Items

• 
  2022-05-26

  Relocation in Isolation, Reconnection in Solitude

  When Covid first kicked off, I was in the final months of my undergraduate degree, weeks away from obtaining my B.A. in history from CSU Stanislaus in December 2020. I had made plans to travel and work in Japan, teaching English, doing cultural work, and generally immersing myself into the culture I found so fascinating in my studies. However, the world's shutdown would put an end (or a pause) to this plan. Now working remotely from home, I stayed in my room working on my senior thesis, looking out the window to the often empty street. My family had decided to move, as we had decided years before but loose ends such as my degree were the final threads to be cut. Remote work had given us an unexpected leap in our time-frame, and so in the midst of the Paradise fires, to which I vividly remember the dark orange skies blotting out the sun and the ever present ashy, smoky stench on the air, carried by the warm breeze from the north, we began the process of transitioning our lives to be on the road, and to be resettled in northern Idaho. For the next year and a half or so we settled in to our new home, however the world was still largely in lock-down, and so I spent most of my time inside or in the basement where I had set up a study space to finish my senior thesis and to earn my degree through my last online semester. It was a self reflective and solitary time, in which I would often take many breaks to venture out my backdoor, which quite literally lead into the forest. Not fifty feet from my home, we have a circle of trees where we would eventually put a fire pit and often sit around together around the warmth on cold nights, talking and sharing fun with one another. When alone however, it serves as an incredible spot to simply sit back and become immersed into our natural world, an amenity I often take advantage of to this day while working on my M.A. through ASU's online program. This audio recording is a sample of that, and in it, you can hear the spring time birds chirping away, the low rumble of the highway just over the mountain, feel the breeze through the trees and the valleys from the lake, and imagine the smell of pine and flowers on the forest floor.
• 2020-03-23

  Solid Wall of (No) Sound

  I was a college student during the initial phases of the pandemic. Classes were moved to all online, and I moved out of the dorm back home, since most of the campus was closed. My most distinct memory of the time is of walking my dog on the first Monday morning of the lockdown. The world was so still. The only soft noises that could be heard were birds chirping and squirrels chittering to each other as they ran around. I lived right next to a major road, so the sudden silence was almost oppressive. That vacuum of sound was the loudest thing I heard on the walk, and it came with the sudden awareness that the area I was walking in was completely alien to the one I had grown up in. I have visited home again since then, but have been completely unable to ever capture that eerie feeling again. It felt special, like a completely ethereal place in time that would never be recreated again.
• 
  2022-05-07

  Ashley Hampton Oral History, 2022/05/07

  An ASU graduate student reflects on her career, school, and life throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
• 
  May 24, 2021

  Chronicles of the Plague Years

  [From the Introduction] For the students, faculty, and staff at Bronx Community College, March 2020 was a sucker punch to the gut. Our vibrant campus, a beautiful haven filled with vitality and life, became a kind of petri dish—ground zero for the COVID 19 virus to make landfall. Not only were many students and staff sickened in those early days, but the City University system was forced to close, then transition to remote learning in the space of a single week. It was a challenge, to say the least: for faculty who needed to quickly learn the tools to make it possible, and even more so for the students, who—cut off from socialization and in person learning—had to adjust to this new reality. Stranded in their homes, some students were forced to continue working frontline jobs, while others lost jobs and income, facing financial devastation. Students were confronted with their own illness as well as that of family members. Online learning was fraught in those early days. As a community, we improvised our way forward, without the proper technology and knowhow to do it. But two years on, our students have proven their resilience. In time, we adapted to remote learning, to new ways of doing things, of coping. 2020 was harder, and in 2021, the challenges continued. But, somehow, we got through. These student books provide a glimpse into the minds of the talented BCC Digital Design students who persevered, strived, and thrived.
• 
  2022-01-10

  life at NAU during 2022

  in this journal I have mentioned many times how COVID really never effected me or the work that I had to do.
• 
  2022-01-10

  Journal from an NAU student

  My journal is a week by week deptiction of my everyday life going to college during an pandemic
• 
  2022-04-25

  COVID-19, Religion, and Public Life Reflection #REL101

  this is a look through my point of view living in the year 2020
• 
  2022-04-19

  GB Oral History, 2022/04/19

  The interviewee discusses vaccine hesitancy and life during the pandemic without having received the vaccine.
• 
  2022-04-18

  Interviewee 2022/04/18

  This audio interview discusses life as a college athlete during the covid-19 pandemic.
• 
  2020-03

  ZOOM University

  When COVID-19 first surfaced it didn’t seem like a big deal at all. I remember packing for spring break and crossing my fingers that we would have an extended break due to this virus. I never imagined that fast forward two years into the future we would still be in the midst of this pandemic. Zoom was the one thing that sticks out in my head through COVID-19. Without Zoom, I don’t know how we would have been able to continue on with school. The transition from regular schooling to virtual learning was a rough experience but with patience and learning on both the students and the professors ends, we were able to continue learning without having to worry about spreading or contracting COVID-19. To this day, Zoom is still being used by professors. It’s crazy that I will be looking back on my undergraduate experience and one of the most prevalent memories I will hold is learning through my computer screen for the majority of the time.
• 
  2022-04-15

  The Years of Covid 2020-2022

  How covid affected my transition from high school to college
• 
  2020-04-13

  Art by Me

  At the start of the pandemic, the only thing kind of entertainment people relied on was the television or their phone. Like most other high school students who are addicted to their phone, I was one of them. I was always laying in my bed scrolling through TikTok or looking on Snapchat. I mean, that was the number one thing to do. We weren't allowed to be out of the houses, going to sports events because the sad reality was that all of them got canceled. A couple months after the pandemic began, I started to lose interest being on my phone, it was no longer a source of entertainment, more rather repetitive. I've always loved art, drawing, crafting, making things at home. I grew up with an artistic, crafty mother. I decided that I wanted to create panting to hang up in my room, that is how it all began. I wanted to add more decorations to my room, and I admired the fact that it was my own art. Every day, I would sketch, draw and paint a different piece. I honestly fell in love with it, and I realized it was kind of like an escape from reality. I wasn't ever focused on anything else when I was painting, even though I am a perfectionist. I started showing my family members and friends my artwork and shortly after, people were asking me to paint them a custom piece. Of course, I couldn't say no so, I got the opportunity to paint my, soon to be, little sisters name board for her baby room. My family absolutely loved it and so did I. I wanted to expand the type of art I was creating so I decided to decorate my high school cap for my graduation that had been postponed, due to the pandemic. I sketched the outline of a paw print and filled the inside with different types of orange flowers, since I was going to Oklahoma State University and studying in animal sciences, I thought it was fitting. Through the rest of the pandemic up until school started back up and I was off to college, I was creating art. I used to look back at the pandemic and remember all negative moments that had happened, like the second half of my senior year getting canceled and summer not feeling like summer. Now, I feel like I've matured enough mentally to realize that I got to explore more about myself and learn about what kind of things make me happy, something not a lot of people get to do or even realize they can do.
• 
  2020-03-12

  The emails

  It's March 2020, a young freshmen college student is packed and ready to head to the airport for her one and only shot at study abroad for the next 4 years. As she lugs her suitcase down the stairs of her dorm she gets an email that she will never forget, the study abroad trip has been cancelled do to an outbreak of new viral disease in Berlin Germany. Disappointed she headed back upstairs to call her parents and let them know. She unpacks, and repacks from her home in Texas instead. Once home she receives another email from her school, classes will be online for 2 weeks after spring break due to this new viral disease going around. She's upset but settles in to doing class at home. Then comes another email. School will be online for the rest of her semester, move out from the dorms will be staggered over the next couple of weeks and return date to campus is unknown. She is upset and sad over the loss over the end of her freshmen year, but hopeful that this new disease will settle down and that life will be able to return to normal in the fall. Alas this was not true and the series of unfortunate emails just keep coming, email after email. She kept being disappointed and heart-broken over all the loss of memories and chances do to a virus. 2 year later, she now wonders will the emails ever stop?
• 
  2020-12-10

  Lumpia During COVID-19 Shutdown

  This picture is when my roommates and I cooked lumpia in St. George, Utah, and classes were all moved online during the shutdown. We ended up with a lot of time on our hands during the shutdown, and we decided to cook and bake our favorite recipes, and lumpia was one of them. While COVID-19 changed our educational experience, it also changed our eating habits because we used to depend on ordering food a lot that we hardly used our shared kitchen in our dorm room together. This was one of my favorite memories with my roommates because, through food, we were able to spend more time preparing recipes, cooking them, and eating them together, unlike before. While COVID shut down everything, it gave us more time to bond together as roommates through food.
• 
  2022-03-30

  The Impact of SARS-CoV-2 on Students

  At the beginning of the pandemic there was mass confusion and scares about what was to come of this new, unknown virus called SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19. Once widespread outbreaks were prevalent, everyone was sent home from work and schools. A lot of smaller businesses could no longer make rent and went out of business, and many people did not know how they were going to make ends meet. However, one of the most vital impacts, was on our students in upper elementary and above. Many public and private schools, from elementary to high school, did not make any school work necessary to be completed in Oklahoma, and as a result, created a gap in the knowledge needed for the continuation of schooling in the years to come. For freshmen college students, as I was at the time, if you were living on campus, in the dorm rooms and apartments, many of us were given notice that we had two weeks to move out unless we had extenuating circumstances. Additionally, all of our classes after spring break were moved online (in the best way possible) but often times were unsuitable to the in person experience. As a Microbiology Major enrolled in several different science classes with labs, it was nearly impossible to get the necessary experience to properly understand the laboratory material. As a result, this made it more difficult in the semesters to come to understand what was required of me, due to the lack of knowledge of materials I would have learned had I been able to attend my labs. Because of the severity of this virus and the rapid spread which sent everyone quarantining in their homes, we may see a lasting impact, not due to the viruses long-term side-effects, but due to our educational generations having a detrimental gap in proper school education.
• 
  2020-05-02

  Graduated but not Graduating

  The screenshot is a cancellation email from graduation services letting us know that our graduation was being postponed, ultimately it was canceled altogether. Like many, I also lost the opportunity to walk across the stage after completing my undergraduate degree in the spring of 2020. Really it wasn’t until I found out that the graduation was canceled that I realized how much the graduation had meant to me. Before, I thought “It's just a piece of paper, who cares if you walk across the stage to get it.” It's more than that, for many it’s a transition from academia to the workforce, a real transition in life that is captured in a moment. For me, it was a little different as it was more of capturing a moment of hard work and dedication as I completed my degree while having a full-time job in the military. Also, I was the first person in my family to complete a college degree. Not graduating doesn’t erase these accomplishments, but it does alter the celebration of the accomplishments. The pandemic changed what was considered “normal.” We can see this as graduations later in the pandemic shifted to virtual graduations accomplished over Zoom or Skype. Obviously, this is not the same experience by a long shot, but I do think that it is still important to capture these big life moments in some way. I am writing this in March 2022, the pandemic has tapered off and I hope that this spring/summer people have the opportunity to experience a real graduation!
• 
  2022-03-20

  A Day in the Life of the Pandemic

  My daily routine has definitely been affected during the COVID-19 pandemic in multiple ways. During the height of the pandemic when most classes at ASU were virtual, I took advantage of the fact that I didn’t have to leave my house and got used to sleeping in late most days I could do so. I also noticed that as a result of being home all the time, I tended to order less food out, and regularly started making my meals on my grill again. Unfortunately, another thing I began to notice is that since began isolating at home, I have been very tempted to procrastinate on the work I have to do for classes. As a result, I sometimes had a hard time getting started on my classwork in a timely manner, so I would end up stressed trying to submit it closer to the deadline than I would have preferred. Additionally, since I have been stuck inside more than I would like, I have been using my bench and dumbbells much more to keep in shape. COVID-19 has also just made me instinctively feel very naked without a mask on, and it has just become a habit to wear one everywhere at this point. On another related note, I also have made it a habit to avoid large groups or crowds of people in general because of COVID-19, so I unfortunately not seen any live music since the start of the pandemic. I have however gotten into the habit of playing more music and video games, which has been a fun way to keep myself occupied when I am not busy with work or school. Although my daily routine definitely has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have gotten used to it in the many months that have passed since it began.
• 
  2022-03-08

  Pandemic Prompt: A Day in the Life

  Assignment prompt given to the spring 2022 ASU graduate student interns. The prompt asks them to document one day in March 2022 and reflect on 6-8 daily routine moments and how they are influenced/not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 
  2022-02-16

  Destruction of COVID signage/safety equipment

  This email chain documents a series of incidents in my workplace where an anonymous individual has engaged in acts of vandalism against COVID safety signage.
• 
  2020-03-22

  reverse life

  Since the quarantine, my life has been completely turned upside down. I wake up later, eat irregularly, and am also much lazier. At that time, I was really lonely. I don't communicate with anyone and I don't want to do anything, I just lie in bed scrolling through my phone and playing games. I study superficially and have no interest in it at all. After a while, my sleep was completely reversed. I sleep during the day and stay awake at night. Every time I wake up I sit at the table and play games until morning, forgetting to eat and study. I have lost a lot of weight since then. Only when I play games do I feel happy because I get to meet my friends online. I got to know a lot of new people, even though we don't talk much now, but the time we spent together was really meaningful to me. Although I really enjoyed the quarantine, it also made me feel very weak. My lazy life ended when I went back to school but it took me a lot of time to get back to my normal life. I feel more positive and my life becomes more meaningful when the quarantine is over.
• 
  2022-02-08

  Pink disposable mask trash

  A pink disposable mask on ASU’s campus near Coor.
• 
  2020-03

  Growth Through a Pandemic

  The Covid-19 pandemic has brought an array of challenges for not only me, but people across the globe. People have lost loved ones, lost touch with some of their closest friends, got covid themselves, and so much more. Although Covid-19 has taken a long-lasting toll on my life, it has also brought me great change in an extremely positive way. When the pandemic first started my family and I were forced into a “lockdown”, only leaving our house for the essentials like food. I was unable to see my friends as online schooling became more and more prominent. This took such a toll on me both mentally and physically. I was longing for a social connection that I could no longer get and was unable to do one of the things I love to do most, workout. Although at the time I thought it was the worst thing possible, the lockdown caused my family and I to get extremely close. We would have family dinners, play games, and watch movies. The pandemic helped me to realize how much I rely on my family, and that through thick and thin they will always be there for me. As the pandemic progressed, I got accepted into Duquesne University, and started college soon after. This was a huge adjustment for me as I am from Buffalo, three and a half hours away. I had to meet new people and get adjusted to home away from home amid a global pandemic. I had to overcome fear of the unknown and fear of the pandemic to grow as an individual, and I did just that. Through the last three semesters I have met so many amazing people and found the things that make me happy while at Duquesne. I learned to not let fear override you, and that to grow physically and mentally you must overcome fear. Across the entire pandemic I have also learned that sometimes you need to focus on yourself and put yourself first. Throughout the pandemic I got into the habit of going to the gym consistently and began to eat more cleanly. I found joy in the little things, like going to work and building relationships with my fellow employees. In the end, the pandemic taught me to always look on the brightside no matter what and to make the most of everything that is thrown at you, good or bad. Looking back at it, the Covid-19 pandemic helped me grow and become the person I am today.
• 
  2021-10-13

  Zoom University

  While my life has changed significantly due to the covid-19 pandemic, I would say that the biggest adjustment for me was adapting to the different methods of instruction at my university. As a college student, I was used to and grew comfortable with in person instruction. This was the method of learning that I partook my entire life; the sudden change to strictly online had significant effects on my academic performance and overall retention of material. For me, it was remarkedly more difficult to grasp concepts that I would have comprehended under normal study conditions. Taking science heavy courses such as organic chemistry, instrumental analysis, physics, and molecular biology were all much more difficult than they would have been normally. It is also prudent to note the inconsistencies of professors during this time period, as they had to adjust just as much (or even more) than students. Old-school professors that did not have experience with the newest technology were forced to orient their lecture material in a format completely foreign. Needless to say, professors who were very effective instructors in person often struggled in the zoom format. Specifically, issues related to zoom that affected the quality of teaching included connection issues and students having incentives to not pay attention. For example, I took biostatistics 1 completely online, where the professor was older and not technologically adept. Every class the professor would write notes on a paper and and show it to the class. This strategy for teaching proved to be ineffective because the quality of video was not definitive, the lighting was poor, and the handwriting was small. All of these combined factors led to an entire class who had no idea what was being taught to them. While this is unfortunate, I adapted by reading more of the textbook than I would under normal circumstances, and met with the professor during office hours to work out material that I did not understand.
• 
  2022-02-06

  Covid: College Edition

  In March of 2020, all SUNY schools were sent home because of the Covid pandemic. It was unknown how long I was going to be home for, little did I know it would be over 11 months and a year and a half to go to in person classes. Almost half of my college experience was spent virtual. This is a time that you will never get to live again and it was cut short by almost half. I am very grateful to be in person again and seeing my friend's even thought things aren't 100% back to normal, I am very happy to be back. I am praying that this never happens again for future college students or any students in that matter. Enjoy the time you have because you never know what the future holds.
• 2020-04

  Blessing in Disguise

  2020 started out great. I finally started to like my experience as a freshman at Duquesne. I really took a liking to my classes and the sorority that I joined, and I was always busy which was a nice change of pace from the fall semester. With this, I met a lot of amazing people who soon would become my closest friends. I was having a great start to the year. However, that all came to a pause in the middle of March. What I thought was going to be a 2-week vacation turned out to be a complete change in the way we live our lives. Zoom University was a nice break but it soon turned into a nightmare. I myself am a home-body, but getting up every single day knowing that I was about to have the same exact day as the next and the next was really hard. I had a really hard time not seeing family, friends, maintaining relationships, and just trying to stay sane during this quarantine. While this seemed like a never-ending cycle that would soon drive me and everyone in my house insane, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While I really loved my life at school, I realized that I didn’t have much time to focus on myself. It was just one distraction after the next. I finally got to really do things for myself. I made it a habit to workout inside the house, go on daily walks with my family, journal my thoughts, and really work on finding my inner peace. During this time, I realized that some things I had in my life pre-covid that I thought were serving me and bringing value, were not. Covid really stripped down every distraction and made it clear what was making me happy and what wasn’t, and for that I am grateful. Although it came with many struggles, covid taught a lesson to myself and I think to a lot of people of how to adapt well to a situation and focus on what is important, your well-being and the well-being of those closest to you and get back to your roots!
• 
  2020-05-07

  Finally Seeing My Best Friend

  The pandemic has been a rough time for me. I decided to take a gap year in the middle of my college experience in order to work. Online learning isn't the easiest, and it was the best decision I could've made. However, it was very isolating living in my parents basement for 18 months. Humans are supposed to be social creatures. My father is immunocompromised, which means that I have to be as careful as possible to keep him healthy. For the first few months of the pandemic, I didn't see anyone besides my mom and dad. I couldn't even see my grandmother, who I missed so much. Finally, things started to feel a little bit safer, so I was finally able to see my childhood friend. I sat in her backseat with a mask on, while she drove us to a hiking trail, where we were able to have a socially distanced picnic. Being able to spend that time with her was crucial. I needed this time with her to keep myself sane. We decided to take a picture of us wearing our masks, posing like the characters in The Fault In Our Stars movie poster. We talked for hours, grateful to be in each other’s presence. We made it a routine to try to do something outside together every couple of weeks. She lives in my neighborhood, so it was easy to meet at a corner and walk our dogs together. Being able to see someone that was outside of my immediate family was like a breath of fresh air, both metaphorically and literally. As time went on, she became part of my “COVID bubble” as my family called it. It was hard not seeing other friends, but I’m glad that at least I had her from the very beginning.
• 
  2020-03-12

  Class of 2020

  On March 12th, 2020, the Community College of Allegheny County emailed out a letter in response to the COVID - 19 global pandemic. The college had suspended credited classes for five days until faculty and administration had figured out how to stop the spread of COVID – 19 by having a smooth transition from in-person learning to online learning. I was aware that COVID - 19 was starting to become a large problem in the U.S. and other countries, but I did not think that we were at the magnitude that we would need to go online learning. Nonetheless, I was fine with it. I would rather be safe than sorry because I wasn’t sure of the seriousness of the virus and the online learning period was only supposed to last from March 18th to April 19th. And then on April 1st, 2020, the whole state of Pennsylvania had gone on lockdown for COVID – 19, I had then selfishly started to become worried about what the future would hold for me. I was in the last year of my two-year degree program and extremely excited that I was finally eligible to graduate and walk across the stage and graduate with my family cheering for me like every other graduating class before me. I figured there would have to be some type of celebration for the graduating class because, before the year 2020, I and many other students had never even imagined what alternate graduation would look like or how it would even work. I think I and any other student who was a part of the graduating class of 2020 in hindsight are glad that we didn’t have the traditional graduation because we did celebrate our achievements and kept our family and friends safe while doing it.
• 
  2020-04

  How Stuffed Peppers Kept Me From Killing My Roommates

  In March of 2020, I had just turned 22. I was prepping to graduate from Loyola University Chicago and searching for a job in journalism — a notoriously tough field to start out in, pandemic or not. The virus started spreading, and the jobs started disappearing. Chicago, my once-vibrant home where people scattered like ants as the CTA trains screeched into the station, was deserted. It was eerie. The internet was swarming with newly viral recipes: banana bread, sourdough starters, homemade pizzas. I wasn't interested in those, they didn't strike my fancy. In a time of severe isolation for most, I was stuck with roommates. Don't get me wrong, we had our issues. The dishes were almost never done, and we disagreed on whose responsibility they were. But in my boredom, I took up cooking, and for once I didn't mind cooking for them as well. I was one of many COVID-induced chefs who began as amateurs and blossomed into connoisseurs that rivaled the best of takeout menus. The only problem was, I'm a vegetarian, and my roommates are born-and-bred Midwesterners, set in their ways of eating and enjoying meat at nearly every meal. But by April, I had sprung head-first into a phase of cooking stuffed peppers several times a week, and they had followed me down the rabbit hole. There were no disagreements about whether to put meat in the filling or not — we didn't need it, there was enough flavor and protein regardless. And the dishes were always done, somehow without a single argument or passive-aggressive slam of a door. The peppers were fun and colorful, Instagram-worthy in a time that lacked almost anything visually intriguing. They became a source of collaboration instead of the division that had seeped in through our 100-year-old Chicago apartment's walls, a result of being trapped with no one but each other for weeks on end. It's superstitious, maybe, but I think these peppers may have saved us from severing our relationship forever. We mended our fracturing friendships and became a family once again, eating dinner together and making sure the kitchen was clean.
• 
  2022-02

  Ripple Affect from COVID 19

  My personal experience with COVID 19
• 
  2020-08

  Covid-19 Freshman

  The Coronavirus will certainly be something I will never forget and how it impacted myself and the people around me. The initial shutdown hit the spring of my senior year of high school. I thought we were going to be shut down for a month, at the most. That certainly was not the case. After most of the world was shut down for nearly 6 months, it was time for me to start my freshman year of college. I spent the summer going into freshman year wondering what college would look like for me, and whether campuses would even reopen come fall semester of 2020. Luckily, college students we able to return to campus, but with many changes and limitations none of us could have imagined. Moving into college was much different than I had always imagined. Before coming to campus, I had to schedule a two hour move in slot on a specific date. Before unloading anything, I had to wait in a line of other college student’s cars waiting to get tested for covid. The test had to be negative in order to be allowed on campus. The rapid covid test we received took 30 minutes to receive the results. This was the longest 30 minutes of my life. My heart was racing, and I was freaking out about what would happen if the test came back positive. I would have to drive seven hours back home, just to do it all over again 10 days later. Thankfully, the test came back negative, and I was able to move into my dorm room. Unfortunately, my roommate had tested positive, so I was alone in my room for 10 days. That does not seem like a lot of time now but looking back it was the longest 10 days of my life. Everyone on campus was isolated from each other to slow the spread of the virus. We were discouraged from having others in our dorm rooms and were encouraged to say in our rooms for the majority of the day. The gym was even opened for limited hours of the day. All these limitations meant spending a lot of time in your room alone. Along with adjusting to this new reality of college none of us expected, we had to worry about getting sent into isolation if we tested positive, and we got tested up to two times a week. I had many conversations with my roommate about how long it was going to take to get sent home because we all expected to be sent home, since we had experienced so many other disappointments and cancellations in the last few months of senior year. It was very hard to live with the high level of uncertainty. No one knew how long the pandemic was going to last, when things were going to return to normal, and whether we were ever going to receive a normal college experience. While many current college students have not experienced the normal college experience, we all expected to, we have all adjusted and have made the most of it. I am hopeful that we are close to returning to normalcy, and we all have gone through the worst of it.
• 
  2021-09-06

  The Party Doesn't Stop

  Celebrating our organizations on campus. Showing that we will still make college an amazing time for everyone, safely.
• 
  04/06/2021

  Asia Haynie Oral History, 2021/04/06

  Personal narrative towards understandings about Covid-19 to further the understanding of the impacts of the pandemic over time.
• 
  11/27/2020

  Cristiano Favazza Oral History, 2020/11/27

  C19OH
• 
  12/05/2020

  Chloe Ylitalo Oral History, 2020/12/05

  C19OH
• 
  12/11/2020

  Anthony Wallace Oral History, 2020/12/11

  C19OH
• 
  11/30/2020

  Dang Yang Oral History, 2020/11/30

  Dang Yang is the Director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs at UW Eau Claire. He identifies as a Hmong American that was born and raised in the Midwest of the United States. Dang discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic affected his personal life as well as his professional life. In this discussion he emphasizes the challenges of operating an office at a higher learning institution as well as the issues of racism that came about with the onset of the Coronavirus and isolated racially charged events that happened during the pandemic. He focuses on equity in his discussion.
• 
  2020-11-05

  Life as a Student during Covid

  Living on a college campus during a pandemic had many stuggles. You had to get creative with ways to spend your time.
• 
  2020-08-01

  Schooling during covid

  At the time of August 2020 I was a new student going back to college as a 30 year old. Now this was during the pandemic so there were many challenges. Firstly we had to wear mask in class and this made it very difficult to understand the teacher at times. Not to mention we had to be socially distant so we were spaced out throughout the classroom which made things more difficult to hear. And this is all if you were lucky enough to get into a hands on class that would be held in person. As most classes had moved to a virtual classroom (zoom) at this time. The classes that I had on Zoom presented their own challenges as you didn’t have that personal touch as if you were in person. There was also lots of time where students were talking over each other. As these obstacles presented challenges I’m very fortunate to have at least been given the opportunity to go ahead with my education instead of it being put on hold.
• 
  10/27/2020

  Henry Wathan Oral History, 2020/10/27

  This interview was recorded as part of The Covid 19 Oral History Project, a project of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute associated with The Journal of a Plague Year: A Covid 19 Archive. This interview was conducted through the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of credit for HIST3158 under the supervision of Dr. Rebecca S. Wingo.
• 
  2021-12-11

  Olivia Valenti Oral History, 2021/12/11

  It illustrates what college was like during the pandemic
• 
  2020

  New England Student in COVID

  It seems as though every winter all of the kids in schools get a cold. Classrooms have a chorus of sniffles and coughs until springtime and we all suffer sickness together. At least, that’s how it started. My college sent an email to all students, staff, and faculty, saying the school would be monitoring the COVID-19 situation in other countries on February 10th, 2020 and there was no threat to worry about. Everyone left for spring break on March 8th, 2020, expecting to be back in a week. Instead, we got an “extra week” of the break to make sure anyone who traveled could quarantine, just in case. That week turned into a handful more and started online classes ASAP. Students were given the opportunity to go back to the college in a 3-hour window to retrieve any materials necessary for a few weeks online until the surge dies down. Fortunately, I am studying computer science, so a majority of my professors had minimal difficulty making the change, but others were not as fortunate. Quickly, the handful of weeks became the remainder of the semester. All courses would be graded on the basis of pass/fail if the students elected for each individual course they were enrolled in, due to the nature of this huge and unprecedented turnaround. All exams were online, many professors canceled their midterms to alleviate stress from the students and fears of cheating. We would receive semi-weekly updates from the college, mostly fluff pieces about missing the student body with information that was important sprinkled in. Eventually, we were permitted to sign up for a window of time to go and move our belongings out of the dorms, once the state allowed outside travelers in. In the midst of all of the chaos, I transferred colleges and started the next academic year attending one that was much larger and had more resources at its disposal to deal with COVID-19. This school had planned to welcome students back to campus in fall 2020 with a few expectations in place. They had devised a “COVID-19 Compliance” system to keep the population safe and maintain records of who was following protocol. Students would have a “green badge” assigned to them in the morning if: they had completed a daily symptom check-in that was negative, they were up-to-date on their twice-weekly COVID tests and had not been marked as a close contact to someone who had tested positive. Had one of these not been completed, you would have a yellow badge to mark non-compliance, a red badge for isolation, or an orange badge if you were symptomatic. Students must show a green badge to enter ANY campus building. Some classes were online, others hybrid in-person/online at the discretion of the professors. Masks were to be worn at all times, students must get vaccinated once they were eligible, dining areas were to-go only, the campus was littered with signs to promote 6 feet of social distancing, and a student-run campaign called “F*ck It Won’t Cut It” was started to bring attention to the urgency of staying compliant to stay on campus. We would receive weekly updates about the status of the campus’s overall positivity rate. It felt like a shell of a college experience, as students could not visit other students’ residences, no clubs could have in-person meetings, attendance at sporting events was prohibited, and students reporting other students for non-compliance created an atmosphere of disdain. We are now in the second full academic year of the pandemic and there are a few deviations from what I described for fall 2020. Now, COVID tests are once weekly rather than twice, students can now visit other residences and attend sporting events, all of the dining spaces have opened up to sit-in dining, masks are still required at all times, all classes are in person, and the “F*ck It Won’t Cut It” campaign has been retired. It seems as though we are creeping towards the idea of a “typical” college experience, but it feels like this will have an everlasting impact on the next few incoming classes of students and change college as people know it.
• 
  2021-11-01

  From Every Part of the World! - St. Mary's International Students Map

  This map shows how many international students St. Mary's University has in Fall 2021. This year St. Mary's received approximately 50 new international students which is only half of the total they were supposed to have in Fall 2021. In Spring 2022 they hope to receive more than 30 international students, making this map just bigger. The biggest amount of International Students St. Mary's has come from Peru and Honduras, with a total of 25 students. Mexico goes in second place with 24 students and in third place, Saudi Arabia with 18 students.
• 
  2021-12-08

  Sydney Inouye, Cole Zaleski Oral History, 2021/12/08

  We are discussing the comparisons between COVID-19 and previous pandemics, as well as how the pandemic has impacted our first year of college.
• 
  05/16/2020

  Kevin Secker Oral History, 2020/05/16

  University of Wisconsin Eu Clair student, Glenn Walborn interviewed Tyson factory security worker Kevin Secker. In this interview Secker discusses how the pandemic has impacted his life. Secker is also a student and discusses how his classes have changed to accommodate online learning. Also discussed is Seckers new job as a plant security guard for Tyson factory in New London, Wisconsin. He discusses the changes that factory workers had to adhere to and their reaction to all those changes. He also discusses his opinions on government response to the pandemic and skepticism he experienced in the factory. He briefly discusses conspiracy theories he has heard and remedies that some factory workers have been sharing. Secker finished off the interview with hopes for the future and lessons he hopes we as a society have learned.
• 
  11/30/2020

  Brent Lameyer Oral History, 2020/11/30

  C19OH
• 
  05/06/2021

  Bekah Henn Orak History, 2021/05/06

  C19OH
• 
  2021-12-03

  Jorge Martinez Oral History, 2021/12/03

  Student Jorge Martinez relates how his experience as a St. Mary's University student living on campus for the first time in Fall 2020 amid the pandemic. Jorge was able to contact the office of student retention and Student Life to support the challenges he was facing during the pandemic.
• 
  2021-12-03

  Christian Sandoval Oral History, 2021/12/03

  An interview with Christian Sandoval, a UTSA senior who graduated during the pandemic, on how the pandemic affected his graduation and career options.
• 
  2021-12-03

  Kaitlin Teniente Oral History, 2021/12/03

  An interview with the Director of Esports at St. Mary's University, Kaitlin Teniente, discussing how the pandemic affected interacting with the students through esports and other casual videogame events.
• 
  2021-12-01

  Ana Suarez Oral History, 2021/12/01

  I interviewed a student that attends St. Mary’s University and is a work study in the Law School. I wanted to get her voice out and get an idea of what her perspective was on this ongoing pandemic. Hearing her and speak about where she was when the pandemic struck really reminded me that we all faced the same problems and that no one knew what the outcome was going to be. As a student in college, I’m sure that it was just as hard to know that schools would be shutting down and having no clue as to what the next step would be. Going back home and attending class virtue was hard especially if some did not have the resources for online fees, or laptops, etc. Hearing from Ana, and knowing that she struggled financially while in quarantine and making ends meet really makes us think that everyone had it hard. But in the long run she was able to go back to school and received the vaccination and made sure she followed all the policies that were in effect at the University. At least make it feel like some things were back to normal.