I deliberately did not celebrate day 100 yesterday, because I think this count is becoming less relevant to my transition. It's still valuable to mark the passage of days, I think. And to be reminded that things don't change unless I change them. But if I want to disconnect my own pace of change from the extremely slow-moving situation at my university, I'm probably better off not paying that much attention. Just as I'm better off not being pulled into the current crises of the news cycle.
One thing I did do yesterday was write a quick email to my colleagues in the faculty, to get a little feedback on the state of people's thinking about initiatives such as OER and the Z-Degree. I’ve had a couple of meetings over the previous couple of days, to talk with people who I knew were interested because we had worked together on the project earlier in the spring and summer. They seem to be interested in carrying the project forward in some way, despite the uncertainty at Bemidji State. All the reasons remain, for pushing forward with reducing student textbook expense. We need to build enrollment and reduce equity gaps, and students need a break on textbook costs that average $1,000 per year (probably a low estimate). With the North Star Promise beginning next fall, which will subsidize the tuitions of students with family incomes less than $80,000, it's the right time to be able to tell them, "not only can you come here tuition-free, but you're not going to have to choose between textbooks and groceries."
I've received a fair number of responses so far to my emails, even though yesterday was a holiday. I think the information I gather will be useful in helping understand where there are pockets of support and interest in the project. And I've already seen some that engage with the confusion and chaos of the current situation, either to suggest delaying or to urge moving forward. It will be interesting to see how widely these ideas are supported. One of the ideas that came up, in the conversations I've had with my colleagues the last couple of days, has been about trying to get an extension of the "exploratory" phase of the Z-Degree project, to give us time to actually see what programs are or aren't going to continue, what departments will look like, who will be in charge, and whether the people left behind after the retrenchment (I'm talking about it as if it's the rapture!) will be interested in continuing in this direction. I'll talk with my friends at the system office about this next week, when we meet.