Friday Focus: Celebrating perseverance
May 8, 2020
— by Julie Queen, vice chancellor for administrative services
This Friday Focus is written from my “home office,” which most of us have put together fairly creatively as we have learned how to work remotely where possible to do so. In the past few weeks, I’ve gone from a makeshift approach to something that has become more sustainable as the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved and the reality of the time period needed to recover from this type of thing has begun to set in.
I think of what hurdles you are facing as we move forward during this time and how you are overcoming them. I believe Plato’s “necessity is the mother of invention” statement is true, leading us to cobble together needed office supplies, sit in cars hunkered over laptops to get better WiFi, teach and parent our children at home while balancing a full workload, and generally adopt a “make it work” attitude to keep the business of education and research moving. All of this must be done while striving to stay healthy!
In addition, this shift in our daily norm has also been an act of social empathy, flexibility, partnership and community understanding as we prioritize and evaluate our work and our home lives where family and health practices have taken precedence. I’ve seen several remarkable and resilient actions in the past few weeks that show wonderful (and often overlooked) human connections and spirit, as people are sensitive to others under the pressures of our current environment.
I am thankful to have had the opportunity this week to participate in the UAF Staff Recognition and Development Day and awards celebration. The camaraderie and creativity of this event was an uplifting display of resiliency in action, persevering over poor internet connectivity, which is so common to many of us as part of our daily dedication to get the job done.
Typically one of the major benefits of this day is some social interaction with peers, development in creative ways (from pickling to yoga to change management), and some free food. Obviously the face-to-face portions (food!) weren’t possible, but the staff governance teams and volunteers putting this event together understood that people needed this interaction, even with a few glitches, maybe now more than ever. Taking time to celebrate each other is important, and I’m proud to support these devoted employees happy to receive their awards.
In my view, this pandemic has brought two opposing elements to the forefront of daily life: the modern need for technology and speedy results vs. a back-to-basics creative mentality when things we are used to doing are not available, must happen differently, or can’t be done at all. This tests all of us to persevere!
For example, when my family couldn’t get yeast at the store, we defaulted to using some 1917 UAF centennial sourdough starter shared with me after the UAF celebrations. This starter was kept alive through the years, located in the Cooperative Extension Service food section, where it was cared for and also shared with UAF catering services for use by chancellors (over time) for campus events on occasion.
Here is the sourdough origin story that I would like to thank Renee Estelle, Marian Huston’s daughter, for sharing with our own Jeannie Phillips.
Clumsy Mule Sourdough: This sourdough was given to Marian Huston as a wedding present by Miss Lola Tilly, professor of home economics, at the Alaska School of Mines (now UAF). Miss Tilly got the sourdough from an old miner, which she told Marian was around 100 years old (in 1963). The original culture was shared among miners coming over the Chilkoot Trail from Skagway during the Gold Rush. Sourdough starter was a valuable part of the gold seekers’ provisions and was protected during transport. Miners carried the starter in a leather drawstring pouch work around their necks, under their clothes or stowed in the saddlebags next to the mule’s body to protect the culture from freezing. Miss Tilly’s miner source told the story that during the trip over the trail, there was hard going in several stretches. Once, his mule slipped and fell over. The mule was unhurt, but the sourdough pouch fell and squished over the side of the mule. The miner, unwilling to accept the loss of such a valuable item, scraped the starter off of the mule, put it back in the pouch, and continued up the trail! Today, this sourdough starter has no trace of “mule” in it, but it retains the original yeast culture from those old sourdough days.
The sourdough works beautifully and we’ve gotten quite good with our bread and dough making — and what an amazing history lesson at the same time!
Our Alaska pioneering spirit is strong, and this connection to our history renews my sense of commitment to family, friends and our networks at UAF (even without the mule)! Sometimes old is new again, and the results are even better than expected.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF’s leadership team every week.