Continuing work during the global pandemic

A note from HC MID faculty advisor Neel Smith

After March 13

Friday, March 13, was the last day of classes on campus at Holy Cross this year. After a week with no classes, Holy Cross resumed the spring semester with distance learning the week of March 23-27. HC MID resumed work sessions during their normal Friday afternoon time slot on March 27.

Like every other aspect of our lives, MID is different while we are separated in isolation from each other, but we are finding ways to continue. We still work in teams to create comprehensive diplomatic editions of manuscripts and other documents, and many of our regular practices even translate readily to our new environment. All of us can stay up to date with our teammates’ latest contributions because we have always hosted our work in publicly available github repositories, for example.

The day before this year’s Academic Conference, the Student Government Association recognized MID as a “Groundbreaking Organization.” I am confident that MID will continue to break new ground in the coming weeks and months as we discover new ways to stay in touch and collaborate. I look forward to updates on this website reporting on possible developments already being discussed by some MID teams — new proposals for research during the summer, and initiatives to reach out to alumni, for example.

As valuable as institutional support and recognition has been, it is not what fundamentally defines MID. At its core, MID is a community whose members are still managing to support each other through the corona virus pandemic.