In the classic BBC comedy Dad’s Army about the Home Guard during WWII, one character-Lance Corporal Jones-would respond to every week’s presumed crisis by losing his cool and frantically shouting, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” It’s a peculiarly British comedy: the series depicts one of the darkest times in recent history by both valorizing and lightly mocking the veterans and others who, too old or unwell to serve abroad (hence dad’s army), volunteered to protect the homeland from the constant yet distant threat of invasion.
In the past 2 years (2 years!), I sometimes wonder if I sound like Corporal Jones urging my colleagues-and myself-not to panic while we lurch (sorry, pivot) from in-person to online to hybrid to everything at once. Covid is both lapping at our shores and a faint dark cloud on the horizon. And it’s nothing to laugh about. I watched re-runs of Dad’s Army as a child in a (mostly) stable, (somewhat) powerful country, (largely) at peace and free of the dangers that justified Jones’s comedic panic. I live through these times without those assurances and without the benefit of hindsight. So, yeah, sometimes I panic a little.
Continue reading “Don’t panic! Emergency and/or planned hybrid teaching”
A new collection which I helped edit has just been published by the University of Michigan Press. Supporting Graduate Writers: Research, Curriculum, Program Design (Simpson, Caplan, Cox, & Phillis, 2016) is the first edited volume to discuss options in designing writing support for graduate students writing in English both as their first or additional language. You can find it on the Press’s 
Nigel Caplan 