I’m a recovering college professor. Teaching is my drug – it gets me high. But these “highs'' never last long, and my addiction was costing years off my life. The problem isn’t teaching; it’s learning – learning is the purpose of teaching, and I cannot tell when, how, or why people learn in college classrooms. So to summarize, since 2007, I have been getting high off teaching, leading history classes at two different universities, and sharing my expertise with more than 1500 students until I resigned in 2023. In that period, I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression, I’ve fought off rashes and infections, and I’ve been hospitalized for stress-related conditions afflicting my heart, arms, and brain. Getting high on the job was killing me.

“All the years of watching American films and listening to American music could not have prepared me for the culture shock and loneliness I experienced during my time there. But despite some of the challenges I went through while trying to navigate predominantly white spaces, I found such incredible friends. It warms my heart to know that through it all we held each other in love, in care, in kindness.”

A statement released on June 11, 2020, by members of the local AAUP chapter at St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY) and other St. Lawrence faculty members in response to systemic racism and the nationwide and worldwide protests against following the police killing of George Floyd.

Weave News is proud to join The Hill News (the St. Lawrence University student newspaper) in co-publishing Campus Quarantine, a new documentary about students stuck on campus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Filmed and directed by Meiting Li, the documentary features excerpts from interviews conducted with St. Lawrence students, including graduating seniors, who remained on campus during the period of “remote learning” at the end of the Spring 2020 semester. What was it like for them? What challenges have they been facing? What have they learned from the experience, and what are they looking forward to?

Sara Monggaard reflects on the implications of the pandemic for the experience of university students. “I believe in this period of monumental global pause, unity and introspection, we have a unique window to look forward. It is time to tear our structures apart and rethink the purpose of ‘education’ with restructured learning objectives and methods. What does it mean to be educated? What should education prepare us to tackle?”

By Gwendolyn Deuel

In this investigative article created through the St. Lawrence Citizen Journalism Incubator (SLCJI), Gwendolyn Deuel examines the fallout from the cancellation of SUNY Potsdam’s CLEAR program, which offered conferences, workshops, summer camps, non-credit programs, and training seminars to the community in the North Country.

By Nicole Roché

On the morning of October, 11, 2018, poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib spoke with students on the St. Lawrence University campus, where the subjects ranged from Kanye West to Black Lives Matter to Abdurraqib’s extensive sneaker collection. After the Q&A, Nicole Roché, who teaches a class about storytelling and identity in the first-year program at St. Lawrence, interviewed Abdurraqib about his work and about his experiences talking with young people in America.