The Chronicle of Higher Education
by Sarah Brown
July 27, 2021
As the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee started to plan for an in-person fall 2021 semester, Adam Jussel pondered a complicated question.
The university, set a few blocks from the shore of Lake Michigan, had held some of its classes in person in the spring. So Jussel, the dean of students, already knew how to manage the public-health logistics. Now he was trying to look beneath the surface: What would a full return to campus mean?
When the university surveyed students on how they were faring last academic year, most of them said they were making it through their classes and obligations. But they didn’t feel connected — to the campus, to their professors, or to each other. Jussel summed up many students’ feelings this way: I’m hurting, but I just don’t know what to call that.