campus today

... had, in the morning, an eerie and rather depressed quiet hanging over it.  The parking structure was half empty, which made me suspect that more than a few of my colleagues had taken the soft option and were teaching via Zoom.  We, in AHIS 366, "Picturing Democracy: American Art 1750-1900" rounded off the semester by discussing the Statue of Liberty - or rather, all the liberties that at the time were fully recognized as not being present in the figure; considered the gender implications of Woman on a Pedestal; and tried to tie up the semester while munching the chocolate chip cookies.  One students complained, or at least noted, that there hadn't been enough about strikes and the growth of the union movement, which is quite possibly true, though the Delacroix-style liberty-woman of the Haymarket Martyrs memorial did creep into today.  

Of course, with 93 students and colleagues having been arrested yesterday at what was essentially a very peaceful protest on campus, this was all horribly timely.  Those radio reporters who claimed that there was no activity on campus today - not the case: there was a substantial group of students and faculty (including my colleague in Sociology, Nina Eliasoph, who'd made the placard she's holding here) on the lawn outside THH when I left this afternoon.  Where there was very little visible activity was in the central administration, apart from (quite a big "apart from") a letter from the Provost saying that the main Commencement ceremony had been cancelled (so not only no valedictorian's speech, and no honorary degrees, but no speech from the President - just lots of satellite ceremonies for each of the schools).  But where is the President?  Carol Folt has been missing in action for 10 days - at least, that was the date of her last post to Twitter.  She's usually such an infuriatingly chirpy cheerleader, but after announcing the "USC-Capital One Center for Responsible AI and Decision Making in Finance" (I kid you not) on April 15th, not a peep from her, or her office - not even a congratulatory chirp that our star quarterback, Caleb Williams, was #1 in the NFL draft.  This is, for her, weird.  

Then I turn the corner on the way back to that half-empty parking structure, and find a ferris wheel.  There's some symbolism here, I'm sure, but I'm expending so much energy in anger at the inept administration that I can't muster the energy to work it out.