Right now everyone is talking about one thing and one thing only, coronavirus, how we will get through it, and how it will impact the world going forward. Nobody knows for sure, we just know it will be different. One thing people are speculating a lot about is education, higher ed in particular.
I was reflecting the other day on how my dissertation project flowed. My advisor was Boris Gasparov of Rostov-on-Don. Gasparov is one of those great obvious geniuses. Trained as a linguist, he has published about theory of language, Pushkin, opera, really about whatever he felt like. Since I wanted to be a genius and wanted my dissertation to reflect my genius, he was the obvious choice to be my dissertation adviser even though he didn't really do any work on the stuff I was writing on. Really what I wanted was the most obvious genius in the neighborhood to shower approval on me and make me feel like a genius. As an aside, I should note that Gasparov, by his own admission, played the role of absent-minded professor so that the department would never force him to be Chair, so that he could basically shirk some of the traditional job responsibilities of a professor. Over time, not being a great team player did not endear him to his colleagues.
My second reader was Irina Reyfman. Like Gasparov, she had spent time at the University of Tartu in Estonia before coming to the states (everybody did, it was the place to be in the 70s and 80s). I don't know that much of her background because she's somewhat reserved with grad students. Her scholarship did not range as broadly as Gasparov's, she wasn't as shiny. But over the years I had learned how solid she was. In time, of course she served as Chair. It was after I left the Department, so I'm not sure of the details, but I'm sure she did an excellent job.
As my dissertation progressed, I'd send chapters to Gasparov and then go in to talk to him. He found it very interesting, we'd have scintillating discussions and so on. It just kept rolling along. As we got to the end I started bringing Reyfman in. Pretty soon she was saying things like: "your argument doesn't flow well from X to Y, I'm really not sure what you're gettting at, you need to tighten it up." As I got closer to the end, she said to me "you know you can't hand it in with all of these quotes in Russian, you need to find translations or translate them into English." So I went and did that. She was awesome. She got me through to the end in good shape. I basically stopped meeting with Gasparov. I am deeply indebted to her.
My point is this. There's this idea that education is the transmission of ideas, that you need a few stars who can give great lectures and elucidate big picture items, etc. For sure that's a part of it. But almost more important is the way that great teachers teach you how to work, what you need to do, what not to do, etc. Ultimately both are important, but for most people, for getting through our lives, to progress from milestone to milestone -- the guidance on the nitty-gritty is paramount. And for this regular human contact, in person, is important. You have to know and trust the people who are guiding you, and relationship formation and trust-building is best done in person. I'm sure there will be a need to migrate some of this online and virtualize it in the short run, but in the end the need for personal contact will never fade.
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