As the pandemic evolves, so does the nature of our online connections – and “checking in” with students and family takes on a deeper significance.
“Knowing whether they walk the dog, knowing whether they have a parent in a home – that’s a level of personal connection that may not have been there before,” says Maydianne Andrade, a Canada Research Chair in Integrative Behavioural Ecology and the University of Toronto Scarborough’s vice-dean of faculty affairs and equity.
In episode four of The New Normal with Maydianne Andrade, Andrade talks with her students and members of her family to see how they’re coping with physical distancing and uncertainty.
“These check-ins that are meant to support my mom and my students,” Andrade observes, “in the end really do support me.”
The New Normal is a weekly podcast hosted by Andrade and created in collaboration with a University of Toronto Communications team led by producer Lisa Lightbourn.