Academic colleagues with no children or grown children are asking those of us with younger kids at home what they can do to help. Fewer meetings? Less service?

We sincerely appreciate the offer. But we don’t need help doing our jobs. We need help educating our children – the next generation.

How about offering to teach a weekly zoom session to the children in our department? The topics could be wide ranging, from intellectual expertise to personal interests or hobbies. You could even do something as simple as reading a chapter from a book out loud each week.

And, of course, this idea extends outside of universities. Just change department to office and academic colleague to business associate.

It takes a village. And we welcome your help educating the next generation.