Portland State Magazine, Spring 2021

faculty voices Have a question you’d like to ask Portland State’s faculty? Email psumag@pdx.edu WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM COVID-19? RYAN PETTEWAY Assistant professor, OHSU-PSU School of Public Health COVID-19 has revealed that too many of us have been sleeping our way through the last 400-plus years, waking only when it’s convenient and comfortable. We couldn’t have otherwise arrived in this moment without the willful ignorance that enables folks to conclude COVID-19 is the core problem.Te same ignorance would encourage us to believe “returning to normal” will make everything OK again. “Normal” is how we got here. It’s also made it clear that folks are capable of compassion, empathy and solidarity on a level that helps us to imagine what normal was supposed to have looked like all along. Mainstream public health would have you believe that a vaccine is going to save us. It is not. It will certainly help. But if we want a future in which crises like these are averted entirely or substantially mitigated, we need to deal with our root pathologies: structural racism, wealth inequality and ecological disruption. Tey have structured the inequitable impacts that the pandemic has had. Asking about how to “improve resilience” suggests that the root of the problem is communities not being strong enough or creative enough or resourceful enough, and it creates this narrative of “vulnerability” and “being at-risk” without interrogating the forces that rendered communities vulnerable. We need a diferent frame—one that understands communities are not “at-risk,” but rather, they are actively and systematically risked . COVID-19 was the spark that landed on 400-plus years of kerosene. We need to clean up the kerosene, not optimize fre extinguisher distribution. DILAFRUZ WILLIAMS Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy, College of Education THE PANDEMIC has exposed blatant economic and racial injustices even as it has revealed the connectedness of all life. It has elevated the need to not think of education as occurring solely indoors enclosed within four concrete walls. We must expand the notion of education and embrace “living” classrooms and schools. Being outdoors and learning in and with nature are essential. We cannot go back to old educational paradigms where learning is anchored in seat time with often irrelevant, predetermined outcomes. We must focus on the holistic dimension of our lives, not simply cater to numeracy and alphabets. Children and youth become resilient when education is directly linked with the day-to-day nuances of life, with community engagement, and with exploration that generates questions, wonder and critical thinking. Much of my research is related to equity, community-based education, environmental education and garden- based learning.Te pandemic has opened up opportunities across countries and continents to be outdoors (with mask precautions). Beyond the centuries-old concept of indoor formal learning, we fnd that children, youth and adults are coming together to learn on school grounds and in parks, forests and gardens. Tese are all prime educational settings. Te pandemic dares us to integrate life and learning. AARON GOLUB Associate professor, Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning I THINK the pandemic has highlighted the selfessness of many workers who, in the face of signifcant personal health risk, have remained dedicated to their jobs serving people in hospitals, grocery stores, on buses and trains, and in countless other ways. Sadly, many workers haven’t had a choice—and the pandemic has revealed just how barbaric our economy has become. Workers with little safety net, no health insurance and substandard pay have been asked to risk their health to keep the economy going, with arguably little reward. I would go so far as to say it raises the question of whether we can call ourselves a society at all, considering the vastly disparate burdens and risks borne by diferent members of our communities. My feld of urban studies and planning has long challenged how urbanization creates and reinforces the “haves” and the “have-nots.”Te pandemic hasn’t changed that, but it certainly makes it more urgent. Housing afordability, job security, fair pay and benefts (including access to health care), and basic health and human dignity are not only urban issues, but afect and refect the very fabric of our society.Tese issues all rose to the surface during the pandemic. For example, renters were already facing precarious housing markets before the pandemic, and tenant protections were an important part of the urban response to the pandemic. While it was exciting to see renter protections implemented, we can only hope they remain long after, as they surely will still be needed. SPRING 2021 // 5