One Year After the Shutdown
Marist Community Reflects on the Year Since a Global Pandemic Upended Life at the College and Beyond
Illustration by Sydney Kysar
––– January 31, 2020: Marist community receives first coronavirus update from Health Services
The night before she got the email, Kristin Flanigan ‘21 was dancing and singing with her friends at the Michael Collins pub in Florence, Italy. The grimy pub floor was packed with sweaty college students studying abroad –– a scene that, looking back one year later, feels utterly unrecognizable. The next morning, her European adventure ended with an email entitled “Update: Florence Program Suspension.” Her eyes immediately welled up with tears. She went from feeling on top of the world to booking her flight home in a matter of hours.
–– February 29, 2020: Marist suspends all operations at the Florence campus
“Coming home, so many people felt so bad for me,” Flanigan said. “But little did they know that it was gonna affect every single one of us.”
One year after the campus’ initial shutdown on March 16, 2020, the Circle spoke to students, faculty and staff to reflect on the past year, undeniably marked by a global pandemic.
For many, the moment when the virus’s significance came into view for the first time remains ever-clear in their memory. For Executive Vice President Geoffrey Brackett, that moment happened at 8:30 a.m. at an operation meeting with the cabinet officers, just before the Florence program’s suspension. Soon after, he and the college’s administration would be working seven days a week for a year to battle the pandemic’s influence on higher education.
“I think it’s fair to say that none of us could have forecast that 12 months on, we would still be actively engaged in battling this,” Brackett said.
–– March 11, 2020: Marist extends spring break by another week. Five days later, in-person programming is suspended for the rest of the semester.
Within weeks, all study abroad programs were suspended, the Marist campus extended its spring break and ultimately shut down its campus for the remainder of the spring semester.
Class of 2020 graduate Madison Vettorino had a part-time internship in Manhattan during her final semester. “There was a sense of doom in the city that I had never felt before in my life and I hope none of us ever have to feel it again,” Madison said. She felt a palpable and deeply unsettling juxtaposition: birds were chirping, heralding the start of spring, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was on the way.
The early signs had already started to trickle in –– Marist students were in quarantine after coming home from abroad, and she had just cancelled her spring break trip to Florida. By the time spring break rolled around, she knew she wouldn’t be coming back. On her last day on campus, she had just dropped off her photography assignment at the Steel Plant building –– her last in-person assignment as a Marist student –– and drove back to O’Shea Hall. She found her roommate standing in front of the building.
“We just made eye contact, and we just both started hysterically crying,” she said, “We just knew.”
Seniors graduated from living rooms, while underclassmen faced vast uncertainty about the future of their education at Marist.
–– May 25, 2020: George Floyd is killed, and nine days later Marist addresses the unrest, kickstarting conversations about Marist diversity.
With a global pandemic in full force, a tumultuous summer was already promised –– then, on May 25, a man named George Floyd died at the hands of police, screaming “I can’t breathe.” His killing spurred protests in all 50 states and around the globe. The Stop the Violence movement organized a march in Poughkeepsie’s streets. Meanwhile, a groundswell of Marist community members condemned the college’s administration’s lack of response. Instagram accounts emerged like @redfoxes_againstracism, garnering over 2000 followers.
Nine days after Floyd’s death, President Dennis J. Murray released a memorandum condemning Floyd’s killing and promising more action, later announcing the establishment of a Board-level committee to address issues of racism, diversity and inclusion at Marist. In January of 2021, the committee outlined more specific goals for short- and long-term change, including addressing the status quo and listening to constituencies.
Olivia Knox penned an opinion story for the Circle in June, calling out the administration’s initial silence after Floyd’s killing and nationwide protests. Coming up on a year since Floyd’s killing, Knox said Marist still has blindfolds on. She pointed out the President’s memorandum for Black History Month came on Feb. 17, toward the end of the year’s shortest month. “Little actions like that, it doesn’t really seem like the impact of my article is taking a positive turn on Marist,” Knox said. “I think there’s power in the student body, definitely, to make some changes.”
–– June 18, 2020: Marist announces a plan to reopen campus in the fall
In June, colleges began to release plans for the fall semester. Schools like Rutgers moved most operations online, while Ivy Leagues like Princeton and Harvard announced plans to bring half the students back to campus each semester. In June, Marist announced that students would be returning to the Poughkeepsie campus that fall. This kickstarted a college-wide recalibration, with no department or campus operation left untouched.
“How do you plan for something no one has seen before?” Kim Marsden, resident director of the Upper West townhouses, said. As the fall semester loomed, the Housing department scrambled to rapidly adapt and implement new policies, from measuring every living area on campus to determine COVID-safe occupancy to allowing freshmen to pick their roommates for the first time.
Each department faced monumental changes in just a few short months. Marist’s comprehensive reopening plan, released on July 16, demonstrated just how different campus life would be, with a phased move-in, mandated masks, grab-and-go dining and restricted access to residence halls. #ProtectthePack emerged as the college’s slogan for this initiative to bring students back, safely.
–– August 24, 2020: The first day of in-person classes during a pandemic commences
UNC Chapel Hill canceled in-person classes just one week into the fall semester. Others rolled back plans for reopening just weeks before their intended start dates. But on August 17, Marist students began to move into their homes for the academic year. The fall semester kicked off not with the boom of fireworks at the Block Party but muffled “hellos” through masks. Movements from the summer carried over into the fall in full force –– first, with a march organized by members of the Black Student Union and the Black Student-Athlete Alliance, and second, with a Students Revolt protest in September.
Students, accustomed to schedules full of classes, mandatory meetings, club events and athletic practices, adjusted to an out-of-the-ordinary schedule.
“I really was sad that a lot of the activities I was used to just weren't happening, like we didn't have Dance Ensemble in its usual format. It did give me more time to focus on my schoolwork,” Natalie Ford ‘21 said. “But it was also not good, because I wasn't able to see some of the people I would usually run into on my day-to-day or weekly activities and life. There's some people I have been meaning to get together with or talk to, and I just have not been able to see them.”
Professors felt a similar learning curve: “I thrive off the energy of being around students,” said Scott Wolcott, a philosophy professor at Marist. As a high-risk individual, Wolcott has barely been in the classroom since March of 2020 and feels more detached than ever from his students. He explained that it’s difficult to stay motivated for class when the payoff is so different now: “I miss those ‘aha’ moments when students finally get it.”
–– November 24, 2020: On-campus semester ended with 175 positive cases throughout the fall.
The on-campus fall semester concluded, as scheduled, on Nov. 24, but not without bumps in the road. An off-campus gathering sent Marist into its first precautionary “pause” in October. Then, another 10-day pause just before the semester’s end prompted many students to leave campus early. “I felt like people had started giving up on being safe and caring about those around them,” Rebecca Butcher ‘23 said. “I knew it was going to happen.”
International students spoke out after their price to stay on campus through winter break had increased and the college revised terms for staying on campus. “I felt so betrayed,” said Sabrina Adhikari ‘21, an international student from Nepal. Marist eventually retracted its $40 per day charge, Adhikari said, and about a dozen international students spent the break living together in Midrise wondering when the spring semester would begin.
The fall exhibited both strengths and weaknesses in the colleges approach, students said. “Marist was successful at adapting to changes,” Tenzin Tsundu ‘22 said. Mask mandates, social distancing, and surveillance testing were generally considered successful policies in limiting the spread of the virus, as well as implementing pauses as soon as positive cases began to rise. But students also identified shortcomings: “Marist could not properly support international students and other groups of students on campus,” Tsundu said.
“I think the fall semester was a success considering we did not get shut down, and we did not have that many cases in general, especially in comparison to now,” Ford said.
–– March 1, 2021: The on-campus spring semester begins. Just over two weeks later, Marist reaches 100 cases and enters a campus-wide pause.
Spring semester brought various changes in college policies after the fall revealed what worked and what did not. Policy changes included ending Saturday classes, allowing freshmen to visit between dorms, working on a mandatory diversity course, and increasing surveillance testing so the entire campus population is tested every two weeks.
After arriving on campus, students awaited the dashboard’s update, which ultimately revealed 28 positive COVID cases on March 12 –– the approximate amount of cases that occurred during the fall’s first outbreak. But it wasn’t until March 17 at 100 cases that Marist paused activities, while still allowing classes and fitness centers to operate. Student backlash emerged, as cases continued to climb and propelled Marist into the Orange Alert Level for weeks.
Another crisis came forth when news of a Marist student’s assault broke and a subsequent petition reached over 23,850 signatures. Students gathered on the green to condemn the assault and call for administrative action and increased funding for Title IX.
–– April 6, 2020: Gov. Cuomo expands vaccine eligibility to include New Yorkers over the age of 16, and two days later, Marist announces the launch of its vaccine program for students.
A completed yet imperfect fall semester preceded what continues to be a tumultuous spring for the campus. And yet, reasons to hope have emerged. Kyra Gynegrowski ‘22 received both doses of the vaccine over winter break, allowing her to volunteer at Marist’s pop-up vaccine site. “There was so much gratitude,” Gynegrowski said. “People were so excited...It’s crazy how a year ago we were getting sent home and now I’m watching people get the vaccine.” On April 13, Marist will host its first vaccine program for students in conjunction with Dutchess County and Westchester Medical Center and vaccinate 500 students. One thousand more doses are planned to arrive for the following week.
If cases decrease and vaccinations become more widespread, President Dennis J. Murray told students that more activities and normal aspects of campus life could be on the horizon, like expanded fitness and club activities, choral and band activities and graduation festivities. A weekend for the Class of 2021 commencement has been set –– a promising update after a turbulent year.
For some, like Vettorino, the wounds of 2020 have slowly started to heal, and hope has emerged despite it all.
“I was actually just down in the city pretty recently, and I went back to Chelsea Market, which was where I had been interning when my internship got cut short. And for so many months, I was expecting there to be such a grief or pain with being back there, knowing that there was supposed to be so much more to unfold...But all I felt was a sense of peace, and also gratitude to have ever had that opportunity,” Vettorino said. Recently, her grandmother, after receiving both of her COVID vaccines, was able to hold her great grandmother’s hand for the first time in a year.
“When they’re forced to, human beings can overcome an incredible amount.”