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IIPP Head of Teaching, Dr. Kate Roll, shares how our students are being supported during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as how they are adapting to new ways of teaching at this time.
7 April 2020
We have now entered our third week of moving the MPA programme – from lectures and seminars to assessed presentations and placements – online. As an institute focused on innovation and, so often, digitalisation, both faculty and students have embraced the challenge and kept the MPA energised and effective across 12 time zones and newly salient digital divides.
The move online not only changes how we teach, but also how we maintain a community of scholars. As we have lost the physical spaces in which we connect – the classroom, a hallway after a talk, the kitchen at 11 Montague before a panel – we have rebuilt these online. Our Research Fellow Ville Takala is hosting free-wheeling Friday afternoon discussion sessions. MPA students, faculty and doctoral candidates are gathering online to brainstorm research into the crisis response. Last week, we held an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session with Mariana Mazzucato; the answers covered economics, careers and gender, closing with a call to believe in humanity and in love.
Despite our physical isolation, these moments have felt personal and affirming. We are asking and being asked how we are feeling, how we are experiencing this upheaval as well as what policies and new, more just futures could emerge. On video, we are meeting each other’s cats and children, seeing partners pop by in unexpected cameos and gaining quick insights into each other’s lives – the personal worlds that are so often considered irrelevant to academic practice and education.
As the term comes to an end, we mark the success and recognise the work involved in moving the teaching online. Moreover, we take hope in the vigorousness, commitment and passion of our student community, which neither distance nor a disrupted internet connection could diminish.
Very best wishes,
Dr. Kate Roll
IIPP Head of Teaching