Dear Colleagues:

Greetings, and I hope the new year and new semester are going well for you. Spring approaches. May we all stay very well as we wait and hope.

Social distancing continues on campus and the more than three decades-old tradition of the “Friday Lunch” will continue in its new, online form through the semester. We’ve begun with a mix of our own excellent faculty and leading scholars from beyond our campus. This week we welcome one of our campus leaders to share perspectives from her path-breaking research.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted everyday life in deep and worrisome ways, raising tough policy questions. One of the most controversial involves the effects on young children from closing schools. But what about children of pre-school age, who also may no longer be able to go to formal day care or informal play groups? The CDC states that “many young children’s social, emotional, or mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic.” Children may be affected, for example, directly by social isolation, protective measures against the virus, and disruption of routines and structure. The pandemic creates dilemmas as illustrated by one expert’s proclamation that, “both supportive relationships and social distancing” are “critical priorities.” The direct challenges are exacerbated by the indirect effects on children of the economic and psychological stress on their families.

One way to think about this challenge is in terms of “resilience” – defined in one description as “why some children do well despite adverse early experience,” in which “protective experiences and coping skills on one side counterbalance significant adversity on the other.” Such descriptions may make resilience look like a set of tools to be learned. But it’s much more subtle than that; as Sandra Russ’s research shows, for example, resilience is linked to children’s imagination and ability to pretend.

Professor Russ is one of the world’s leading scholars of how children play and why that matters. Her research has included creating the “Affect in Play Scale” that is used internationally. She has helped show linkages among creativity, coping, and wellbeing. Whether that should make us more or less worried about the effects of COVID-19 is not clear to me – but I am eager to learn from her!

Signing In

This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.

If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqcO-orzwpE9OGaYw-14ZHeUfSZIOFTHLj

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

After joining the Case Western Reserve University faculty in 1975, Sandra Russ focused much of her research on children’s pretend play—specifically how it can affect such functions as creativity, coping and ability to understand emotions. Professor Russ has authored or edited six books, and published dozens of articles in refereed academic journals. Sandra Russ was named a fellow in her academic division of the American Psychological Association, and four years ago received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Achievement in Psychology and the Arts.

Working with students has always been a priority for Sandra Russ, who earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. That’s what drew Professor Russ to academia after five years in a clinical setting.

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

March 12: Dictatorship by Degrees: Xi Jinping in China. With Steven P. Feldman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in Business Ethics.

March 19: What’s the Problem With Big Tech? With Anat Alon-Beck, J.D., Assistant Professor of Law.

March 26: TBA

April 2: Student Debt: What Are the Problems? For Whom? And What Could Be Done? With Richard Kazis, Senior Consultant, MDRC, Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, and Board Chair of The Institute for College Access and Services.

April 9: Healthcare, Public Health, and Population Health. With Scott Frank, MD, Associate Professor and Director of Public Health Initiatives, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences.

April 16: Dropping the Pilot? Assessing Angela Merkel’s Chancellorship. With Kenneth F. Ledford, Ph.D., Chair, Department of History.

April 23: Depression’s Past and Future. With Jonathan Sadowsky, Ph.D., Theodore J. Castele Professor of History.

April 30: The Republican Party and Demographic Change. With Girma Parris, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science.

May 7: Defending Disability Insurance. With Kathy Ruffing, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.