinson W. “Wally” Fulweiler is a College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment and of biology, and Sarah W. Davies is a CAS assistant professor of biology.

Election voting

What if mail-in voting is here to stay?

In the 2020 election, approximately 46 percent of the national population cast their ballot by mail, up from 24 percent in 2016. Do we want voting from home to stick around?

Before attempting an answer, let’s recall what we would like voting systems to guarantee: foremost, the results must correctly reflect the votes cast. Closely related are the guarantees that all and only eligible voters can cast votes. The mechanism that ensures these properties must also be transparent and simple enough to be convincing to everyone, even to the losing parties. Another crucial property is that coercing voters should be difficult: ballots should contain the voter’s true preference. Finally, voters from all backgrounds and communities should find it equally easy to cast their votes.

Voting online or by email might seem convenient and easy, but experts have grown wary of trusting retail computers with sensitive tasks like national elections. In particular, digital systems make it difficult for voters to verify their ballot’s correctness and are vulnerable to hackers and software bugs. Voting by mail, on the other hand, is a battle-tested mechanism that allows for auditing (a “paper trail”), a favorite tool of voting experts that helps detect malfunctions. This makes the vote-by-mail system the most likely vote-from-home option.

The aftermath of the 2020 election raises questions about public trust in the outcome of vote-by-mail elections, even when there is little or no evidence of actual fraud. While these are legitimate concerns, it is expected that stronger integrity checks and better auditing procedures will make voting by mail as robust as in-person voting and will regain public trust. Voting by mail also improves on the status quo with respect to access to vote; data from locations with universal voting by mail, like Oregon, indicate that voters like voting by mail and it actually increases turnout (although in a modest way). Furthermore, it apparently does so in a nonpartisan way.

Voting by mail, however, does increase the risk that voters will cast ballots that do not represent their true beliefs. Voters have less autonomy at home than they do at the voting booth. This can result in intimidated voters, either by peers or family members, or can be exploited to buy votes.

All in all, we hope widespread voting by mail is here to stay. It may not be perfect, but expanding access while retaining public trust in the system is vital to democracy. Still, keeping traditional in-person voting around is important, as it is the best method to prevent voter coercion.

Ran Canetti is a College of Arts & Sciences professor of computer science, and Gabriel Kaptchuk is a CAS research assistant professor of computer science.

Food

What if we built the US food system back better?

The US food system is broken. It is efficient, delivering abundant food calories and industrialized food choices. But medium- and small-size farmers are leaving rural areas, going out of business. Even in the best of times, more than 10 percent (and now more than 20 percent) of the US population reports lack of reliable access to nutritious, affordable food. Large numbers suffer hunger, unhealthy diets, high rates of obesity, and related chronic disease.

The COVID pandemic called attention to this brokenness

Pandemic-related disruptions to food supply chains, and devastating disease disproportionately afflicting indigenous and essential worker communities, brought attention to this brokenness.

National and local media helped increase awareness: urgent needs for water and food in Navajo Nation, dire conditions of essential immigrant labor picking crops or packing meat, and the collapse of the food service industry and related livelihoods.

Local businesses and neighbors, including in Boston and the BU community, responded generously and strategically by establishing community fridges and exchange tables for food, and grab-and-go free breakfast and lunch sites to replace school meals; restaurants pivoted to provide meals to the hungry; volunteers scaled up efforts to move donated food; and food pantries and soup kitchens networked through food banks struggling to meet the needs of increasing numbers of the hungry.

But to build back better, government agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations across the private voluntary sector will have to find additional ways to ensure that everyone can eat nutritious food now and in the future.

Some bold and unifying actions for a 2021 food plan

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack acknowledges the challenges of ensuring that food production and distribution systems, designed for efficiency, are more resilient and that abundant low-cost food is more aligned with nutrition goals.

Workable solutions will require forging partnerships with state, county, and municipal governments, the business sector, and private voluntary and community organizations, as well as universities and think tanks, spanning agricultural, sustainability, nutrition security, and food justice areas of interest.

Agricultural approaches might explore farmer-led paths to crop diversification, regenerative land-use practices, and healthy (in some cases, niche crop) food enterprises, along the lines demonstrated by Lentil Underground, a project that helped farmers transition out of high chemical and energy input wheat, corn, and soy, and into soil restoring legumes and heritage grains.

Food justice initiatives can inform the public how people of color were illegally and unfairly excluded from participation in earlier agricultural grants programs, so these deprivations cannot be repeated.

Nutrition policymakers, while continuing to strengthen and expand SNAP benefits as long as the COVID-related economic downturn persists, can also explore and pilot nutrition components that might make government programs, including SNAP benefits, encourage healthier eating and outcomes.

Embracing adequate food as a human right

The 2020s are a crucial decade for everyone to take stock, gain strength by joining with others, and take local and global action for the health of the planet and humanity. As activists like the Diet for a Small Planet and Food First author, and Small Planet Foundation founder Frances Moore Lappe have tirelessly emphasized: food and democracy go hand in hand. Justice and human rights advocates across a wide spectrum can again use food as a focus for unifying and supporting everyone’s claims for health and well-being.

Ellen Messer is an instructor in the Metropolitan College Gastronomy Program.

Climate change

What if the pandemic’s cleaner air pushed us to accelerate climate change solutions?

If society was prepared to meet the challenge of climate change, we would transition our energy sources away from fossil fuels and would eliminate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from our economy’s processes. In order to keep global warming within the Paris Agreement’s cap of 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, all of our communities—in the United States and every country around the world—need to dramatically transform our electricity, transportation, industrial, and buildings sectors away from carbon-based energy sources.

The least expensive way to create decarbonized energy is in the form of electricity from renewable resources. Falling costs for technologies like wind, solar, and batteries are making this possible, meaning the best way for us to transform our energy system away from CO2 is through electrifying each sector where possible, and modifying all other processes using clean fuel alternatives, such as biofuels and hydrogen.

As we switch to electric cars, electrify heating in buildings, and alter unsustainable industrial practices, the energy demand from the electric grid will increase rapidly. Massive infrastructure investments will be required in order to expand our electric grid’s capacity for generation, transmission, and distribution. This expansion will likely include improved regional planning and wider adoption of microgrids to manage our smaller communities’ energy loads. Smart grid technology and artificial intelligence will help maximize efficiency and manage grid demand.

Shifting our energy generation to renewables is just one of the many components for us to meet the challenges caused by climate change. The increase in capacity and shift to clean sources must be done in a way that doesn’t substantially increase energy’s cost or diminish its reliability. Creating a resilient, smart grid system to power our energy needs and wide-scale adoption of clean fuel alternatives will help us reach net-zero emissions. Improved technology for carbon capture and sequestration could potentially get us to net-negative.

Peter Fox-Penner is the director of BU’s Institute for Sustainable Energy and a Questrom School of Business professor of the practice, markets, public policy, and law, and Grant Jones (ENG’22) is a graduate student studying mechanical engineering through ENG’s LEAP program.

Education

What if we reset education to become more empowering?

The COVID-19 global pandemic has created a significant disruption for systems of education, with students of all ages forced to stay home, attend school remotely or in learning pods, or not attend school for months on end. This disruption has posed many other problems, particularly for working families with young children suddenly stuck at home. But it has also taught us that learning experiences can be created anywhere and that technology can expand learning opportunities beyond traditional classrooms.

Unfortunately, many people are already talking about how to get schools back to normal rather than considering how to take advantage of the disruption to rethink education significantly. But what if, as a result of the pandemic, we reset education, using technology and our understanding of human development to empower people in all communities to explore their interests and develop competencies necessary to reach their goals?

Education systems prior to the pandemic had not changed significantly in centuries. They operate on a model built on teaching and learning as a one-way conveyance of information, with the teacher in control of the knowledge. Most education systems are place-based (e.g., schools, campuses) and teach to community standards—standards that are often conventional and canonical. Divergent thinking or pursuing a passion is not rewarded and must often be pursued outside the system or in spite of the system. Rather than developing motivated learners, the primary functions of education systems is to sort, filter, and categorize, limiting which students get access to educational experiences. Moreover, with the exception of the finest preschool programs where children are allowed to explore, play, innovate, and develop, most content and skills taught in educational systems lack relevance and interest to students and are disconnected to the subsequent level of learning.

Resetting our idea of education won’t eliminate the need for teaching important threshold skills, such as literacy and numeracy, or the need to supervise young children. However, rather than controlling students within classroom walls, teachers would be prepared to mentor and guide learning of integrated knowledge to which young people aspire (e.g., building, making, creating, publishing, leading). Principles and more complicated ideas can be learned in service to achieving community and individual goals and may be more effectively learned in a more motivating environment.

Education systems as we currently operate them once served an important function—create common civic knowledge and provide a workforce for economic development. Today and tomorrow, education systems must promote innovation, creativity, and aspiration. It would be a positive outcome from all we have been through in the last year if we take what we have learned and use that knowledge to transform education to better advance individual and community empowerment.

David Chard is the dean ad interim of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and a professor of special education.

Antiracist health policy

What if everyone realized our nation’s health is interdependent, irrespective of the race and class of individuals?

Historical and modern policies interact to cause stark racial disparities in education, healthcare, and housing. Disproportionately, people of color are relegated to inferior schooling, medical facilities, and living arrangements. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how inadequate and overcrowded schools, hospitals, and housing fuel the spread of disease and obstruct the reopening of society. For too long, those in power have turned a color-blind eye to these inequities. It is time for that to change.

People of color have borne the greatest burden of COVID-19 in terms of illness, death, and exposure. Statistics, such as those captured by the BU Center for Antiracist Research’s COVID Racial Data Tracker, expose that structural racism is as rampant as ever. As a country, we should be motivated by this injustice to change policies, invest in BIPOC communities, and otherwise seek racial equity. We should do this to remediate historical and modern racism and because Black and brown lives matter.

Even if those in power are not persuaded by antiracist aims, they should look to their own interests. In the language of Derrick Bell, Jr., this should at least be a moment of “interest convergence.” When structures exist that marginalize and endanger certain groups, everyone’s risk increases. Ultimately, all humans are vulnerable and impacted—even if to varying degrees. In the past year, we learned that illness to one is illness to all. No matter one’s race or class, our health—our nation’s health—is interdependent. Our government, at all levels, needs to embrace that reality and implement antiracist policies. Antiracist policy is good health policy for the nation.

Jasmine Gonzales Rose is a School of Law professor and associate director for policy at the BU Center for Antiracist Research.

Transportation

What if the pandemic led to a golden age of bicycling?

Imagine Storrow Drive transformed: quiet, soot-free, no longer walled off from the Charles River Campus, with streams of e-bikes, e-trikes, adaptive bikes, scooters, and e-pod cars using the former automobile lanes as an e-mobility corridor. Alongside them are joggers, rollerbladers, and cyclists on the Esplanade who currently tolerate the noise, exhaust, tire, and brake pollution of this frontage road for the Mass Pike.

Even before COVID-19 hit, cities around the world have been rethinking the enormous space we’ve ceded to automobiles. As the pandemic hit, some, like Mayor Anne Hidalgo in Paris, saw the opportunity for a win-win by accelerating her efforts to make the city greener. Opening up outdoor spaces in Paris for people to move, recreate, and dine is a healthy and safe solution to the pandemic—and also happens to be wonderful for quality of life and economic vitality. It doesn’t look like Paris is going back to car dominance.

Massachusetts took tentative steps in this direction, opening up a few particularly redundant parkways in Greater Boston for “open streets” pilots before closing them back down to pedestrians and reverting to the automobile status quo. Boston opened up streets in the North End for safe outdoor dining, which was an instant hit. Boston and the commonwealth should go further and permanently expand the number and area of streets that are primarily or fully open to pedestrians and low-speed, zero-emission, single-person vehicles. Visit pedestrianized Downtown Crossing some time and ask why its boundaries shouldn’t be extended.

The Cummington Mall on BU’s campus is a great example of how to start. Back in 2012, BU bought up Hinsdale, Cummington, and Blandford Streets from the city of Boston, removed 136 parking spaces, and turned it into what we now call Cummington Mall. While my traffic-induced stress level melts away once I enter Cummington Mall, I see lots of ways it could be made even more inviting to people sitting, walking, or rolling. “Open space is so precious to BU,” says Gary Nicksa, senior vice president for operations, “that whenever we have the opportunity to create some calmer, more pedestrian-oriented space, we need to take that opportunity.” I can’t think of a better opportunity than now.

Nathan Phillips is a College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment.

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Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 11 comments on What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?

Tina Finnegan

March 17, 2021 at 12:56 pm

Amazing illustrations and thoughtful reflections. Thank you for putting this together!


A Disbelieving BU Alumnus

March 17, 2021 at 2:03 pm

The only thing that we have learned from a year of this “pandemic” is how willing people are to give up their rights, their liberties, their freedoms, their individuality, and their ability to live a normal life. All while rushing headlong in the direction of a country and world where governments have significantly increased control over their populations. All it took was fabricating a big enough boogeyman in the form of the virus. The lesson to learn is that we need to go back to seeing our doctors in person. Having our children learning in the classroom. Using our personal vehicles to take us where we want to go when we want to get there. Realizing that man plays a largely insignificant role in the religion of Climate Change. And generally realizing that the people who want to have nice things like better health care, the ability to go to the theater, a free time, etc. need to seek out a good education and work hard to have those things instead of waiting for someone else to “give” them to us.


1. I Agree
  
  March 19, 2021 at 8:45 am
  
  Touche’
  
  
2. Jim in New Orleans
  
  March 19, 2021 at 8:50 am
  
  I suppose the 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 was a fabrication?
  
  I do commend you on the ability to write so many words without actually saying anything.
  
  
3. Regular Guy
  
  March 19, 2021 at 5:19 pm
  
  Don’t know if you are a “Sir” or a “Ma’am.” But you are correct! I will not elaborate, but I spent 12 years in military service, and another twenty in civilian law enforcement. All of it in the name of defending freedom and liberty, and none of it to support encroachments upon them such as I’m seeing since the “pandemic.” Hopefully, wiser heads will prevail, and I predict that very few will occupy the “Ivory Towers” of progressive academia. I say this as a BU alum (CLA ’75) and the stepdad of another BU alum.
  
  
4. Don W Marion
  
  March 27, 2021 at 9:25 pm
  
  This is 1000% TRUE…Great comment!!!
  
  
Kenneth Lane

March 17, 2021 at 3:48 pm

Cummington Mall? It’s a parking lot for delivery trucks! Many of them! It was safer to bike on Cummington when it had parking meters and cars. Compare it to Bay State Road.

a serious biker


A Cynical Senior

March 19, 2021 at 12:40 pm

This is Sad!

WHAT IF the pandemic led to record high levels of depression among college age people? WHAT IF many members of the BU community have suffered (and continue to suffer) very serious losses from the pandemic? The headline reads like the pandemic happened many years in the past, as if there are not still currently depression inducing restrictions on activity and a continuation of deaths.

The pandemic continues to be an extremely tragic ongoing problem in many respects, and at this point, I think we should at the very least still be in the grieving stages. We have lost our way of life as we knew it, forever. Many people have lost family members and friends. Many people are saddened and overwhelmed. At this point, focusing on the “positives” of the pandemic seems excessively insensitive and out of touch.


william bloom

March 19, 2021 at 3:09 pm

Great illustrations


Anon

March 20, 2021 at 2:14 pm

I think this article has some interesting points and I do believe that although not everything happens for a reason, good can come from bad. However I found something of importance to note…

In the ‘Working Moms’ section I feel as though it puts childrearing solely on the mother. As we try to reach more equity, as the article mentioned, I think we should shift the conversation to both or all caregivers. Childrearing shouldn’t be task that falls solely on the ‘mom’ but split between both partners in the relationship.

This is a time of change and I hope one where the shift/work isn’t placed between the employer/mother but between employers and both caregivers. Let’s work on supporting mom by supporting all caregivers so everything doesn’t fall just on ‘mom’.


Dr. Donald E Jones, STH 69', 70'

August 24, 2021 at 6:18 pm

I am still kicking at 80 and want to encourage younger minds to continue work toward more sustainable open spaces and cleaner, healthier and breathable air in Boston.

What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?

What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?

11 short essays starting with the provocative question “What if?” reimagine the future of healthcare, education, voting, transportation, antiracism, workplace culture, and more

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What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?

11 short essays starting with the provocative question “What if?” reimagine the future of healthcare, education, voting, transportation, antiracism, workplace culture, and more

Explore Related Topics:

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