Starts and Stops: Strategizing an Age-Friendly University Commitment During a Pandemic

The Global Network of Age-Friendly Universities seeks to enhance age-inclusivity and engagement in higher education, but delivering age-friendly programming became very challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine how two land-grant universities adapted to the pandemic and draw some lessons from those experiences that may be useful for other universities seeking to implement or resume the AFU programming. The two main responses were to either pause many of the age-friendly initiatives at the university or adapt to virtual or online delivery platforms. To ensure the health and safety of older adults, colleges and universities paused many age-friendly initiatives such as intergenerational service-learning, technological assistance to older adults, and influenza vaccinations. Other programs continued but in a modified delivery format. Examples include: converting a face-to-face balance-training program to telehealth delivery; transitioning visitation programs to pen pal communication; and replacing face-to-face workshops offered by Extension Services with webinar delivery. Despite these challenges, we conclude that moving to virtual platforms and other methods of delivery, including conventional mail, has in some cases increased access for many older adults and became a lifeline during a time of social isolation for many older adults. Taken together, these experiences highlight the need for age-friendly universities to have contingency plans to ensure continuation of age-friendly programming in the event of pandemics or disasters. Finally, the pause in programming creates opportunities to re-launch or re-organize those initiatives in accord with federal and state safety guidelines.

The Social Effects of an Intergenerational E-Mail Pal Program

Ageist attitudes and loneliness negatively impact both younger and older adults (e.g., Sun et al., 2019). This study utilized a randomized waitlist-control design to investigate the effects of a six-week intergenerational e-mail pen pal program on loneliness in younger and older adults and ageism in younger adults. Thirty-three younger adults (18-30 years) and 28 older adults (over age 65) completed an online survey assessing ageist attitudes, loneliness, well-being, and other individual differences. One week after completing a baseline survey, 17 email pen pal pairs began the six-week e-mail intervention. Participants repeated the survey one week after the completion of the intervention (which was eight weeks after the baseline for the control participants). Analyses showed that at baseline, younger adults (M=2.41, SD=.76) reported higher levels of loneliness compared to older adults (M=1.65, SD=.77), t(59) = 3.85, p < .001. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that the intervention did not have a significant effect on ageism or loneliness in either younger or older adults. However, the effect size of the intervention for loneliness among older adults was moderate to large (η2= .07). Descriptive statistics indicated that older adults in both the intervention and control groups experienced an increase of loneliness during the post-test. However, the older adults in the intervention group experienced less of an increase compared to older adults in the control group. This suggests that the intervention may have buffered the increase in loneliness that older adults may experience during the winter months and during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You’ve Got Mail! – Written Communication and Feedback in Mathematics

This paper describes a study that aims to understand and characterize the written communication of future teachers through a pen pal experience with elementary education students, in particular the nature of their feedback. To carry out this investigation we followed a qualitative methodology and collected data through observation, interviews and written productions. The participants were seven pre-service teachers that attended a Master’s Degree Course in Primary Education (6-12 years old) who interacted through letter correspondence with 3rd grade students. Results show that the pre-service teachers valued this experience, considering it useful and effective in the development of written communication. They also had the opportunity to identify the importance of more general aspects, such as the adequacy of the discourse, the need to acknowledge the curricular guidelines and the features of the educational context. The type of feedback given in the written commentaries was diversified, trying to meet the main characteristics of evaluative writing, being intentional, personalized and identifying aspects to improve through self-regulation.

"MY TRUTH, THE TRUTH OF ALL MY BEING ...": SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF M. TSVETAEVA IN LETTERS TO A. TESKOVA

The object of the article: letters from M. Tsvetaeva to A. Teskova (1922 - 1939) as documents of his personal biography, past events, which became a reflection of creative searches and reveal the innermost essence of the poet. The subject of the article: M. Tsvetaeva's self-consciousness and world perception in the emigrant period, which represent the life of the Poet's Soul as much as possible. The article is devoted to the consideration of reflection in the act of writing, deepening loneliness, and a break with the reader. The task is to analyze the letters of M. Tsvetaeva to A. Teskovoy as a literary text, the internal space of which is united by the translation of spiritual unity with a pen pal, to identify semantic dominants. Research methodology: a holistic analysis of letters in the light of the reflection of the methodology of poetic thinking involves an appeal to the structural-semiotic and biographical methods of research. Results: autobiographical episodes in the assessment of reflective self-consciousness are considered. Scope of application of the results: literary studies.

Mandated internationalism: Sino-Soviet friendship 1949-1956

The Sino-Soviet Friendship Association (SSFA) was China's largest mass organisation of the 1950s. Whether it was marking events on the socialist calendar, showing films, holding lectures, or arranging worker competitions, the SSFA had an inescapable presence in public life. Invariably, the Soviet Union was presented as China's benevolent 'elder brother,' guiding it to modernity. By taking part in SSFA activities, Chinese were interpellated into a discourse that legitimated communist rule and defined their nation, world, and future. Yet, even within such a top-down, closed discursive system, there remained room for the inquisitive to form authentic friendships with their foreign Other. In addition to examining internal documents and public activities of the Shanghai and Beijing branches of the SSFA, this essay covers three rounds of pen-pal exchanges between Lu Shuqin and 'Natasha,' young women workers from Beijing and Moscow. Rather than adhering to the expected inner-socialist bloc hierarchy, their letters reveal an egalitarian cosmopolitanism. When read against China's state-sponsored narrative of 'elder' and 'younger' brother, these pen-pal letters complicate and expand the discourse of Sino-Soviet friendship, showing how the mandated internationalism of the 1950s interacted with the self-directed behaviours of socialist individuals.

Youth and Pet Survivors: Exploring the Experiences of Pediatric Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Patients in a Virtual Animal-Assisted Therapy Pen Pal Program

Introduction: YAPS™ (Youth and Pet Survivors™) is a form of virtual animal-assisted therapy (AAT), a pen pal program designed for children and adolescents with cancer and/or having a bone marrow transplant (BMT) to engage in virtual visits with a dog or a cat (who has also been treated for cancer or serious medical illness) through letter writing and pictures. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the experiences of YAPS participants over time and to explore how virtual AAT may be an additional or alternative intervention to the traditional form of AAT, which involves live visits with animals, primarily dogs. Method: Open-ended, face-to-face interviews were conducted throughout the participants’ involvement with their animal pen pal. Interviews were digitally recorded. Data were analyzed using a content analysis method. Results: Fifteen children and adolescents, aged 7 to 16 years, participated. Three main themes and five subthemes were found, including connection, shared experience, and friendship. Themes suggested that a virtual AAT letter writing program can provide a source of fun and a way to process the cancer experience with a dog or cat pen pal who has also faced cancer or serious medical treatment. Discussion: Interventions that promote well-being for pediatric oncology and BMT patients are needed, and virtual AAT seems to be one such intervention suited for those who have an affinity for animals and enjoy letter writing. The findings of this study also presented an exciting and intriguing gap for further research in virtual AAT.