Life in the Time of Corona: Paul Schweinzer

13 July 2020
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2019–20 Austrian Fulbright scholar Paul Schweinzer talks about how COVID-19 affected his time as a Fulbright scholar in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

My family and I arrived on 16 January in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A snowstorm was about to set off when we checked into our hotel—to unlimited complementary drinks and a fantastically friendly welcome by other visitors. This boundless friendliness is really the one thing that stands out as a constant in all our interactions throughout our visit to Minnesota.

When things started to go viral and my teaching (sports economics) moved online, we decided that staying away from airport queues was perhaps advisable and felt as safe in our Minneapolis neighborhood as we would have in Klagenfurt. So we agreed to stay on, the kids' school moved online, and we keep sharing my laptop among the essential works to be done from home.

The kids love their Susan B Anthony Middle School. Everything appears to be organized with the kids and their needs in mind, and this seems to facilitate developing joint interests and friendship. Both kids made friends instantly—and then lost them to online classes and social distancing. But both would love to come back—maybe for high school or college.

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus where I work closed for dispensable business on 18 March, and since then the economics department (where I am based) was socially distant but remained academically close through online reading groups, workshops, and seminars. The Center for Austrian Studies (which hosts me) keeps in touch with offers of help and advice. There were no dropouts among the students on my course, and they seem to be as nervous about their upcoming exam as I would expect them to be in a physical classroom environment.

What I lost in academic interaction with the department we won in local, socially distant interaction with the community: we play wild pickleball tournaments over our fence, sporting the most stylish face masks made by local designer Tessa Louise, and participate in the Zoom dryland exercises of our fantastic Aquajets swim team. But there is no whitewashing the fact that most of my projected sabbatical research output was lost to Covid-19. Of course, I could complain about this—or applaud the many people here in Minneapolis who work to keep my family and me safe, connected, and with no shortage of essential supplies. Our gratitude and best wishes are theirs!

This story was shared with Fulbright Austria in May 2020.

 

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