This has been a year like no other! I don’t know if we’ll ever see anything like this again in my lifetime… Easily, the most challenging thing I’ve ever faced in my professional career. These quotes all came from Resident life staff members… After the mold issues of 2018-19. Little did we know that barely more than a year later we would face a challenge far greater, larger in scope and longer lasting than even that very difficult year of mold. Over the course of the last fourteen months, Resident Life staff members have risen to the challenge of a global pandemic and performed phenomenally on behalf of our students and each other. Some of us volunteered to switch jobs. Some of us took on tasks we had no prior experience or training in. All of us had to figure out new ways to do our jobs under stressful and trying conditions. We had to learn how to use new tools and how to support each other from afar. We had to find a way to bring structure and sanity to bear on a situation that none of us had ever faced. That we did all of this while coping with the stressors of caring for and educating children, supporting parents and other family members, being away from family, friends and other loved ones, and attending to our own personal health and safety is nothing short of miraculous. Any attempt to create a list of the amazing achievements of Resident Life staff over the course of the pandemic will necessarily fall short. Consider this a partial list, a down payment of sorts on our story of the pandemic.
8
Res Life Roundup | Spring 2021 | Vol. 3
