This week, as I was trying to find a theme for this month’s Chair’s Report, I was thinking about the issue of “trade-offs.” Dictionary.com defines this phase as “the exchange of one thing for another of more or less equal value, especially to effect a compromise.” It includes the meaning that two hoped-for outcomes or favorable options are incompatible, so a choice must be made.

While I was pondering the meaning of trade-offs, I also began to wonder where the name “February” came from, in case that history would provide a good theme for this month’s Chair’s Report. In the online Britannica, I found the following information. Apparently, an early version of the Roman calendar consisted of 10 months. But “in order to fully sync the calendar with the lunar year, the Roman king Numa Pompilius added January and February to the original 10 months.” The entry continues, “The previous calendar had had 6 months of 30 days and 4 months of 31, for a total of 304 days. However, Numa wanted to avoid having even numbers in his calendar, as Roman superstition at the time held that even numbers were unlucky.”

I had known that various cultures attribute good or bad luck to certain numerals, but I was unaware that the Romans considered all even numbers unlucky! (That view would be rather inconvenient for people born on the 2nd or 4th or 6th or 8th, etc., of any given month.)

It seems that King Numa Pompilius tried several ways of dealing with the element of luck in trying to establish a functional calendar. The Brittanica entry says,

He subtracted a day from each of the 30-day months to make them 29. The lunar year consists of 355 days (354.367 to be exact, but calling it 354 would have made the whole year unlucky!), which meant that he now had 56 days left to work with. In the end, at least 1 month out of the 12 needed to contain an even number of days. This is because of simple mathematical fact: the sum of any even amount (12 months) of odd numbers will always equal an even number—and he wanted the total to be odd. So Numa chose February, a month that would be host to Roman rituals honoring the dead, as the unlucky month to consist of 28 days.

And that’s why there are only 28 days in most Februaries – with the exception, of course, of Leap Years, when the month has 29 days.

In reviewing these quotes, I suddenly realized that the history of February connected to my interest in trade-offs, since poor old Numa Pompilius had several incompatible factors to consider. So instead of choosing between my two possible themes, I decided to combine them and began reading about trade-offs.

As it turns out, according to Wikipedia, trade-offs are common in athletics, business, economics, agriculture, industry, physics, medicine, and biology. There is actually a field of study that involves ‘trade-off theory’ (see, e.g., Campbell & Kelly, 1994). Writing in the discipline of economics, these authors note that we make trade-offs every day “when we decide to take an action even though it does not meet all our criteria precisely, because it comes close to meeting our desiderata in spirit” (p. 422).

Trade-offs are certainly common in our personal and professional lives as well. Just think of all the choices we have had to make due to COVID, and how many of those choices involve making trade-offs to try to find a balance between what we want to do and what we can do.

Here are some of the balances I’ve noticed in the way I typically go about my daily life and how the pandemic has changed such activities:

  1. I’m hardly spending any money on gasoline, since I’m not driving to school or going shopping. However, I am now paying for a grocery delivery service.
  2. I have not paid for professional dry-cleaning of business clothing since my school shut down in spring of 2020. However, I’ve spent a fortune on laundry detergent, water, and power in washing the tee-shirts and sweatpants that I live in now. 
  3. I’m not getting out into the countryside to go birdwatching or to enjoy the beautiful scenery in the area where I live. On the other hand, I now have a deep appreciation for my own small backyard garden.
  4. The joy of interacting regularly with students and colleagues has been traded for the safety of self-isolating during the pandemic.

Maybe there is a way I can relate these ideas to TIRF. One of the things I miss most due to being in pandemic conditions is the opportunity to share a meal with friends. Of course, I am saving money by not going out for lunch. That is money I could save for a future need – or even to host several friends to a meal when the COVID conditions make it safe enough to do so.

Or maybe I could take that money and give it to TIRF instead. Yes, I think that would be the best investment I could make. And donating to TIRF always reminds me that even though I am isolated for now, I am part of a global community whose members are undergoing similar challenges. Yet we continue to support research on language learning, teaching, and assessment, in spite of the many constraints we are facing.

So for the coming month, I’m going to figure out what my typical monthly spending would be on socializing with friends in non-COVID conditions. I’m going to donate that amount to TIRF at the end of the March.

Will you join me? Think of one thing you cannot easily or safely do now, in the COVID context, that you used to spend money doing in the pre-pandemic era. Perhaps it may be going to the movies, or having a fancy coffee drink, or shopping. You could then estimate the associated monetary value with that pastime or practice and donate it to TIRF.

Just think of the trade-off: Yes, of course you miss not doing the things you love to do, but imagine the satisfaction you would gain by supporting young scholars around the world.

If you like this approach to donating to TIRF, why not consider sending a gift today? Please click here to do so. I sincerely appreciate your consideration, and, as always, thank you for your continued support of the Foundation.

Best wishes,

Citation

Campbell, D. E., & Kelly, J. S. (1994). Trade-off theory. The American Economic Review, 84(2), 422-426.