What was your biggest challenge during the pandemic year?

St. Joe’s contacted us, saying the pandemic’s getting out of hand.

And then we all went virtual. -Walt Bryz-Gornia ’21 When I was stuck in my house and my mom was actually a nurse at a hospital. When she would come home from work, she would have to take a shower and we couldn’t hug her, well we chose not to hug her just because she was around patients with COVID. -Cassie Hahn ’21

When did you realize the pandemic was about to change life as you knew it?

I stopped working for maybe two weeks and then when I came back everyone was fully masked. -Frankie Antonucci ’24

My mom ended up getting COVID from one of her co-workers, actually the first week or so that quarantine started. Her business partner went to a dinner party in New York, right before the country shut down. Her, and I think 23 other people at the party got it and then she brought it back to my mom’s salon that she co-owns with this business partner. Her and a couple other employees got it. Having someone that had COVID close to the beginning of all this was definitely very scary, and definitely put COVID into a different perspective. It was a real thing at that point that it was actually in my house. -Nicole Butch ’21 When I came home, my dad’s immunocompromised, so my parents were stocked up with masks, canned foods and different things during that spring break, and I was like,

“Oh, this is serious.” -Kella Pacifico ’21

I’m moving stuff out of my office and just one moment after the next thinking “This is changing my life.” There was a period in the spring when a lot of us in higher ed were commiserating and saying, “Are we still going to have jobs in the fall? This is scary. This is scary.” -John DiCarlo, adjunct professor of English

My birthday was in April, so it was almost a month after. That was the first time I saw all my friends. They all did a drive-by for my birthday, and I haven’t seen that many people, literally, since I was on campus, and I couldn’t hug anyone. -Ali Chapman ’22 I remember my wife saying we should really go to the food store and stock up on food. It was amazing to see the line of people stocking up on supplies and I thought, “wow, this is this real.” -Tom Fithian, director of major gifts

While I was studying abroad and I heard that APEX got canceled and people were being sent home and I knew of so many other students abroad who were being sent home. By that point it hadn’t hit Australia yet, so we didn’t really think that we might have to go home. And then our program was canceled and I was flying through many different airports trying to get home. -Lexi Mignogna ’21 When we went into lockdown, my dad actually got COVID and got really sick early on, and that right there hit hard and I realized that this was gonna change my life. -Patrick Bronander ’24

The night all the sports leagues shut down, it all happened once one night. -Walter Cronin ’21 Watching those news reports, particularly in New York, where people were taking cell phone video out of their windows and there were just constant ambulance sirens, that was very memorable and disturbing. We didn’t hear as much of that where we live, but seeing it in New York and then hearing these stories of overcrowded emergency rooms and so forth. That was when I think I knew it wasn’t going to be a sudden improvement. -Richard Haslam, Ph.D., associate professor of English

I had been following the pandemic through the news after it first hit in China. The online New York Times showed paramedics wearing hazmat suits taking the sick to the hospital. I would give my classes a daily update on what was happening in China because wearing hazmat suits is not needed for just the flu. -Patricia Bobo, M.S., visiting assistant professor of mathematics Probably when I had to move out of my house because my dad is a doctor so he didn’t want us to be around him, just in case, because he was working with COVID patients. -Julia Tristine ’24

As classes started online, I realized I wasn’t liking it as much as I liked in-person classes. I really thought it was going to be over in two or three months, but here we are one year after. -Sammy Ramos ’22

When I was watching the news. It was in Italy and trucks were just rolling out dead bodies, no coffins or anything, and I realized that life was never gonna be the same. We were all gonna have to take precautions and take it more seriously. -Donald Sullivan ’23 When everything started to shut down and we were on lockdown. I had never experienced anything like that in my entire life, especially school. When we were in school and Zoom became a worldwide known thing, that was definitely when I was like

“Wow, something is going on.” -Simone DePiano ’24

At first, we started with 15 days to slow the spread. Fifteen days had passed and then a month had passed by the end of April, things were only getting worse and that’s when I realized this would only get worse before it gets better. -Jackson Crutchfield ’24

What was your biggest challenge during the pandemic year?

When you’re a working parent, worklife balance is always precarious and difficult, but parenting school-aged kids took it to the next level. I was essentially homeschooling three children who didn’t have aftercare anymore and didn’t have babysitters anymore.

-Kristen Grimes, Ph.D., associate professor of Italian and modern classical languages

The biggest challenge I would say [of] the pandemic year has been managing more people working and learning all from the same house in a house that has basically four rooms in it. I come from a low income family, so that has always been an issue, not having a lot of money, but then COVID took that to another level. That was really, really hard. Thankfully, my parents weren't laid off, but it was very hard to see them go out there and risk their health for us and my siblings and try to get the resources that we needed, paying over-priced toilet paper and stuff.

-Lesley Reyes ’22

Trying to stay alive. Once the pandemic really got started, a lot of paranoia and fear kicks in with everybody. So everybody’s afraid. -Maurice Davis, food service worker in

Campion Dining Hall Staying in touch with people that I wasn’t already very close with, people either we’re friends with or just people I want to get to know better, but anyone outside my direct close circle, I’d say keeping them in my life is very challenging.

-Mike Szewczak ’21

-Christopher Close, Ph.D., associate professor of history

My biggest challenge of the pandemic was trying to survive with my mental health. The classes were very difficult because I was not ready for the online switch. Really focus on yourself. I feel like it was very hard on me, I fell into a little bit of a depression, but you have to do things that you love: work out, go for a walk, listen to music, find a hobby.

-Emily Bendock ’21 I feel like my biggest challenge is being able to trust people, like knowing [if] they’ve been around someone who’s exposed. Have they been cautious?

Certainly a sense of discomfort and disconnect from other people, that’s been challenging. A sense of isolation, that’s been challenging. And a recognition that my ability to even speak to you in this way about the direct effects of this global pandemic on my life. -Richard Warren, Ph.D., professor of history

COVID hit around March, and since then I haven’t been home. Normally I go home once or twice a year, in the summer and in the winter, so I couldn’t go home in the summer, and then I couldn’t go home for Christmas. My brother and his wife had their first baby in October, so that’s been hard. I’m the only one that hasn’t met the baby. -Rebecca Lane ’19, student assistant coach of women’s lacrosse

One hundred percent online school. I am very tedious when it comes to my grades, school was a big part of who I am, and I’m not very accustomed to the technology, Zoom and learning virtually.

-Samantha Kovacs ’23 We didn’t have a playbook for how to deal with COVID. We had emergency plans and, actually, a pandemic plan, but not with isolation and quarantine. The challenge was just trying to anticipate the unknown and then being able to react to what we didn’t know.

-Cary Anderson, Ed.D., associate provost and vice president of Student Life

I think the biggest challenge would have to be parenting. It was very different with my son being virtual when at home and me teaching virtually and not having a clear distinction between work and home.

-Morgan Bryant Reeder, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing Definitely not getting the chance to be able to see some of my friends, or even my family, before I moved 11 hours away for college.

-Emily Siler ’24 Biggest challenge was my sanity. Not even joking, it was just the stress levels and my mental health is my biggest priority. My biggest challenge is getting my mental health in order.

-Zavon Sample ’21

I had a hard time meeting people. I’ve had a hard time connecting with jobs, connecting with classes and finding time that feels somewhat normal.

-Casey Clemetsen ’21 Being as flexible as I could with students in trying to meet their needs and also to be attentive to what their needs were, whether financial or mental health.

-Susan Clampet-Lundquist, Ph.D., professor of sociology Going to college during the pandemic as a freshman. I had a lot of expectations coming in because I have two older sisters so I wanted to know what to expect but everything changed. I had to learn everything on my own about college in this.

-Lily Santi ’24

There are definitely days where I didn’t talk to anyone and it was just me sitting alone and I still had to work through stuff, but I couldn’t just tap someone on the shoulder.

-Priest Cross ’21 Not really being able to do much in college and not really getting to meet that many people.

-Luke Vacha ’24 Finding motivation to get up even though I knew I wasn’t going to leave the house that day.

-Isabella Africa ’22