On Monday April 23rd, classes resume at Virginia Tech. The university is working to provide resources for faculty teaching in the immediate aftermath of the events of April 16th as we continue to mourn the many different kinds of losses we have experienced in the last week. The primary focus of these resources, rightly so, is addressing how to support our students - and ourselves - in the completion of the Spring 2007 semester.

 

However, what happens after the end of the semester? We are challenged, I would suggest, to determine how, if at all, perspectives and tools from our fields of study can assist us in beginning to imagine the post-April 16th world.

 

For me, as a scholar in Science & Technology Studies (STS) at Virginia Tech, I feel as if this field may have particular resources it can bring to bear to assist us in facilitating discussions about the world in which we want to live. How do we balance, for instance, individual autonomy with community safety? How do we make determinations about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable risk? How do we grapple with uncertainty? How do we make decisions about the use of and access to technologies in our community? Who should participate in decision-making practices related to these questions?

 

Other fields are also uniquely and differently situated to respond.

 

As we begin on Monday April 23rd to 'teach after April 16th', some of us may decide - at some point in the future - to explicitly address recent events in the content of our courses. Others may decide to more subtly explore issues raised by this tragedy. All of us are working to understand how we and our course materials and research might function as resources for our students and for ourselves.  

 

I envision this website as a place to share different approaches and resources (theoretical frameworks, case studies, reflections on returning to the classroom, and so forth) for teaching after April 16th. I invite you to participate in this project.