{"id":17329,"date":"2021-08-10T11:00:47","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=17329"},"modified":"2021-10-06T09:22:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-06T15:22:23","slug":"kittens-to-collages-poetry-to-puzzles-cc-faculty-find-covid-lifelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2021\/08\/kittens-to-collages-poetry-to-puzzles-cc-faculty-find-covid-lifelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Kittens to Collages, Poetry to Puzzles: CC Faculty Find COVID Lifelines"},"content":{"rendered":"

We asked the CC faculty what got them through COVID. Was it nesting with Netflix? Huddling with Hulu? Did they hold quarantined concerts? Were they burgeoning bakers? It turns out, CC faculty members used the past\u00a0 year and a half in ways they might not have otherwise.<\/p>\n

Fostering Kittens<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Marie, <\/a>
Marie, Irene, and Pierre Curie: Counter-clockwise are Marie (chocolate point), Irene (laying down, lilac point), and Pierre (white strip on nose). Photo courtesy Habiba Vaghoo <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"From <\/a>
From top to bottom are the O-Chem brothers, Markovnikov, Crafts, and Friedel, named after the organic chemists. Photo courtesy Habiba Vaghoo <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Associate Professor and Chair of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Habiba Vaghoo fostered kittens with Happy Cats Haven. \u201cI had been wanting to do it for a long time and when we were forced to stay home, it seemed like the perfect time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She started with two kittens \u2014 and ended up fostering a total of 20 abandoned felines. Vaghoo would foster them for about five to six weeks, making sure the kittens were healthy and gaining weight. They would then be spayed or neutered, and go up for adoption at Happy Cats Haven.<\/p>\n

Among her \u201cpurrfectly\u201d named kittens were the O-Chem brothers, named after organic chemists Markovnikov, Friedel, and Crafts. Her students in Block 1, who had just covered acid-base chemistry, helped her name the next set: Sir Lowry (an orange tabby) and Professor Bronsted (a tuxedo with a goatee). The Curies came next (Marie, Pierre, and Irene); a Siamese-mix trio.<\/p>\n

After a short break, Vaghoo started again with Peppa and George, who came from North Carolina. In Block 6 when she was teaching Structure of Organic Molecules, she held a naming contest for the three kittens she\u2019d just received, with the student who came up with the winning names receiving a beaker mug. At last writing, she was fostering five feral kittens who were found in an abandoned Chevy.<\/p>\n

All the kittens Vaghoo fostered went back to the shelter for adoption \u2014 except two. O-Chem brother Markovnikov was adopted by Associate Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department Christina Leza. And Vaghoo kept Marie Curie, the foster fail (or success, depending on how you look at it).<\/p>\n

Puzzles and Music<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The tr\u00e8s difficile 1,000-piece Paris puzzle was one of the first ones Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jessica Kisunzu tackled in Spring 2020, taking about a month to complete it while teaching. Photo courtesy Jessica Kisunzu<\/p><\/div>\n

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jessica Kisunzu turned to puzzles and music. \u201cOne of my first life-lines was doing puzzles \u2013 I did nine puzzles ranging from 500 to 1,500 pieces,\u201d she says. The 1,000-piece Paris puzzle was one of the first ones she did, and it took her about a month to complete; she was teaching then and took her time. Kisunzu also spent more time listening to audiobooks and podcasts, \u201cwhich works quite well with doing puzzles,\u201d she says. One\u2028 of her favorite audiobooks during this time was \u201cBorn a Crime,\u201d by Trevor Noah.<\/p>\n

Kisunzu also bought an audio interface setup so she could start recording music and learning the basics of audio mixing. A digital keyboard made it fairly straightforward to record piano, but having the additional interface allowed her to also record guitar and vocals more easily. \u201cI\u2019ve been using mainly the software GarageBand to then adjust the frequencies for different tracks, add percussion and\/or digital instruments, and more,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a complex process and I\u2019ve only scratched the surface, but it\u2019s been really fun to start turning isolated tracks into full songs. My goal is to release music in the form of an EP [extended play record, a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record] or album at some\u2028point, so this is a step in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading Aloud<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lisa Noll was trying to think of a prop or stage setting for the socially distanced reading of \u201cThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,\u201d and came up with the idea of the pitchfork and stuffed animal. Those who know Mark Haddon\u2019s play will understand\u2026 Photo courtesy Lisa Noll<\/p><\/div>\n

Last summer, three CC couples, Professor Emeritus of Geology Eric Leonard and his wife, Lisa\u00a0Noll; Professor Emeritus of English Barry Sarchett and his wife Adjunct Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature Lisa B. Hughes; and Professor Emeritus of History Douglas Monroy and his wife, Ann Van Horn \u201985<\/strong>, began gathering (at a social distance) in their backyards to read various plays aloud. \u201cThe plays took us out of ourselves and interrupted obsessive conversation about the pandemic,\u201d Noll says.<\/p>\n

Among the plays they read were Mark Haddon\u2019s \u201cThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,\u201d Luis Alfaro\u2019s \u201cMojada: A Medea in Los Angeles,\u201d and the long verse poem, \u201cLudlow,\u201d about the 1914 Colorado coal field massacre, by Professor Emeritus of English David Mason \u201978<\/strong>. As the weather grew colder, they switched to reading short stories over FaceTime, including a Halloween reading of \u201cThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow\u201d and Colm Toibin\u2019s new work, \u201cThe Shortest Day,\u201d on the Winter Solstice. \u201cEveryone in the group is keen to keep up with their new hobby after the pandemic eventually subsides,\u201d says Noll.<\/p>\n

The group even found thespian fame on NPR, when they were written up in an article titled \u201cThe New Normal\u201d in a newsletter this past April.<\/p>\n

A complete list of their readings is available online at 2cc.co\/readingplays<\/a><\/p>\n

Creative Collage<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To relax, to process, and to nurture creativity for the sake of creativity, Assistant Professor of English Natanya Pulley is a fan of low-stakes arts and crafts. \u201cI look for forgiving crafts and textiles: collage, felting, watercolor coloring books, creating stickers through Canva [a graphic design platform used to create visual content]\u2026 anything that gives me a chance\u2028 to fail and start over or try new things.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Pulley, everything looks like a possible craft item. \u201cI keep scraps of paper and bits of things. So many. Think of a lot of scraps and stacks of paper and know that it is much more than that. I\u2019ll be cutting a design out of a page, and I\u2019ll see a small bit fall to the ground. I\u2019ll act like I\u2019m not going to pick it up and save it. But when I start to clean up, I can\u2019t throw away that little flower or bit of sun, sky or curious wording. Sometimes the color catches me or there\u2019s a curve or slash or angle that I can\u2019t let go of.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past year she didn\u2019t collage for herself as much as in the past. However, Pulley did channel her collaging into card-making. She made Halloween cards for friends, which led to more card-making throughout the year. \u201cI created online craft sessions with different groups of students. For the Indigenous students at CC, Polly Nordstrand [FAC curator of Southwest art] and I put together craft kits and organized Zoom sessions. We also contributed homemade cards for the Indigenous Elders in Colorado Springs as part of a Winter Solstice care basket organized by a local Indigenous community member.<\/p>\n

Pulley says she was thankful for funding from the English Department, Creativity and Innovation, Indigenous Studies, and her Schlosser professorship, which helped make a lot of the projects happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen resources are limited and support systems eroding, being able to work with forgiving textiles; low-stakes processes and sessions; and with whims and half-baked ideas is a gift we can always give to ourselves and one another. At the end of the year Polly and I made cards for the Indigenous students graduating this year. So much love went into those cards. So much love\u2026 and glue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COVID Copes: Fostering Felines? Pandemic Puzzles? What Helped Faculty Get Through the Pandemic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1496,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-17329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-2021","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17329"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17464,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329\/revisions\/17464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}