Document Type
News Article
Publication Date
12-14-2021
Abstract
I had a front-row seat to Ouachita’s approach to pandemic planning as a member of several administrative groups on campus. I remember feeling fear, anxiety and discouragement starting in March 2020 at the challenge ahead of and all around us. Perseverance, optimism and grit were displayed in abundance, but still a strange cloud hung over the year for me, knowing how it compared to typical years not only on campus but also personally. We were adapting as well as we could, but everything was different about how we were experiencing the world.
One of my roles this academic year was to update our “COVID-19 dashboard” on the website each weekday with the number of cases and quarantines on campus and other data. After a fall with ups and downs and the significant nationwide increase in cases over the holidays, I steeled myself for another difficult journey as we entered the spring semester. And it wasn’t easy. But by January 29, only two weeks into the semester, our daily report never again increased above five cases a day. By March, the daily increase was always one or zero, and there were no new on-campus cases after March 11 – and none even from off-campus after April 16. For the entire academic year, there had been no hospitalizations among our Ouachita students or employees. Sometime in March, I began to feel hope.
Recommended Citation
Zimny, Brooke and Office of Communications & Marketing, "Turning from fear to hope" (2021). Press Releases. 1358.
https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/press_releases/1358
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