Friday, March 13th: It was my older son’s birthday, and I left work a little before 5:00 pm so I could pick up his cake from the bakery and arrive home before 6:00. President Paxson’s announcement about students needing to leave campus by March 22 had gone out the morning before and the shock of it was wearing off a little by that Friday afternoon.
When I started to leave the CRC through the main office doorway, seven or eight staffers were seated in a circle on the couches and chairs. The mood felt like “closing-time”; they sat shoulder to shoulder, laughter amongst their chit-chat, some sipping on drinks and eating snacks. On asking they told me about their emerging plans for when they were to leave for home, if they were remaining off-campus in their apartments, or if they were petitioning to stay in the dorms. Their warm smiles contrasted with the tears I witnessed the day before from seniors coming to terms with an end to their togetherness. I remember thinking we had one more week of these opportunities for closeness. “Well, I hope you have a restful weekend. See you on Monday.”
Then, the announcement the next day from the Provost of the COVID-19 case in the community, and the need to expedite the campus closure and dorm move out date to the upcoming Tuesday. Then, the message I received that the Campus Center would be closed after the coming Monday evening and inaccessible to anyone not full-time Campus Center staff members. My email to the CRC staff on Saturday evening read, “Dear all: In light of the Provost's message, I'm writing to highlight that all non-essential personnel/workers are to work remotely. That is to say, starting immediately we should be working remotely and not at the CRC office, to support the need for social distancing… I would encourage you to go to the office if you left anything there that you need to take with you. However, please do not go to the office unless you need to pick up your belongings... I recognize this is very distressing and sudden.”
Distressing and sudden indeed. Now into the third week of online learning and Zoom meetings, some students I have spoken to have had to manage how to get up for a class at 6:00 AM Pacific Time, study amongst a family of six in a three-room home, or accept the reality of a parent having lost their job. Many of you are coping relatively well even in the presence of ongoing mental health and/or structural challenges; some of you are finding the impact of the public health crisis all too real.
The CRC weekly Zoom staff meetings are a poor substitute for the on-campus ones, not only because they are sans lunch but also for our inability to be physically together while instinctually respecting each others’ boundaries. Zoom has proven to be too invasive at times, and I have encouraged staffers to join the meetings without video if it feels better--to listen deeply rather than gaze too closely.
I am grateful to the CRC student staffers for continuing with our work as best we can. We are closing out our last round of reviews of IC proposals, asking DUGs to tell us about how they spent their funds (or how they would have spent them in April/May), and accepting submissions for independent studies (GISPs, GLISPs, ISPs, and academic internships) for the fall; the senior MAPS coordinators are laying the groundwork for next year’s coordinators.
Though I am grateful we can continue for the rest of the semester, the recent disruptions bitterly highlight the absence of the special sauce in the mix at the CRC: Relationships, human connections, and our simple gestures of hospitality, such as advising conversations over Stash Tea. We’ll continue with our remote advising hours through the end of Reading Period (information available on the CRC homepage); we’re open to taking your program-specific questions or simply listening if you just want to talk with someone about how you’re doing.