Covid-19 and College 2020
I couldn’t believe I was in Texas.
One week earlier I was in Virginia. The weather was getting warmer and the grass was getting greener. I was getting shots up every day in preparation for a charity basketball tournament. I had just joined Phi Kappa Phi on Tuesday. My classes were easy. Life was easy.
Before I knew it, everything I owned in college was packed tight in my car and on its way home for good. It was a terribly abrupt ending to a rather exciting four years at Southern Virginia University.
One of only a few from my high school graduating class in Oregon to head east of the Mississippi for college, I wanted to take a road less traveled. That’s exactly what I found in Buena Vista, Virginia, population 6,478. The school itself featured less than 800 students, less than half the size of my high school. No class was larger than 20 and I liked it that way.
I had dreams of making a difference there. I had dreams of becoming a full-fledged adult. In some ways, I succeeded. In others, I certainly failed. But without question was a desire to learn: to learn about myself, my church, my relationships, and the world. That’s what I signed up for, and that’s what I found.
At SVU I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines. I ran thousands of miles to help a cross country program get off the ground. I became a Student Body President. I lived in dorms all four years to be a Resident Advisor. The school is in my blood, and it always will be. The hardest part of this crisis is to leave it without closure, without a formal goodbye.
All the blood, sweat, and tears for a diploma sent in the mail alongside a, “Congrats. We hope to see ya again soon.”
It’s not the school’s fault. It’s really not anyone’s fault. It’s just sad for everyone.
So, as I finished classes remotely I wanted to get some perspective from the other side of all of this. What do all these school shutdowns mean? Where do we go from here?
Enter stage left, Dr. Lee Ann Westman. Dr. Westman is an associate teaching professor and director of the Honors College at Rutgers-Camden. She teaches courses in gender studies and is the co-editor of the Humanities Education and Research Association’s scholarly journal, Interdisciplinary Humanities, which is published three times a year. After receiving a B.A. in Humanities from Brigham Young University, she went on to Florida State University where she received a M.A. and Ph.D. in Humanities. She is also the wife of Craig Westman who currently serves as Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at Rutgers-Camden and they are the parents of four daughters. We talked about the impact COVID-19 might have on enrollment and decision-making in the coming months:
As an experienced professor and Director of the Honors College, Dr. Westman has great experience in teaching online courses and in understanding the importance of the college experience. We also discuss how college is not just a, “transmission of knowledge,” below:
There is little precedent for our current situation, but as in any time of crisis, our first responsibility is to take care of ourselves and to act in self-interest. In order to do that we have to gather as much information as possible, taking into account all of the data, trends, and best practices, and then we can strive to help others. Now is the time to do our part.
Life doesn’t typically go as we planned. I never anticipated not having a graduation. I never anticipated entering a job market alongside 30+ million Americans. But here we are. It’s time to make the most of what we have.
As I did at SVU, I still have dreams for the future, and I don’t anticipate sitting on the sidelines anytime soon. I hope you don’t either.
Cheers, for the Class of 2020 — and beyond!
