Has your college experience been impacted by Covid-19? We want to hear from you.
Covidpedia is now soliciting articles from college students and faculty across Virginia to learn more about their college life experience during one of the most challenging time periods in recent history. Students, professors, and staff are welcome to submit a brief essay of 2-3 paragraphs detailing the challenges associated with the pandemic. Example topics include, but are not limited to: what it's like to live in student housing, how academics have changed this year, and what do you expect will happen in 2021.
Being a nursing student in the middle of a pandemic is a mix of emotions - it’s terrifying, it’s exhilarating, it’s nerve-wracking but overall, I believe it’s one of the most molding experiences of my undergraduate nursing career and will shape my future practice as a nurse forever. I believe that in the hospital setting, wearing a mask and goggles every time we enter a patient’s room will now become indefinite. I also think that overall within the general public that mask-wearing in itself will become a regular custom for at least the next couple of years or longer. Before COVID was a thing, to me the hospital was a welcoming, sometimes happy and sometimes, melancholy place and a place I was always excited to go and learn more about nursing. However, now whenever I’m going to clinical while I still get these feelings entering the hospital somehow feels different — it feels colder and a little chilling to walk the halls knowing that I could potentially be exposed to COVID any minute and could possibly be the person to expose my friends and family to it because I’m in the hospital 16 hours a week.
In addition, being a nursing student, it’s often very upsetting to me how many of our peers are taking this pandemic so lightly and so casually. I understand we are all fatigued and exhausted – but I would like to reiterate that COVID is no joke. I have cared for patients on one of my clinical units this semester that are post COVID patients and before they had COVID were perfectly healthy. Now they have life altering chronic conditions such as asthma because of contracting COVID, so therefore I can only plead after seeing the repercussions firsthand, please still take this virus seriously. In addition, I’ve also seen how isolated these patients feel from the outside world and it’s heartbreaking…. this virus separates and puts a barrier between so many people and their loved ones. With certainty, I can say that COVID has left a lasting impression on who I am and who I will be as a nurse— above all else the two biggest things it has taught me are that the world as we know it can change in the blink of an eye and that we as humans must show compassion and love to whomever and wherever we can during these crazy times we are living in.
Jayda (VCU '24), Chemistry/Biochemistry major on Pre-Medicine track
My name is Jayda. I attend VCU and this semester with COVID has been definitely different than I ever imagined. Since I am a freshman I can’t have expectations but I had a general idea just by seeing my older friends attending college years before. This semester was hard in a sense of online and basically teaching myself. VCU has been amazing with COVID regulations and complying with all suggestions. We have been able to spend all semester on campus and we already have confirmation and hopeful of returning for the spring semester. They are also great with keeping up with random testingand we have to do a health check every morning and take our temperature every day! I’m so pleased with how VCU has taken on this pandemic!
Chun Lu (UVA McIntire School of Commerce ‘21)
In Comm School there’s a lot of group work and traditionally, there’s a lot of networking and meeting up in person. With Covid, everything has become virtual and has made it difficult to work in teams. Even my classes have hybrid options, and still, most people are virtual. It makes the whole class experience challenging because I’m so used to going in person and seeing people face to face.
But something good that has come from all this is that it’s made me more adaptable to change. The Comm School has done a good job at switching to virtual learning and has been emulating the business world in Covid as best as they can. Moving forward, businesses are considering more virtual work options to cut costs as well as reduce travel and increase the bottom line.
I think we’ll be virtual for the near future and possible even the next year. Given the current state of the pandemic, I suspect the business world to significantly change. I’m optimistic though that this pandemic has prepared us all for unexpected situations and made us stronger.
Hanna Farid (GMU '21), Human Development and Family Science
Having classes online because of Covid has been pretty difficult. It takes a lot of effort to keep up with classes, especially when not a lot of mine meet at a scheduled time. It gets easy to forget, which has really impacted my motivation and desire to learn. Since this is my last year, it’s disappointing that I’ll end up having to finish this way, and can’t actually celebrate with my fellow classmates. An important part of college for me is making connections with people I meet on campus and in my classes, and it feels different and difficult attempting to do that over the computer. It’s made me feel a lot more isolated.
Jake Galla (W&M '21), Public Policy and Environmental Science Policy
Personally, my experience with William and Mary’s COVID-19 response has been relatively unproblematic. The college has maintained an efficient testing program, and I have been tested six times. While there were some hiccups with the testing before our return to campus, I have been receiving results to tests quite rapidly. Furthermore, we are not a big party school, so our case count has been low- we’ve only had 50 students test positive out of 8,000. Yet the college has made several missteps in its response- notably, the furloughing of all subcontracted Sodexo employees during lockdown. Us students organized donation drives for the affected employees, which is unfortunate considering the school’s $1 billion endowment. The college’s endowment is invested into many unnecessary and often racist ventures, such as new athletics facilities, additional policing measures, and James Monroe’s Highland (a literal slave plantation). Instead, William and Mary should be compensating subcontracted employees, international fellows, and graduate employees during the pandemic. While my personal experience regarding the college’s COVID-19 response has been positive, William and Mary needs to support all members of its campus community.
Kareem Homsi (VCU '21), Information Systems
Personally, I believe that VCU has done a decent job dealing with Covid-19. Since VCU is not an enclosed campus and is dispersed into the city of Richmond, controlling the spread of Covid was a shared responsibility between the city and the university. VCU, along many local clinics, offered complementary testing for students and local residents, and VCU specifically isolated students who tested positive. Subsequent to many students’ failures to comply with the universities policies, VCU took strong initiatives to eliminate that from reoccurring. Although VCU was a little extreme, this eliminated large and unnecessary gatherings and certainly reduced the numbers of positive cases on campus. Finally, the university supplied students with an “essential package” which contained a few masks along with other small items that were deemed essential.
Allen Groves (UVA Dean of Students)
College Pedia: How would you say the administration pursued COVID-19 last spring? Allen Groves: I can only answer based on things that I'm personally involved in. I can talk about it from my role as the Dean of Students. So one thing I went back and looked at this summer, and one thing that was fascinating to me was, how quickly it all developed. So the first email from me, I think, on it was in January, and it was me emailing our students from Mainland China, telling them that I was aware of what was happening, back in the province region of China, and that if they needed any support from us, you know, with what was happening back home. And then I think, a month later in February is when we wrote to students saying, you know, be cautious about travel, maybe you shouldn't be traveling overseas, etc,, because the virus was then starting to spread. And then of course, by March was when we said, you know, don't come back right away after spring break. We initially thought, what two weeks, and then it turned into, no, it looks like the rest of the semester. And then of course, you know where we are today.
So I remember being surprised this summer, reminding myself how fast everything happened, and how fast it unraveled. And so all of those decisions that certainly were made in the early spring, were being made on the fly with very limited information. Not sure how this was going to work, not sure how well it could be contained, and not actually spread. We now know, of course, everything turned out very differently. But so that was part of the analysis. A good example of that, and what turned out to be something that took a lot of work to fix was when everybody went home, they left their stuff here. So when students went home for spring break, thinking they were going to be away, and then for an extended spring break. Most of them left their clothes, things in their dorm room, you know, even like lawn residents had left things, then the university had to secure all that and said, well, you can't come back yet to get your things.
And so I think we were doing, we were having to do things like go into students room to try to find prescriptions if they would write and say I need this, or I need this particular thing, this prescription or this other piece of information or material, and then ultimately tried to figure out later in the spring, how could we construct a schedule and enough prophylactic measures where students could come back and maybe only they and one family member could go into the building and only at a certain window of time, and only have a certain amount of time to get those things? And then we also were offering the box up and ship to some people and then we had to store some things. So I will say that was the first evidence of how logistically difficult all this could be. Trying to structurally deal with something like this that impacted, you know, 20,000 people, 30,000 people in terms of the university community. And then the summer was really spent trying to figure out what we could do for the fall. Would we be totally online in the fall? Would we open or close our housing for the fall? What would that look like? How many courses might end up being in person or online?
And so parts of it that I wasn't involved in, like I know, the President talked to the faculty senate, spoke with the faculty, to the provost, about what they could expect about their health and protecting them as well. So decisions were being made on the academic side. And then on my side, because one of the units that reports as part of my team is Housing and Residence Life was trying to decide what would the residence halls look like? What kind of prophylactic measures, policies restrictions would have to be in place? I know we spent a chunk of the summer drafting the agreement that students would sign what they would pledge to do. I know I had communications with students broadly about, you know, essentially the message being It's okay if you decide to stay home. In other words, if if you decide that these restrictions don't make sense for you, or that your own health situation or your own concerns mean that you don't want to return, we tried to make sure that we could accommodate all of that in any way that we could, including releasing people from housing agreements, you know, much later than we normally would have.
And so all of that then slowly came together. But it was also a fluid situation. So we were watching what happened to other schools when they open. In particular, you might remember UNC when challenges without having enough quarantine and isolation beds that caused us to make a decision, not universally popular obviously, to clear out the international residential college to clear out Shea house to clear out some other spaces to maximize the number of isolation quarantine beds. So although we didn't have to physically move any students other than our residents, staff members that had arrived, it still was disruptive, it still was something that a student thought they were going to live in one place. And then we're told, very soon before they arrived, that they were going to live somewhere else. And I get that that was difficult. On the other hand, in hindsight, you know, we never ran into the problems that other schools ran into running out of quarantine and isolation beds. So. So even though we never had to use some of that space, we were prepared and didn't have the problem that forced us to have to then send everybody home.
CP: I can definitely see how challenging that was, I totally understand how that must have been on the logistics side. Can you speak about where the University looked to for COVID-19 information? I'm sure the administration looked at, like, the CDC and whatnot, but were there other partners? And did anyone help you make these decisions in a timely, but safe manner?
AG: We're fortunate that we have a major public research treatment hospital. So you have all the expertise in our medical center that was being tapped periodically to say, what's your best judgment on this? What are you hearing on this? You have the Virginia Department of Health, which has been a great partner with us, you're looking at the Thomas Jefferson Health District. And trying to say, what are they seeing in our case counts, were looking across the Commonwealth at case counts. And then, of course, as students were coming in, you know, we made that difficult decision to test everyone before they came, that that was not the norm around the country around colleges. And so I think that helped us but of course, we were also looking at people coming from hotspots, you know, when we were not one, starting in the summer, my peers around the state. So all the VPS of Student Affairs and our Dean's of students, we would get on what ultimately became a weekly zoom every Friday. And we would all talk about what we were seeing what we were planning, what we were doing. I remember I won't say the school, but I remember, there was kind of a running joke on these calls because Virginia being the flagship institution, you say, Okay, what are you guys going to do on testing? And I remember one of my peers at another school in Virginia said, Well, you know, Alan, the moment you guys say, you're going to do this, I'm going to have to do this to say, I understand, you know, so there was, I mean, we tried to keep what was a very heavy conversation light as much as possible. And, and so a great example was VCU, and JMU. started before we did. And VCU initially came in saying that their maximum gathering number was going to be 50. So to Virginia Tech, somebody else did as well. But VCU, I remember vividly was JMU had said 10, I think, and we had said, 15. And so within a week of opening, VCU dropped from 50 to 10, I think, if I recall correctly, and they did. And so I remember telling my peers at VCU, you know, okay, 15 is looking a lot better now.
Like, I was joking with JMU. Thank God, you guys pick 10. So we're not the lowest. VCU a week in drops from 50 to 10. Again, we had the benefit of learning from that and saying, okay, 15 is suddenly looking a lot better. And then when we had that rise in cases in September, and the decision was made to drop the number to five, again, I understand not universally popular with students, but I will tell you the combination of quickly moving to stricter requirements, and if I may, our students generally doing the right thing. I mean, as much as people didn't like it. The vast majority of students try very hard as far as I can tell to, to follow it. I was talking to an alum this morning, so impressed with our students, for the most part. I mean, there are exceptions, always with some parties here and there. But, but I mean, they've done unbelievably well. And so our students responded to that. And what did you see? You saw the case, again, to come down. And oh, then I had a conversation with President Ryan on a Friday. I had been this is I think, about three weeks into the five number. And I've heard from a lot of students in our case counts were down. And I said, you know, Jim, is this something that we can take another look at now that it's looking better? And, and I remember he said to me, yeah, I'm going to talk to the health experts Monday morning. And you know, if they agree, then yes, I think we can probably move it back up. And so that led to the decision to then raise it back up to 10.
So yeah, I think I'll stop there by saying all the schools in Virginia, I was on weekly calls with, I know Jim was talking to his peers. We had all these health experts both in the state at the state level, at the local level, but then also at our medical center. All of that was so hugely important and we have tried very hard throughout this period of COVID to be driven by the best available medical evidence. You know, there's a lot of hyperbole out there, there's a lot of bad information. And what you're trying to do is figure out what's the best available knowledge medically. and public health-wise, even though we're all learning more and more about this virus every month that goes on.
CP: Going forward, what has this taught you as a member of administration? What do you see for the near future?
AG: Well, one big lesson is I liked my job a lot better before COVID. You know, being the mask policeman, and the gathering policeman is not the best title up in the high point of my life. So, in fact, I had to laugh. I had a student tell me last week, I like the student very much, and he was joking with me, but he said, Dean Groves, your polling numbers are down this semester. I appreciate that. But yeah, I mean, I think what we've learned is you can't have a rigid plan. It has got to be flexible, it's got to be fluid, you've got to be willing to adapt it, you know, up and down, depending upon what's happening. As things are going. We also know very clearly now I remember early on the decision to put up all the tents that we put up around grounds because they are very expensive. You know, wasn't that wasn't a slam dunk, easy decision turned out to be great I mean, I was in favor of but I'll tell you, it turned out to be a great decision. Because we now know about this virus is the transmission is a lot more difficult outside than it is indoors, that indoors with central air conditioning and stuff like that is a disaster. Whereas if you're outdoors, it's harder to transmit still happens. But but but you're safer outdoors. And so I'm so glad that we put those areas up for students to come out and congregate in to grab dinner maybe, or to study. Now it's getting colder, of course, and that's part of the reason I'm glad that folks are going home because it's, it's not as easy to do that, we'll have to take them down at some point just because of snow for the winter. But that's an example where I think, again, early on, we weren't really sure that was the best call, and ended up being a great decision.
I think what you saw on the faculty side, the provost, with the credit, no credit, General credit option, yeah, you know, that was kind of a band-aid in the spring, came into the fall thinking that would not be the case. But then in talking with faculty, talking with students and others, and realizing, you know, this is something I really respected the provost and the school Deans made the decision to give that option. And that's an example of being flexible in changing your path because of what you're learning and seeing.
You know, I had a student, a first-year student for a class interview me the other day and said, is there anything, you know, Dean Groves that you've seen how this plays out that surprised you a little bit. And my answer to that was, I think I underestimated how hard this was going to be for you all.
I knew I knew it was gonna be hard, I knew the spring was a challenge, and everybody had to go home,. I knew we were going to, you know, there was going to be a real tension here with what college should be, you know, in your minds, and what was happening. What I underestimated was the impact on mental health.
And the fact that, especially first years, and I've tried to reach out to a number of them, but I don't get to see them as I would in a normal year, I have lunch at the dining room almost every day with students, and a lot of them are first years, in a normal year, and I'm going down the dorms and sitting and talking to people. I don't get to do any of that. The first years that I've heard from they might email me or reach out to me, and then I may talk to them resume with them, you know, they feel very isolated, and they feel very lonely. And the ability to make friends outside of the floor, you know, as an RA a floor suite is really hard. Because think of how many times you've made a great relationship sitting next to each other in this class. Go into you know, the instead of the activity, fear of being virtual, you're wandering around talking to people at the tables, there are so many ways that you make a connection with somebody. And that's, that's not been normal this fall. And so I have challenged you know, I had a big meeting last week with a lot of my team that works with student organizations. I've also talked to the chair of the UJC. And I said in the spring, we've got to come up with some activities, appropriately safe and COVID compliant. But the sole reason for the activity is to let people meet each other, you know, like speed dating. I mean, we've got to figure out a way to let young people make connections with each other because that's not happening for new students, transfers, and first years, that's just not happening. Yeah, and I mean, that's a huge part of just college in itself. So the fact that you know, priorities and things are changing, we got to figure out a way to shift around them.