Echoes of 71 Days before the Opportunities of the Next 1,461

Nature has a way of amplifying human emotion in times of joy, sadness, and crises. On November 9, 2016, the sky over Arcata, California, was a dull gray with dark, foreboding lines that usually precede the onset of a storm, and a mournful silence permeated both town and campus. Walking across Humboldt State University’s campus that day was a disquieting experience. With a student body of roughly 8,000, and a faculty of over 500, it was reminiscent of a scene from the Twilight Zone where the main character wakes up to discover that she is the only individual in the entire town. Walkways were vacant during the transition periods between classes. On the few faces that were making their way between buildings, there was a sullenness that was evocative of the faces of former colleagues on the morning of September 11, 2001. Stillness encompassed the people and buildings; a state of eeriness had taken hold of the campus. By chance, a mentor and colleague was making his way to class; a deep forbiddance was evident on his face. All he could muster to say in response to the results of the election the night before was, “It’s like a family member has died.”

Fate had dealt a malicious hand to the campus, as it was also the day for the fall semester “unConference,” themed “Get Uncomfortable at the unConference.” An event that, under usual circumstances, would have been attended by students, faculty, and staff listening to their peers give five-minute lightning talks on activities, experiences, and research, was transformed into a somber gathering of presenters and organizers. Presenters tried to rise to the moment and turn the sparse audience’s thoughts away from contemplating the reality of the world after noon on January 20, 2017. This herculean task was hindered by colleagues, who the day before had posted images on Instagram of their tears of joy brought on by the casting their vote for the first woman presidential candidate but who were now holding back tears as they put all their efforts into just making it through the day. During intermissions, normally filled with the awarding of door prizes, small groups formed to talk and work through the events of the proceeding day. Impromptu talk therapy emerged as the uniting exercise for participants as they prepared to leave the breached sanctuary of blissful academic obliviousness for the reality of the mathematics of the electoral college.

The shock of the 2016 U.S. presidential election reverberated across campuses around the country and locally. Course lectures were abandoned in favor of giving students a place to process, and classes were canceled as the stages of grief took hold. In frenzied calculations that were reminiscent of Alan Turing’s decoding of the Enigma machine, tenured and adjunct faculty fretted on how to transform the Electoral College vote to reflect that of the popular vote in a futile psychological exercise to push back on political reality. In stark contrast to the portrayal of critical thinkers and scholarly researchers, academics took on the mantle of the undergrad heading into his final exams with the only hope of completing the semester successfully being a perfect score on every test. A frenzied euphoria propelled thoughts into actions, whether they were constructive or futile, in vague and varied attempts to make sense of the nonsensicalness that was churning into reality. Caught up in this chaos were students, who, much like the faculty, were trying to extrapolate answers and a course of direction in a dazed state following the full-frontal blow to the world that they had known. Though they were not consuming every line of rhetoric and interpretation of the impending transition as a call to action like many of their faculty, they were trying to find outlets for their frustration. A comment from a student in a course evaluation asked a simple question: “Why did you cancel class the day after the election? I needed to hear from you that everything was going to be OK.” The class had been listed as canceled...