It is Thanksgiving week already. Time just files… It is time to be thankful for a lot of things in life. I will not do justice by touching on everyone and everything, but I am going to give it a try, not in any particular order.

LTS Staff – I am so fortunate to have the best colleagues in LTS that anyone can hope for. Their dedication to work, loyalty to the institution, and concern for students are remarkable and it all came to light even more and into the open during the COVID crisis. The sheer increase in work to support all community members through the COVID crisis despite having to deal with various issues at home was significant.  The way everyone dealt with it and continued to contribute in so many different ways towards the operation of the College was fantastic. Just when we thought it was all coming to an end, new challenges popped up in the Fall and the team continued its commitment. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Senior Administration – I want to thank the members of the senior leadership group, especially president Johnson and Provost Shennan (to whom I report), for their confidence in me and LTS  and for the support they provided to me and LTS during the last 20 plus months, without which we would not have been able to do a lot of what we did. During these times, confidence that we can get it done has a lot to do with how we deliver, through innovative and creative ideas.

Wellesley Community: There were so many changes when COVID struck that the community members had to adopt. We could not have done it without them willing to accept and adopt. Their patience through this period and adoption of new methods and technologies was remarkable. On a positive note, even though we are in a different place this Fall than before (in terms of campus presence vs remote), most faculty, staff and students have decided to contiue the use of vertain technologies where appropriate!

COVID Testing subgroups – I was a member of a few of these subgroups and led the COVID testing logistics (including scheduling, test reconciliation, results processing and all communications). The collaboration from administrative staff and the faculty in these groups was phenomenal and a lot got done qickly and decisions were made swiftly. I want to thank everyone in this group for working so well together towards a common purpose! It showed us all the value of good collaboration and how much we can accomplish.

Technologies – It is weird to thank technologies here, but they deserve it. Zoom was a huge factor in us being able to support our community, be it remote learning or remote work. Similarly, Workday, was another one that helped the continuity of work, multiple registrations for students, ability to pivot quickly as we changed our plans for summer as well as term bassed semesters. It also helped us collect proof of vaccination in a very straightforward manner quickly. Verizon MiFis were another major contributor to our success as we distribuuted several of them to students who needed reliable internet connectivity at home. Finally, just imagine how life would have been without the internet during this crisis, so, thank you, thank you, thank you to the internet. What a brilliant innovation!

Friends – Thanks to our friends all around the globe, we felt connected and many conversations in the virtual world was filled with reminiscneces and laughter. It broke the constant news cycle showing the detailed analysis of how many COVID cases and how many deaths.

Masks, Sanitizers, Social Distancing – These protocols saved a lot of our lives, so how can I not thank them! Masks not only helped me during these times to not get infected with COVID virus, but they also helped me avert issues relating to allergies. We know that those of us who religiously followed these protocols fared better during the criisis than those who did not (well, thats what the science and data shows, and if you don’t believe in those, I am sure you will take issue with this statement!)

Family – I am forever thankful to my immediate family who had to accommodate so many things during these difficult times. There were three of us in the house, working all at once, who all had to deal with voice interferences, shared bandwidth, so on and so forth. Because of my responsibilities with testing and results processing, I was up a lot at late nights (when results were received) with my cell phone constantly making different noises… And though it was disruptive, they were understanding and did not complain!

And, after some 30+ years, we are formally beginning a new tradition. We will no longer be celebrating Thanksgiving the way we have been doing it for the last 30 odd years, when we had several friends join us for the celebraiton. Some had been a constant presence all these years, some have been coming for the past 15 or so years and several others had joined for just a few (especially the grad students from Wesleyan). It is going to be just our immediate family for now. It will be very quiet and simple…