Items

• 
  2021-08

  The Zaragoza Project: A Covid Experience

  For this item, I wanted to highlight the differences in the Zaragoza student orientation for incoming freshmen and transfer students. This is a program that happens at the beginning of every school year. My class, entering St. Mary's in Fall 2019 was the last class to have a normal experience prior to the pandemic. However, since the pandemic, many operations have had to change to ensure the safety of those involved. The Fall 2020 Zaragoza experience was entirely over zoom. With the school now transitioning back to in person teaching, Zaragoza leaders had to the opportunity and challenge to create a Zaragoza experience like never seen before that provided safe interaction among all students and parents. These screenshots specifically showed a rushed project that needed to be approved in a short amount of time that accommodated both to the universities expectations while following the state's guidelines.
• 
  2021-11-03

  Oral History: Clare Acosta

  Through this oral history, Clare Acosta and I develop a conversation about both the Community Engagement office work and the program of Empower: Ecuador. The conversation was specifically focused on the before and after of COVID-19 and also what was learned from the process. It is a very deep conversation that I really enjoyed and know that Clare also did.
• 
  2021-08-17

  Last Minute Changes in Teaching

  For Fall 2021, some teachers gave the option to zoom into class for students who were not comfortable being present in person. Out of my five classes, only two had this option specifically stated. I planned to attend all classes in person but the day before class was due to start one teacher switched to remote only. Initially, I was okay with it. It was the first class of the day so maybe I wouldn't have to get up so early. Then I realized I would have to wake up early anyway. The class after the remote one was ten minutes after. I would of had to rush even if the class was on campus. Situations like these showed that things were even unexpectedly changing for teachers. While the situation may have slightly inconvenienced me, I'm sure it wasn't ideal for the teacher either.
• 
  2020-07-25

  A Different Online Meeting

  Athletics has always been a big part of bringing together a school's community. It's an important aspect for not just the athletes but also the supporters. The complete cancellation of sporting events can be a jarring disruption to a school's morale and spirit. The rising of popularity of esports and competitive videogames though has been helpful in keeping people connected. Though physical, in person sports have been cancelled, classmates can still keep in touch with each other through their school's team by playing and watching the school's online games. The St. Mary's esports team has provided a way for people for people with similar interests to meet without actually ever seeing each other in person. A placement on the team isn't even necessary. Videogames have been an important outlet for me in the pandemic to keep me mentally happy. The closure of many places and the inability to see certain people in real life has made me rely on them instead.
• 
  2020-06-30

  Resident Assistants: When Residence Halls Re-Open

  After being sent home during Spring 2020 the Office of Residence Life changed the way it functioned. With that, student staff like resident assistants also had to change how they did their jobs. Creating community, health and safety checks, and engagement opportunities were all completed virtually. As many discovered, going to college via zoom came with many difficulties. What about when campuses were opening back up? What about the uncertainties regarding the growing pandemic after Spring 2020? In preparation for Fall 2020 and anticipation of re-opening residence halls, policy changes were made. Students were also asked to join the "Protect St. Mary's Pledge", a commitment to holding ourselves and our community accountable, ensuring we take the necessary precautions and follow policy. The Office of Residence Life and resident assistants were at the forefront of enforcing these new policies and keeping dorm halls safe. Resident assistants played a significant role in trying to make campus and residence life a bit normal again by creating community and engaging with residents, this time while taking covid-19 precautions. In a time of great transition and uncertainty, resident assistants served as student health ambassadors and vessels for the University's mission and policies.
• 
  2020-03-20

  How To Be a Resident Assistant During Covid-19

  This is a pdf of the resident assistant job description when St. Mary's University decided to go virtual. The described duties of the resident assistant showcase how St. Mary's Residence life was trying to serve students regardless of being off-campus. The job description really shows the sense of community that exists on campus and persevered virtually. As a freshman during Spring 2020, I along with many others, never expected to be sent home. I also never expected an institution to care so much about the well-being of its students especially when the whole world was in chaos at the time. However, as seen here, even student staff like resident assistants reached out and made themselves available to their peers. Resident assistants had 1:1 conversations with residents at home designed to check-in and share resources. Even the resident assistants themselves were required to have one-on-one meetings with their supervisors also to check-in. While student staff was trying to facilitate community and safety virtually, they too were being taken care of by residence life.
• 
  2020-03-15

  Community Engagement: Transitioning to Zoom

  Previous to COVID-19, everything related to community engagement was hands-on, face-to-face, and in-person. However, right after spring break in 2020, everything changed because of COVID-19, and new ways of interacting with the community and each other were used. To demonstrate this I uploaded for this item a screenshot from the Instagram page of the Community Engagement Office of St. Mary's University. Almost none of us were used to zoom and in a couple of weeks zoom turned into the number one platform used by businesses and schools as a means of communication and our community engagement was not the exception. One of the activities that were made during COVID-19 was a Netflix Party through zoom with many students engaged through the network. As a personal experience, I was part of a group/class called Empower: Ecuador that was very focused on personal relationships and community building, and transitioning to zoom was not easy. However, we were able to culminate our semester and encounter new ways to connect with each other through zoom and other social platforms in meaningful ways while keeping each other safe from getting sick. It was a matter of caring for each other so deeply that connecting in person was no longer an option, but our intentionality to connect and interact with each other grew in many other creative ways to achieve the goal of community engagement despite all the difficulties that we were all going through.
• 
  2021-10-27

  Hour Alterations

  The pandemic brought a lot of changes in our work environments and that includes the changes in business hours. At St. Mary's University, these screenshots show the hour alterations to on-campus facilities, since January, and the new rules that are to be followed by all.
• 
  2021-10-27

  Student Support Services

  The pandemic no doubt brought a lot of mental stress into student's life. The result of this stress was the mental health support, via St. Mary's University, reaching out to the student population, as well as the ministry aiding in the mental health of students.
• 
  2021-10-27

  Economic Student Support

  The Student Emergency Fund at St. Mary's was part of an economic relief through the CARES act; where students got financial support via the university. I personally used this fund to help pay for school and basic necessities, like food and bills. It was a relief that students, like myself, were able to obtain this financial support throughout the pandemic and it's still available for all students.
• 
  2020-08-11

  Learning through a Pandemic

  From my senior year in high school to my Freshman year in college, the way I would attend class had drastically changed. However I wasn't alone in this change. Students, teachers, and professors all around the world found themselves having to adapt to a new form of teaching. A tool that we all had to learn to use was zoom. Unable to attend in person class led to the development of this so-called new “classroom”. Across the world we would now find ourselves logging in to zoom on our computers to attend class. For many of us, me included, the college experience had simply become waking up in my room.
• 
  2021-08-02

  A complex decision: Deferring International Students

  In the Center of International Programs, during Summer 2021, some decisions had to be made in the office. Due to internal changes, some applications could not be processed, and I-20s could not be developed. Between 10 to 20 undergraduates and graduate students had to be deferred to have more time to issue their visas. This impacted students as some had already made arrangements to come and each case had to be taken into consideration and also be taken personally. The Center of International Programs has over 20 students preparing to go to the university by Spring 2022.
• 
  2021-08-09

  New Beginnings - First in-person International Student Orientation During COVID-19

  On August 9th, 45 students (approx.) came to the first international student orientation. During the session, they explained how to maintain the visa status, more information about working in the university, and health recommendations and guidelines. They were also asked to leave their documentation for the following scanning and complete some forms during the session. This session was the first one after COVID-19 appeared in the US.
• 
  2021-06-11

  The Official Cancelation of Our Flight

  Each of the members of the flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador, was deeply connected with the purpose of traveling which was to be present with the neighbors in Ecuador. Some of us thought that the main purpose of the course, Empower: Ecuador, was to travel. To some extent it was, but after the trip cancelation, we realized there was also another greater purpose. The greater purpose was to grow in vulnerability, spirituality, and in self-reflection. To learn how to be vulnerable with others and share your journey in life and understand how God was working through all the messiness was really hard, but through this course, it happened. The trip cancelation was very sad but because of it, we learned how to be connected despite the distance. Letters were sent from us to each of the neighbors in Ecuador, zoom meetings were held with the team in different ways, and journals were written with our most inner thoughts and reflections. Additional to this, each of us got a voucher to travel for the rest of the year, which in my case I used to travel to see my loved ones in Puerto Rico and Arizona. Seeing my loved ones probably wouldn't have happened if it was not for this voucher and I was very grateful for it. Yes, it was bad that our trip was canceled but many blessings came out of this. During COVID-19 many bad things happened and are happening, however, many blessings and good things also happened and are happening. I think it is very important to also share those good things to motivate others and push each other up out of all the darkness. To express this story I am sharing a screenshot of an email that confirmed the trip cancelation and that also announced to us that we were going to have a voucher to travel. The email was from our leader Clare.
• 
  2021-06-08

  Back To "Normal"

  With the distribution of the vaccine everyone thought things were going back to normal. The pandemic seemed like it was coming to a close. Institutions were beginning to lift the indoor mask-wearing requirements for vaccinated individuals per the CDC's announcement. St Mary's University was one of these of these places. Unfortunately with the rise of the Delta variant St. Mary's had to revoke their decision regarding masks a few weeks later. It was back to "normal" mask-wearing policies no matter what your vaccination status. I, like many others, was disappointed by masks being required again. Too often I had been made late by trying to find a mask to take or even running back to my house or car because I forgot mine. Or ran embarrassed out of a store because I forgot to wear one the entire time I was shopping. I also missed putting on makeup below my eyes, a ritual that helped me feel more put together. They're simple, silly reasons for not wanting to wear a mask anymore but to me they represented normalcy.
• 
  2021-10-14T19:40

  The Clonky Helmet

  I personally worked as a COVID 19 screener for South Texas Veterans Affairs. During that time we as COVID screeners were required to wear face shields and masks on our face for more than eight hours a day. After reading the article I posted from the CDC -- it now does not seem like it was a requirement at all for health workers to wear the face shields. I preferred to wear the ones that were much lighter. They were also face shields, but they were not in a shape of a helmet, they were lighter, and easier to handle as we screeners went from one job station to another. During the pandemic, while employed as a COVID 19 screener-- if we were caught without wearing the helmet (face shield) our jobs were threatened. We were only allowed to take the face shields off intermittently, for example, while at lunch.
• 
  2021-09-09

  Looking Back to Look Forward and Adapting to Overcome

  These text stories are from St. Mary University's Rattler Newspaper. These articles relate to the pandemic and my theme because they are discussing how students are adapting from the previous year(s), whether it be dealing with changes to online vs. in-person lectures, new policies to promote safety, or anything else. This theme is important to me because I was still in high school during the start of the pandemic, so I had to go through lots of adaptations, not only because of my transition into college but also because of the ongoing pandemic. When I decided to attend St. Mary's, lots of things were still uncertain, for example, whether or not class will be held in person or virtually, mask and vaccination mandates, etc. Chloe Presley is the contributing writer, and Adrianna Mirabal is responsible for the graphics.
• 
  2020-09-01

  Every story matters - Student's perspective

  Classes in Fall 2020 were either fully virtual or hybrid. In hybrid classes, the professors would have to put the projector with some students being on zoom. This was a good idea because it helped students be safe and at the same time learn. It was also challenging because sometimes professors would pay more attention to the students that were in the classroom and not the ones on zoom. I took this picture a year ago to show my parents how classes were working. This was something my parents appreciated because they saw that St. Mary’s University was using all their resources to help students continue their studies. They liked seeing me continue my college experience in a different way but not fully virtual. I saved this picture for over a year to see the changes the world was going to have during the pandemic. I am glad we are finding new solutions and making changes with still being careful with COVID-19 guidelines.
• 
  2021-10-14

  Jobs/Businesses Closed during Covid-19 Pandemic

  I want to begin that looking through google website I found some interesting images that went well with what I believe are very important reminders of how and when the pandemic just hit San Antonio. This is important to me because it is a reminder of when businesses/schools were closing and people were losing their jobs and being furloughed had no clue where this pandemic was taking us and so many people lost their homes, no way to put food on tables, or pay bills, etc. Not knowing if we would ever come back to the job we once had and relied on for many years a change that no one knew how it would impact our lives dramatically. For me personally at my employment when I received an email that they will soon let people go from their jobs or furloughed I was worried out of my mind, and a constant thought, of “What will I do if I lose my job.” Something like this can never be forgotten and is a reminder of how our lives can change due to a pandemic that no one ever thought would ever happen and not even prepared for.
• 
  2020-03-15

  Empower: Ecuador - Canceled (Personal Experience)

  I was part of the group of student that was preparing themselves emotionally, spiritually, and physically to go to Ecuador and be present with a community in Guayaquil. During this class and for the entire semester we were in retreats together, reading, journaling, and sharing our hearts with each other. We built a community and were deeply connected with the mission of the program and the desire to go to Ecuador and meet the neighbors. However, exactly a couple of days before traveling the lockdown happened, and the plans were canceled. We did not know that the world was going to change so suddenly and immediately. I clearly remember the meeting we had to announce that the trip was canceled and how most of us were filled with sadness and crying. Afterward, we kept being in connection to Ecuador with our prayers and writings. We even wrote some letters to our neighbors in Ecuador. So, this story is to reflects how we can be in connection and engagement with others even during times of depression and distance and how in specific this program had to adapt through COVID-19. To express the story I chose the screenshot of an Instagram post from the Community Engagement Office at St. Mary's University.
• 
  2021-08-17

  I have to do WHAT to my syllabus???

  This is a screenshot of my theology class syllabus including the newly included "face mask policy." I think this is important to include because even though all professors need to include the same information about mask policies, there are some who have just included what needed to be and other who have mentioned it in other areas of their syllabus. It's also interesting to see that this could be the first major change made to some of the professor's syllabi in some time. I submitted this item because it's a part of people's reaction to this pandemic and it heavily influenced changes in our "first-day of class routine." Coming back to school in-person after a whole year online, it was interesting to see how professors were now sharing more personal details about why they are being more careful, checking that students are wearing masks correctly, and some professors being more strict or lenient with the food/drink policy.
• 
  2020

  HS 3390A Cover Your Fangs St. Mary's University Lesson Plan

  Assignment prompt given to St. Mary's University Students in HS 3390A taught by Lindsey Passenger, Fall 2020
• 
  2020-11-23

  St. Mary's Student Oral History, 2020/11/23

  ________ is a sophomore at S. Mary's University. He was able to sit down over zoom and do an interview with me to talk about his experience of online learning during the pandemic. He goes into depth about the changes in the class structures and the changes in his college experience.
• 
  2020-08-01

  #CoverYourFangs with Rattler Man

  St. Mary's University are the Rattlers, represented by Rattler Man. St. Mary's used this image of Rattler Man masked up to encourage students and our campus community to #CoverYourFangs. This is the iconic image that I'll remember from this campaign.
• 
  2020-11-04

  Alpha Sigma Tau Founders Day

  Alpha Sigma Tau Founders day is November 4th and is celebrated every year as the day the sorority was founded. This year because of covid it was celebrated over zoom and the chapters Alumnae joined the current sisters to celebrate.
• 
  2020-10-27

  Alpha Sigma Tau Greek Week Among US

  Greek week is a week-long event in which all the sororities and fraternities participate in the events and compete to win the greek week trophy. Most of the events were held online due to covid, and one of them was the popular online multiplayer social deduction game Among Us. Alpha Sigma Tau new member Jess Calvillo a sophomore, forensic science major, talks about her experience during the greek week event. "Due to covid changing so much this semester, an activity posed for Greek week was a game of Among Us. I personally love Among Us, so using it to bring everyone in the greek community together was brilliant. Everyone was able to have so much fun and get to know each other by trying to uncover who the imposters were! I got to meet people I have never even talked to before and was able to grow connection in the community!"
• 
  2020-09-18

  Alpha Sigma Tau Bid Day

  Alpha Sigma Tau bid day was held over zoom is and this event is meant to welcome all the new members and help them get to know all the current sisters. The theme for this bid day was "Dreaming of Alpha Sigma Tau" and the zoom event was filled with ice breakers and games!
• 
  10/20/2020

  Sofia Almanza Oral History, 2020/10/20

  Sofia Almanzan is a freshman, political science major from El Paso and went through recruitment this semester to become an initiated member of Alpha Sigma Tau. In this oral history, she describes her experience in Greek life during COVID and how it affected her personally, having come from a border city.
• 
  2020-09-04

  AST Recruitment Video

  This is the Alpha Sigma Tau recruitment video that the sorority puts forth to interest potential new members and encourage them to join the Chapter.
• 
  11/20/2020

  Briana Quintanilla Oral History, 2020/11/20

  In this interview, I, Hailey, interview Briana who is an international student in London, UK. She talks about how her coping mechanisms for dealing with stress, anxiety and sadness have shifted due to COVID and the nature of the virus. She gives some great tips for staying mentally healthy during such a tough time, especially for international students, or student very far from family.
• 
  11/20/2020

  Sofia Soto Oral History, 2020/11/20

  In this interview, I, Hailey, am interviewing Sofia about how she has handled stress before and after COVID. I ask her about how she's made adjustments to her coping mechanisms and how she is handling graduating during COVID and having been abroad during COVID as well. The COVID-19 pandemic uprooted a lot of our lives and our plans we had for the future. It is about making adjustments when necessary and learning to cope and be positive!
• 
  11/22/2020

  Kalin Morphet Oral History, 2020/11/22

  This interview is with one of my closest friends. Although we talk all the time, and are a part of each other daily lives interviewing her in this kind of almost formal format and asking her very pointed questions that I don't typically ask was a bit eye opening. I already knew a lot of what she said, but to hear it all laid out and not intertwined and in bits between the busyness our lives really opened my eyes to how much our lives has had to change because of COVID-19, even as we continue to chug along. I think this is important to know because so often we're bogged down with continuing to go though the motions and check boxes we forget to slow down and think about the circumstances of out situation with COVID.
• 
  2020-07-27

  Student reaches out to Professor asking to take Fall 2020 course remotely

  When the Fall 2020 course schedule was announced at St. Mary's I ran to see what type of classes I was going to have. There were 3 options either online, virtual, or a combination of virtual/in-person. My course with Dr. Root was scheduled to be a combination class. I had a lot of fear about going back to campus and especially going to class in-person. I reached out to Dr. Root with the hope that he would allow staying full virtual. Thankfully he was understanding of my situation. This email is the conversation that we had over the situation Screenshot of an email by Dr. Root
• 
  2020-03-13

  Rhetoric and Composition class has to adjust quickly to online teaching

  Before spring break in March 2020, our rhetoric class was very discussion and in-person interaction-based. When we were told that our classes would be moved to online for the rest of the semester Professor Delgado was the first professor that I got an email from. His email made me feel reassured that the transition was going to relatively easy. This email represented a professor acting fast to ease the worries of their students. PDF of the emails sent from Professor Derek Delgado
• 
  11/17/2020

  An Oral interview with St. Mary's University History Professor Dr. Gerald Poyo

  Dr. Poyo talks about the process of converting his classes online. Teaching these past two semesters has changed his opinion about online classes. Through the help of St. Mary's University and the History Department, he was been to tackle the difficult job.
• 
  11/21/2020

  Monserrat Garcia Oral History, 2020/11/21

  The freshmen experience has changed tremendously because of COVID-19, and this has forced the majority of them to adapt and change their routines in this new online learning environment. Attached is an interview with a St.Mary’s freshman’s experience as an online student, and how she has adapted to her environment in order to be successful in college during a pandemic.
• 
  11/21/2020

  Anonymous Oral History, 2020/11/21

  St. Mary’s University (a liberal arts college) is filled with students struggling to find a balance between a new online learning environment and the pandemic, and there is a group of students who in particular have had a hard time. The freshmen of St. Mary’s is this group. This interview tells the experience of a freshman, and how she is handling this unique college experience.
• 
  2020-11-20

  Staying Connected As A Commuting Student

  Staying connected as a commuting student has been hard this semester. St. Mary’s University usually holds events quite often for commuters throughout the year but due to covid these events have been put on hold. Recently, St. Mary’s Campus Activities sent out an email on how students can still stay connected in times like this. They have created a Commuting Rattlers GroupMe we can join. This lets us stay linked in with other commuting students and still have a way to interact with each other. We can join the Commuting Rattler Council through our Rattler Tracks. Here we can discuss our Commuting life at St. Mary’s. I feel like these are all great ideas to stay connected. It makes you feel like you are still socializing and being engaged with your community with a whole new twist to it. St. Mary’s also hosts events (Commuter specific and regular events) and are a great chance to stay connected to every aspect the campus has to offer.
• 
  2020-11-13

  Full-Virtual Work in the Middle of a Pandemic

  This document was created and shared by myself and some coworkers in the History department at my university, St. Mary's. This document was the result of a project we were all assigned to work together on regarding researching the African-American community in West San Antonio, Texas. The work was not easy. Being separated from each other meant coordination and collaboration were very difficult, and actually accomplishing much in the way of actual work was slow going, with few of us actually being able to work together at the times the others were available. Not helping in any way was the fact that working remotely left us with almost no oversight from our supervisor, who was also in charge of several other projects in the department. Our research also took many different forms before settling on the one it ended up in, and it suffered most greatly from most of the workers assigned not being in the city we needed to be in, not having access to any traditional resources like proper records or non-digital resources that might have gone into the detail that we needed, and of course being unable to properly help each other. Despite this however, when we finally were able to coordinate a time to collaborate and work together, we surprisingly were able to unearth the aspect shown here, the resurrection of the Keyhole Club by noted Jazz musician Don Albert, famous for being a fully racially integrated nightclub during a time when such a thing was unheard of, and was challenged. Despite some serious challenges of our own, my coworkers and I were able to emerge successful after all and provide some much-needed information to the assignment.
• 
  11/17/2020

  Anonymous Oral History, 2020/11/17

  This is an interview with a student of St. Mary's University, who is also a member of the student assistant crew which works in the university's drama department, who describes how her job, which is primarily done in-person and in service to theatre productions on campus, has changed with the vast majority of school no longer meeting in person and events such as theatre productions cancelled, as well as what the department is doing in the meantime and what steps it is taking to guarantee student worker safety in the workplace.
• 
  2020-11-19

  Fun Activities to Help Calm your Anxiety

  St. Mary's has provided fun and safe activities for people on campus but also off campus students can participate in. These two examples having a Grinch watch party by using a link can take you're mind off of exams but also can help you relax from everything that is going on in the world. The other example is painting with a twist not only can you do it online via Zoom but they provided you with the supplies you might need to paint. Painting and watching movies are ways to help anyone take their mind off different situations and give us a sense of peace. Even though we can't be physically together during this time we are still doing events that make it seem like not much has changed and can still keep us close together even at a distance.
• 
  10/16/2020

  Jorge Martinez Oral History, 2020/10/16

  An interview between a student of St. Mary's University who is involved with the university's Drama Department talks about the challenges of the recent school semester in the current circumstances and how the Department is working to overcome them and plans for the future. Interview conducted by myself.
• 
  2020-10-06

  How acting changes during the age of COVID

  This document is a list of requirements and guidelines for the attendance of a an acting workshop I was a part of in October of this year, as a part of a larger project the Drama Department at my university, St. Mary's was and is attempting to create a new and safer theatre experience for the coming semesters. The workshop we attended was, of course, created with the intent for attendees to participate in-person. Despite this, however, as the requirements here show, the fact that that was impossible, or at least very ill-advised, not only wasn't enough to prevent it from happening, it may have helped it in a good number of ways. For a first example, the individuals in charge of the workshop, affiliated with The Tectonic Theatre, were situated in New York, as opposed to my university being located in San Antonio Texas. The fact that the workshop was held virtually actually made it much more realistically approachable as otherwise the distance would have complicated matters considerably, which was taken care of in that way. In the same vein, as the requirements hint at with the items that are required, is that each person who participated was able to use their surroundings, almost exclusively their own homes, which they were of course very familiar with, to great affect for the exercises that were given to them. In fact, despite the initial misgivings that many of us-myself included-initially had, the workshop was able to take place not only just as well as it would have had it been in person, but in my personal opinion, it might have gone even better. All in all, the workshop was a pretty impressive look at overcoming complications from this pandemic and working around them to make the virtual experience lose nothing from an in-person experience.
• 
  2020-09-01

  St. Mary's Mask Squad

  A feature story in the lifestyle section of The Rattler student newspaper is about the St. Mary’s Mask Squad, a group of student leaders from different RSOs on campus promoting safety and Marianist values. The job of the mask squad is to not only promote proper mask wearing but find ways the campus can improve on safety for its students and staff. This promotes our Marinist values by caring about other’s safety and health and making sure our actions are aimed towards protecting those around us.
• 
  2020-09-01

  Resources and Tips for St. Mary's Students

  This is the center spread graphic of the first issue of the 2020 fall semester—the first semester where many students on the St. Mary’s campus have gone to primarily remote learning. This center spread is meant to bring awareness to the resources students have available to help them through unfamiliar times: the resources listed include the business office, the office of financial assistance, the student health center, and the student counseling center. Also included are tips from fellow classmates on how to stay engaged and succeed and helpful apps that may help them stay organized throughout online learning.
• 
  2020-11-18

  Meditation during the Pandemic

  Anxiety is something that is not fun to deal with especially during a pandemic when we have no one to talk to or can't really go out much. A way that helps me calm down is meditation whether it be turning off the lights and lighting up a scented candle or just going outside and take a breath of fresh air. These new creative ways that were taught to me by a Professor at St. Mary's University has helped me a lot in different situations. Lying down with a scented candle helps relieve your stress or anxiety by calming you down and not thinking about the situation that is happening around us. Doing this for ten minutes a day really does make a difference in your everyday life. Going outside for a breath a fresh air is also very calming because you would be outside your house and looking at nature really does help forget about the pandemic that we are dealing with. So whenever you are feeling anxious a candle or going outside can help relax your thoughts and body.
• 
  2020-03-16

  Art class moves online in the wake of St. Mary's University's decision to move online for the rest of Spring 2020

  In March 2020 while on spring break we got an email sent from the Office of the President saying that spring break would be extended an extra week to allow staff to transition class to fully online/virtual. When I heard this news I was worried about how my art class would continue. When Dr. Joffe sent this email it felt reassuring that our professors were acting fast to create plans for the class.
• 
  2020-09-28

  Dr. Romo cancels classes due to internet issues

  Dr. Romo sent these two emails to his students after expressing issues with his internet. The first email he had sent was directed towards the wrong class and when we sent the second email he made emphasize on the struggle of using his phone to communicate correctly. This is one professor that was okay with opening up about his struggles with online teaching at the moment they were happening. Professors aren't immune to having technical issues while teaching online so have an open conversation with students about those struggles makes it feel less frustrating.
• 
  2020-08-10T15:06

  Work Studies Begin Working Remotely for Fall 2020

  When I got the email saying that as a work-study student at St. Mary's University I was going to be able to work from home for the semester I was extremely excited. Before the pandemic, we were only allowed to work in-person while on campus. In March all work-studies were told that they would not be able to work at home, so it was stressful waiting to hear if we were going to be allowed to work. Being able to still work on the projects that we are assigned during this pandemic is a nice escape from reality.
• 
  2020-09-01

  Meet The Rattler Staff

  These photos are introductions of The Rattler (St. Mary's University school newspaper) staff to the campus. Typically students interested in working on staff can meet the current editors at one of the many in person meetings, but since all meetings are held over Zoom and students can pick up more stories through a simple email putting names the faces of the section editors can be a bit hard. These introduction photos can help writers connect with the staff they will work with so closely, and understand who may be best to contact if they have any questions.