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Augsburg University’s Lindell Library Archives
Interviewee: Dr. Erika Savone
Interviewer: Gray Heiderscheit
Date: March 28, 2023
Location: Augsburg University
The Impact of COVID-19 on Augsburg’s Concert Band and Music Department: An Oral
History
GH: Hello I’m Gray Heiderscheit and toda...
Show more 1 Augsburg University’s Lindell Library Archives Interviewee: Dr. Erika Savone Interviewer: Gray Heiderscheit Date: March 28, 2023 Location: Augsburg University The Impact of COVID-19 on Augsburg’s Concert Band and Music Department: An Oral History GH: Hello I’m Gray Heiderscheit and today I am here on March 28, 2023 with Dr. Erika Savnoe to engage in an oral history about the impact of COVID-19 on Augsburg University and more specifically the impact on the Music Department and the Concert Band. With that, let's jump right into it. GH: So to start off, what challenges did you face rebuilding the ensemble after the pandemic? ES: This is still- it’s still a work in progress. This is the end of the academic year 2023, so this year started to feel almost back to normal—this year. Last year, which was 2021-2022–that was our first year being sort of back on campus really, I’ll talk about 2021-2022 first. Some of the challenges that we faced was a difficult recruiting year the year before. So part of what we do in the music department is we listen to students play auditions, and then we are able to offer them scholarships— all of that had to happen on zoom. There were actually some advantages but there were also some disadvantages. We didn’t have as many students coming on campus to visit at Augsburg, so I couldn’t hold my annual honor band which is a big project where I bring one hundred band students on campus, and that was basically one hundred students that I didn't have contact with— potential future Auggies. There were many things like that so far as—so yes, we had some difficulty with numbers especially in 2021-2022. Some of the other challenges were we needed to wear masks almost the entire year as wind players. I work with woodwind, brass and percussionists in my ensemble, so that means the woodwinds and brass in particular were having to put bellcovers on the ends of their instruments. There is scientific studies done that aerosol droplets are carried through wind instruments and there’s a certain amount of that that’s released into the environment. Bellcovers help with that but it also does hinder our playing, breathing, and how we operate a little bit as well. Those were some of the challenges building the ensemble back up. I think I felt this most in 2021/2022, when we were finally back when we had to wear bell covers, we had to wear masks—I felt like I couldn’t be as expressive as a 2 conductor as I would like because the lower half of my face and my smile was covered up, and those are tools that I use a lot in sort of my non-verbal communication to the ensemble, but it felt great because we were able to play music again. What I really noticed about that year is instead of having one freshman class, I had two freshman classes—is what it felt like to me. My juniors that year were the class that as freshmen, their last concert was cut short because they were freshman in 2020–I really had a few seniors, a few juniors. I had some students that transferred to other schools as well. What building the ensemble back up meant that year was having two thirds of the ensemble not understand what it meant to be in a college band. It felt like I was training on a level that I hadn’t experienced before, I just had less upperclassmen and I had a lot more really new students who haven't experienced a band rehearsal in reality with me. That’s what it really felt like, like I was training two freshman classes. Sorry that was a very long answer. GH: So as you talked about there weren’t many people coming in the band, so how did those numbers of people who were auditioning and trying to get scholarships— how were those different from pre pandemic to during the pandemic?. How did those numbers differ and how did you see the impact of those? ES: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s hard to say, we had a big— I feel like the freshman classes have been really big. Where I think the numbers really differ were actually in retention from students, so that was um a little bit problematic. Some students came for a semester and with all the masking and restrictions decided it wasn’t for them or it wasn’t just a good fit—that definitely happened a lot with the freshman class of fall 2020/2021. What I can say is that particular class while we had a good a lot of freshman come in that year, a lot of those students left because the online learning environment wasn’t for them—so that really took out I would say actually more of the middle of the ensemble, if that kind of makes sense. A lot of the upper classmates' retention waivered like, “I’ll take a year and have a gap year and just sorta wait this out”. There were also students who you know just didn’t feel comfortable coming back and playing in person yet in fall 2021, and at that point it was really difficult to make accommodations— we just had to kind of go all in at that point. I do think there were a couple of people that were a little more hesitant to come back to the in-person environment after being online for a year. There were a lot of feelings and things that sort of contributed, so I don’t know if I can say the group was absolutely smaller or bigger, but it’s been about the same. The ratio of young students to older students I think has been a little bit different the last couple years GH: So kinda backtracking a bit—Thinking back to the early moments of COVID, how did Augsburg first react and what practices and rules were put in place right away for people to stay safe? 3 ES: That would have been March 2020, Augsburg moved everything online. It wasn’t without thought—that’s not what I’m saying— they just did it. There were a lot of schools around the country, and I remember as more and more big universities started canceling class and saying, “well our spring break is gonna be two weeks, now our spring breaks gonna be three weeks, okay now we’re online until the end of year”— so I feel like how Augsburg handled it initially was appropriate although it’s hard to say in hindsight what the best decision would be. Augsburg made a decision that we were online through the last five weeks—and actually the other thing that they did is they gave the faculty—it was actually two week spring break for students and the second week of the break was for faculty to have a week to transition their classes very last minute online. So that was the immediate response. Moving into that fall I remember being very anxious about what was going to be happening and felt uncertain. I think everyone was struggling to figure out what’s gonna be the best situation. Eventually when they figured out this hybrid course delivery that we gave for the main year of the pandemic, I think we all just had to adjust. From there I had to do a lot of imagining and troubleshooting of what band would be in that situation—so did I answer your question okay? GH: Yes. ES: Ok. GH: So you talked about the kind of troubleshooting you had to do, What did the band look like right when all those restrictions went in place? ES: I actually— it was such a weird time. We had just finished a big concert— our big concert of the semester. I felt great that we had been able to get that concert in before everything shut down, it was literally like the week before spring break so we just barely got it in. People were just beginning to talk about what the repercussions of this thing were going to be, and then it really snowballed. I felt like, “what am I gonna do for the band”, because the whole thing about band —I was teaching band, I was teaching an introduction to music class that wasn’t about making music but it was about learning about music and listening to music. That class was much easier to move online. Then I was teaching a music theory class as well and that class, with a little bit of technology, I was able to move that class online without too much. Band was absolutely the hardest one, no question. So it was challenging. The idea I had— and I will say I’ll give myself a little credit, I feel like I knocked it out of the park for what I had to deal with. What we did is we performed a piece on zoom and that piece is John Cage’s 4 minutes and 33 seconds. I know that there’s still an archive of that in our Music Department YouTube—have you seen that at all? GH: no I don’t think I have 4 ES: On the music department YouTube, there’s a video of it and basically I had the band attend a zoom meeting where we talked about this piece, John Cage’s 4 minutes and 33 seconds. For anybody who doesn’t know what that piece is about it’s basically organized silence. The music that we hear is sort of the sounds that we hear in the background, like somebody coughs, there’s a horn that goes off on the street in the background, somebody shuffles their feet, and this is often done in a concert hall but doesn’t need to be. It’s a really famous and sort of controversial and thought provoking piece of art, that really questions what is the nature of music— that’s kinda the point of the piece right?. John Cage is one of those important composers that’s really pushed some boundaries, so I thought of all the pieces that I can do this is the one. I thought that was actually a really good solution, so we talked about the piece. I had a four week plan and I just checked in with everyone—week two we talked about the piece and we planned it out, and week three we performed it. There were a lot of things that we started talking about, like how are we going to do this thing?. The students really came up with some great questions and some ideas like, “how do we actually perform over zoom?” and it was really interesting. Someone asked “well should we tune? Should we have our instruments?”. Everybody found some kind of instrument and they had it in the shot with them. They had to each pick where they were gonna be located, how they were going be framed in their little zoom square, and what the video shot of them was gonna be. They had to think about how to present themselves— somebody brought up like “should we tune?”and we decided we should tune because thats how we usually start concerts. I think we decided that I should take a bow at the end, so at the end I get up from my chair and I bow. We figured out how to time it, I as the conductor was timing it on my end and putting notes in the chat like “first movements done”—and so then what does that mean when a movement of the piece is done? I can’t remember if everybody muted for a minute so people could stretch and stand up, there was something like that. Then we started the second movement and then everybody turned their mics on and there were a couple people who had—like my percussionist,she was outside and all the sudden a snow storm started happening in her window, and Pearl I think her dog walked through the shot. Another student who was down in Texas at the time—it was sunny and gorgeous and all the sudden the microphone picked up the birds that were in the background of her square. It was exactly what we all needed at that moment because I think we needed— here we all were separated and so this was a chance for us to build some community, to be together and find solace in that. Also just to have this doable and cool art project that is relevant to our lives as musicians, so I think I knocked it out of the park. Then the summer happens and I’m like, “well I did the one cool thing, what am I gonna do next year?”. So then I had to come up with like a whole new set of plans for that following year. Would you like me to briefly talk about that? GH: Yeah, yeah ES: The following fall, we were in a hybrid modality which meant every class had to have an online option. What I did in both semesters is I had an in-person component that met once a 5 week, that students could opt into. So we played a couple of pieces, it was called Flexible Ensemble. It wasn’t for full instrumentation of a concert band it was for— if you have six people who play different things you can kinda make it work. I probably had that in the fall semester twenty students that wanted to do the in person thing, so we played these flexible ensemble pieces. We met outside of the band room, there’s an exterior door that leads to this sort of garden and patch of grass that I basically demanded that we be able to rehearse out there. So we rehearsed outside where it was safe, and we knew that was the safest situation—was to play outside. We ended up moving to the chapel when it got too cold, and we recorded our work for the semester. Each semester I had an in- person component that met once a week. For the virtual component, I had an option where students could do a listening project and then write a paper about it, I also had sort of a compare and contrast assignment, probably another listening assignment. I had an assignment where if students wanted to write program notes for a particular set of pieces they could do that. I had a project that was interesting where a group of seven of us basically wrote a piece of music together online, we met once a week and— it was a really kinda messy process but we ended up composing this piece, conceiving of it and writing a short two or three minutes. Each person then recorded their part on their instrument at home to a click track and then I edited those together into an actual recording of us all being separate but together, and so that was sort of the culmination of that project. That particular year was like nothing I had ever done before with the band, but it was very project based—it was the only way I could wrap my head around trying to have some option where you could be in person and play and then also if you weren’t comfortable with that to get some sort of learning— there’s probably like three other project that I didn’t even list, but it was all along those lines GH: Kind of shifting gears a little bit, I know that like the Music Department relies on a lot of donorship. How did that change during the pandemic? Was there a lot more donorship or was there less, if you can answer this? ES: David Meyers was our chair at that time, and he was really good at reaching out to donors and creating those connections and raising money for the Music Department. It’s hard for me to remember actual numbers, but I do know that for two years we did this—because we would have done this in spring 2020 and 2021, instead of having a recital in person we had some video clips of some of our students— I think we had to cobble it together a little more the first year. Every year we do a donor recital, so the first year there was a zoom meeting and we found video footage of at least three scholarship winners that we felt that we could share. We also had some of our alumni and donors talk, so we came up with a thirty minute presentation the first year, that was an alteration of talking about what we did and thanking the donors for what they’ve done, and then showing some of the students' work that we could show at that time. The second year when we knew that we were gonna be online and we had more time to prepare for it then, we did a forty five minute program—and I actually did quite a bit of video taping because we were back on campus at that point—how did that work it’s a little hard to remember—but we videotaped all 6 the scholarship auditions, and then from that we were able to pull and put together a video recital of all of that work, and edit it together and we showed that over a zoom meeting and sort of again alternated between talking to alumni and donors. As far as raising money, I’m a little out of that loop so I’m not sure I can comment on that specifically. But we did try to do what we could to acknowledge and thank our donor base during that time GH: You talked about your experience as a conductor, How did your experience being a professor differ from being a conductor? Like in the classroom vs the ensemble? ES: There’s different kinds of classes I do—I feel like I wear different hats, they're definitely related hats. It’s not like I’m a teacher in this class and a conductor in the other class, so it doesn’t quite work that way—but there are definitely some differences. The thing I noticed the most about the concert band was I felt very hindered by having to wear a mask when I conducted. I completely believed that I should be wearing a mask and that everybody should be taking care of each other, it really wasn’t a question of wearing one—it was more a frustration of not being able to be as expressive as I needed to be. Part of the job of being a conductor is to communicate non-verbally with the ensemble. Typically I do that a lot with my body language, with very specific timed gestures with my hands, but the most expressive part that is easiest to manipulate in a second is your face.Ways that I typically use my face are if somebody comes in for a solo does a great job, I like to give them a smile like “that sounds great!”. I’m not saying it, but I’m saying it with my face. Conversely if somebody misses an entrance or plays a wrong note I give them the stink eye, that’s part of the process—something is wrong, figure it out. I still did it but I also felt like I had to dial it up to one hundred to get anything across, I felt really hindered by that in that class in particular. The other class that I felt hindered by the mask is definitely the conducting class that I taught, which is for the same reason. Everybody’s face was covered up and it was hard to model those things and to also see what was happening. Eye contact is so important when you're in front of fifty people, to be able to look at somebody specifically or look up at everybody generally—so everybody knows she’s going to do something important, I need to clue them in on that. Those two classes were really challenging because of the mask use and I sort of mentioned some of the other things about bell covers and that kind of stuff—we got through with that stuff fine, it was just great to be making music in person again. That academic year, 2021, it just didn’t feel like the live music classes— they just felt so different and then coming back the following year started to feel correct again. GH: What would you say your biggest struggle was as a professor during the pandemic so far? ES: Biggest challenge? I definitely think some classes translate better to online learning than others. Live music classes, I’m pretty convinced, just do not work. I feel like I made them work as well as possible and I was just unsatisfied. So I think the biggest challenge for me was the summer before the academic year 2021, trying to figure out what am I even gonna do?—For the 7 concert band and conducting, “what am I even gonna do?” Everybody was figuring it out. There were a lot of online workshops that summer about “let’s share ideas! what are you doing?, how are you dealing with conducting?”. There were a lot of people who teach similar classes to me—and everybody was figuring out how we’re gonna handle it. The other thing that was tough about— sorry I’m gonna back up— the other thing that was really tough about wind and choir rehearsals in particular was that we really had to rehearse only for 30 min at a time, which is a huge hindrance because usually our rehearsals go one and a half to two hours minimum. We had to take what we called “air out” breaks which is a big disruption to what we were doing. We had to really plan around everybody leaving the room for 10 minutes and letting the aerosols disperse so—I got off track, what was this question? GH: What was your biggest challenge? ES: I think the biggest challenge was figuring out how to make band revenant online, and I sort of did the best I could and concluded that it sucks. So I'm happy to not be doing that anymore. GH: One thing that I would really like to learn about is, what was the sense of community like in the ensemble during covid? I was in some ensembles, and for me the community was not good, so what was it like here at augsburg? ES: Community is a big one, I would say this true of the music department in general. In 2021, that was a huge challenge and I would say that it was department wide and not necessarily just the ensembles. The ensembles are where we get together, so that was really tough. I think it was the toughest for the freshman class coming in, everybody else sort of knew each other in band and I think that’s a big part of why people come back to ensemble— they like meeting with that group of people, they like making music too but there’s a social aspect to it that you can’t dismiss, right?. People like to come and see this group of people and work with them. In retrospect I probably didn’t do enough to try to build that community, but I just didn’t have a lot of good solutions. I think there were a few times in the music department that we tried to meet, especially the freshman theory class. We tried to meet in person very occasionally for some particular activities that made sense. I know that Rafael did some specific things with the Augsem section, there was something there, it was really challenging. I think in retrospect I didn’t do enough but I also was just trying to hold it together and make class happen. I will say one thing that I did do is we managed to at the end of the school year in April during finals week, I did have an in-person gathering for all of my classes. I bought a bunch of snacks, I set up tables outside the band room and I said “please come have a snack, let’s say hi to each other”. I might have done that one or two other times like during the school year. I would never want to force anyone to come into a situation where they were feeling unsafe, so I tried to create a couple of times where we had safe situations where we could just socialize. But beyond that it was really challenging and I think that freshman class really bore the brunt of that unfortunately. 8 GH: Another thing I also wanted to know about was when you went back to concerts in the fall—firstly when did you go back to concerts?, secondly what protocols were in place since it was hard with brass and wind instruments to utilize that? ES: One of the things the university did was,—this would have been fall 2021, one thing the university did was they had a mask mandate in place.I can’t remember if it was a statewide mandate—there were so many rules at different levels—but Augsburg had a mask mandate in place, so that made my job actually really easy. That meant we had to have a playing mask that had some sort of opening or slit or way that you can interact with your mouth piece appropriately, and you have to have that mask as well as your sort of regular mask on. That part was actually pretty easy, I was able to tell the students “you gotta take one of your masks and you gotta cut a hole in it and you gotta figure it out, and they were like okay”.We then bought a bunch of bell covers, so all the wind players had bell covers we also were able to—we were a little smaller but one of the benefits of being smaller was we could have spacing that was three feet apart. They actually had recommendations the previous year that people should be seated six feet apart so that they wouldn’t share as much air with other people. We also had the air purifiers running, we took air out breaks, we had a 30 min rehearsal period where we had to take a ten minute break. Somehow I worked this all out so we could take one break in the middle of class, somehow that all worked out. One of the things I did was because I had an exterior door, I would open the door— we’d open the doors to the hallways and then we’d have this big breeze that would just circulate air in from the outside. The university really tried to up the amount of air circulation in all of the buildings so that was another thing that was good. I bought hand sanitizer just for the percussion section, so they could have it back there since they were sharing equipment, so that was for rehearsals. For concerts we did pretty much all the same things, we sat farther apart, the audience had a mask requirement—I think it was if you want to come to the concert you gotta be masked up. So we did that, we sat a little more distanced and we just wore masks—I mean that’s what it was and bell covers, so it wasn’t really that much different we just had to worry about the stuff coming out the end of our horns. GH: Since the pandemic, classes changed a lot and they were shifting online and everything. Are there any of these changes that you have kept today in your coursework or that you utilize? ES: Before the pandemic—I’m pretty intense in rehearsal. You're smiling because you’ve been in rehearsals with intense conductors, you know what I’m talking about. I can rehearse for like two to three hours without a break, I don’t need a break I just go. But not everybody is like me, people need breaks. So I think the thing that I noticed that I kept from the pandemic is— even though I was super irritated that I had to take this ten minute air out break, what I found was all the students would go into the hall and they would all talk to each other and they knew each other better than in pretty much any previous year, and it’s because we had this ten minutes break 9 where everybody had to go out in the hallway and chill. And the social aspect and community building part of that was really great.I had to go out there too and I could check in with different groups and some folks would go outside for a little while—they’d line the hallways, some of them would check their phones.They all knew each other a lot better because they had this ten minute break where they just couldn’t be in the room. So I kept the break so now in the middle of my ninety minute rehearsal I usually have a five minute break where people can stand and stretch and they can visit with somebody, or they can leave the room, or they can check their phone. I’m a little sad, I could use that 5 minutes of rehearsal— but I do know that they really appreciate having just that little bit of time to say something to somebody across the room. At the beginning of the year I tried to especially encourage my upperclassman to meet all the freshmans, so I could count on that time to do that as well. I have found that it has been a community builder for me to put a break in the middle of the rehearsal period, even though I hate losing those five minutes deep down inside. GH: Now kind of shifting gears, what I would really like to talk about is your composing and that part of your career, and how that was impacted through the pandemic. ES: I had a bunch of premiers—I’ll talk about a few things. I had a bunch of premieres that were supposed to happen in May 2020, so that all got delayed indefinitely. I had at least three pieces, that were supposed to have premiers in May 2020, they all got delayed— they have all happened at this point. I was super bummed that those pieces weren’t gonna get played, but who was gonna hear them—so that was a little bit of a bummer. I will also say I had some challenges with—I have this sort of theory about how much creative energy I have as a person—so I don’t know if you can relate to this but I feel like I’ve got a few hours a day of like really great thinking, high level thought creative energy that I need to compose music. I’m getting better at expanding that but all of that energy was used up trying to figure out how to hold an online band. It was really challenging and so I suppose the benefit to a lot of ensembles not meeting in the classroom in normal mode was I did have to ask for some extensions. One group I had said “you can push that deadline back we’re not meeting this year”—which was great because I can't even figure out how to teach my class, so all of my thinking had to go into how to teach a class in a whole different way, in a way that you can’t even imagine ever having to do—that took all my mental energy. I had two pieces I had to delay and ask extensions on, it ended up being fine and everybody understood—but I also felt sort of frustrated with not being able to have the creative energy that I felt like I should, but I sort of realized later that I was putting it in other places. The other thing that I did do, which for me takes less creative energy, is I did arrangements of a couple of pieces that I’d already composed and I made them available for what’s called flexible or adaptable instrumentation. I had a couple of pieces that I sort of put out into the world—a lot of composers were doing this, taking something they’d already composed and making it available for a selection of random instruments—it’s basically what I call file prep. Sort of rearranging and prepping all the PDF files and then you put it on your website. The work I did 10 was more like rearranging for pandemic purposes, and so some of those pieces still get played although not as much. People have gone back to programming more of my full band stuff at this point. But they're still out there and they still get used occasionally. GH: Going off that, how did your commission side get impacted by covid? Did you get more, less? ES: It seemed to be about the same, I don’t think that necessarily was too affected by the pandemic. Everybody was planning for when they could get started again and because the commission cycle usually takes one to two years anyway, I think everybody was excited like, “let’s do this, we’re gonna look forward to when we can get back to it”. I think it was about the same amount of work that I was being offered at the time, and I think that has recently increased but I don’t think it has to do necessarily with— maybe it does, I don’t know. It’s increased recently but I also think part of that is my music is out there more, so that’s gonna continue to grow. So I felt like it was about the same, I don’t know if that was necessarily impacted. GH: Thinking back to the pre-pandemic world, and as we slowly enter the post-pandemic world— when you think of Augsburg as a whole do you feel a change in the University among students or just a different feeling overall? ES: Yes, I have. I was just thinking about this yesterday not thinking you were gonna ask me about this specifically. At least here in the music building, I remember coming in around 9:30 on a Monday, and usually pre pandemic it seems like a time of day that this building would be hopping. People would be having class, I’d hear stuff happening in the practice rooms, people would be giving lessons and at least in this building—because I don’t think I can speak for the campus as a whole, I sort of live here if that makes sense. It feels like people aren’t quite coming back to being in person in as many things as they used to, and so there are a lot of times where the building feels kinda empty to me and I can’t really put my finger on why exactly. I know there were some classes last year that were still sort of hybrid or online, or there are more professors who are recording their lectures or are cool if people need to zoom in, and still doing the hybrid thing option for if you're sick. I don’t know if you’ve found that it feels a little different, I would also say I’m less likely to leave this building than I used to be. I don’t eat lunch at the commons as much anymore because it was closed for a while, I don’t go to the bagel place anymore because it was just shut down— so I sort of had a year of not buying bagels so now I don’t buy bagels which is kinda a bummer. So that’s how it feels different to me, I’m not sure about the rest of the campus but it feels slower and quieter to me. Do you feel that, what do you think? GH: Yeah I agree. The building here just feels really dead a lot of the time. 11 ES: It feels different. Class passing time feels different, there’s less hubbub as people are going back and forth to classes. I remember it was chaos around here for ten minutes every hour and half or whatever it is. I sort of miss that. I guess the benefit is there’s a lot of times where you don’t need to be on campus. If you’ve got just one or two students in an office hour you can zoom in so then you don’t need to come in to do that necessarily. There’s a lot more acceptance of being able to occasionally move your class online if you need to, or record a lecture because your gone that day— that’s something I never would have thought of before the pandemic and now if I know I’m gonna be absent due to a personal appearance or some other thing I have going on, I record my presentation. I just toss it up there and say, “this is class for this one day and then I’ll see you the next class period”. I think there’s a lot more of that happening so I think that affects some stuff. I don’t know exactly what the numbers are, but it does feel different. GH: Having gone through this whole struggle of the pandemic, are there any parts that you find are rewarding in any way? ES: I have some fuzzy feelings about that John Cage piece that we did. I think it hit the right note of some social bonding and comeseration, but also learning something about a piece that those students probably didn’t know—I have some fuzzy feelings about that. There are definitely some warm and fuzzy feelings about coming back in the fall of 2021, despite all the challenges that I mentioned before about masks, bell covers, and rehearsing 30 minutes at a time. I remember feeling like, it is what it is, so being appreciative—I had some feelings about that. What was the question again? I feel like I’m tangenting. GH: Was it rewarding in any way? ES: Rewarding, yeah. It was rewarding despite all the energy it took to troubleshoot. I did get some satisfaction out of that process if that kind of makes sense. It also made me appreciate the job that I do and the interaction I have with students more. I think that’s maybe what I took away from it. GH: My final question is where do you see your work going from here? For your classes and ensembles, do you have any goals for the future coming out of this pandemic and finally being able to do everything again? ES: I feel like, lesson learned. I really appreciate my job and I think it was an eye opener for everybody. We need live music, we need live theater, we need live performing arts, right? We can’t take that for granted, we need that as a society—that’s just what it is. And I think, just continue to grow and build the community in the Augsburg Music Department and the Concert Band, and I’m going to keep writing. Just actually knowing that challenges can be overcome—so 12 there is something about coming out stronger on the other side, there’s something about that too. Hopefully that answered your question. GH: Yeah, Thank you so much for meeting with me! ES: Yeah, you're so welcome! GH: And again, that was Dr. Erika Savnoe in discussing the impact of COVID-19 on Augsburg University’s Music Department and Concert Band.
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- Title
- Transcript of Oral History Interview with Kathryn Knippenberg, 2023
- Collection
- COVID-19 Oral History Project
- Search Result
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Autumn Graleske 0:02
Today I'm interviewing Kathryn Knippenberg, the women's lacrosse coach at Augsburg
University for the Augsburg COVID-19 Oral History Project. It is March 30. And we are in
coach Knippenberg’s office. I am Autumn Graleske, the project interviewer. So, just getting into
s...
Show more Autumn Graleske 0:02 Today I'm interviewing Kathryn Knippenberg, the women's lacrosse coach at Augsburg University for the Augsburg COVID-19 Oral History Project. It is March 30. And we are in coach Knippenberg’s office. I am Autumn Graleske, the project interviewer. So, just getting into some background information, like where are you from? Kathryn Knippenberg 0:25 Yeah. So I'm from Golden Valley, Minnesota. I went to Hopkins High School, and I have lived in the cities pretty much my whole entire life. Autumn Graleske 0:37 All right, and who are you raised by? Kathryn Knippenberg 0:42 Oh, yeah. So I grew up in a household with both my parents. So my mom and my dad and then I have a little brother, who's 18 months younger than I am. And like, had a pretty traditional upbringing. So like, went to public high school, I went to Hopkins High School, and then played sports pretty much throughout my whole entire career. So played lacrosse and played soccer. And I think that that was like a defining part of my childhood. And just like most of my friends were people that I had met through sports and like, obviously liked it enough that I continued on to end up coaching. Autumn Graleske 1:18 So you’d say that sports were pretty, I can’t find the right word, but pretty… Oh, impactful. Yeah. In your growing up? Kathryn Knippenberg 1:28 Yeah, for sure. Autumn Graleske 1:29 And you said you went to Hopkins High School. Where'd you go to college? Kathryn Knippenberg 1:33 I went to… Well, I actually went to Madison, University of Wisconsin Madison, my freshman year and ended up not having a great experience out there. So I transferred back to the University of Minnesota and finished my junior or excuse me, sophomore, junior and senior year there. And then I ended up going back there for my master's degree, two years later. So my undergrad was in biology as a major and then I had a chemistry and an art minor. And then I went back to get my master's in public health with a focus in epidemiology. Autumn Graleske 2:03 Okay, and you said you played lacrosse in high school? Kathryn Knippenberg 2:09 Yep. Autumn Graleske 2:10 Um, what? Like, when did you do that? Is that when you started playing lacrosse? Kathryn Knippenberg 2:13 Yeah. So I started playing in ninth grade. But Hopkins has a junior high. So like ninth grade was in the junior high. And at that point, lacrosse was not a varsity sanctioned sport. So we weren't allowed to play on the team until we were sophomores. And my sophomore year was the first year that it was a varsity sanctioned sport in the state of Minnesota. So there were eight teams in the state. When we first started playing, there were more teams but they didn't all have varsity level status. So like as my years went on, more teams added. I don't even remember how many were left. Or how many there were when I was a senior, but it was more than eight at that point in time. Autumn Graleske 2:54 What got you into lacrosse, like interested? Kathryn Knippenberg 2:57 Yeah, so one of my friend’s older brother's girlfriends, which is like the craziest right? She played lacrosse and was like told like my friend to go out and play lacrosse and then she was like, well you guys should come to because we had all played soccer together. And so we went out and tried it and ended up falling in love with it. And like I think that it is a sport that is just so different from other sports and it's super fast paced, you know, there's a lot of action always. I played softball for a little bit and I like, when I was a little kid I would sit out in the outfield and just like pick dandelions because it was too boring for me. So I needed something that was a little bit more energetic and fast pace. And like all my friends were playing it so it was just kind of like the thing to do. But once I started it was just kind of like I didn't want to quit because even if my friends would have quit I probably would have kept playing because it was just such a fun sport. And something that was super, you know, quick and active and like engaging throughout the whole entire game. Autumn Graleske 3:57 Yeah. And obviously you stuck with it and was coaching lacrosse kind of your… Did you see it as like what you wanted to do? Kathryn Knippenberg 4:06 No. I knew that I wanted to like coach in some aspect. So like even in high school, I coached like little kids soccer because at that point, like there weren't youth lacrosse programs. So like I didn't really have an opportunity to coach lacrosse but I coached like youth soccer, so I think I had like first graders for like a fall and then I think I had like another age group for another couple years there. I was an assistant coach so I knew I liked coaching and went into college thinking that I wanted to teach high school, so it was like I had that vision of coaching high school and then coaching either soccer or lacrosse after school was done, right? Like I feel like that's what most teachers do ,or not most, but like some teachers. And it's more common for like other sports than it is lacrosse just because not as many teachers know lacrosse yet. And then when I graduated from high school, well technically when I graduated from college, I started coaching. So my high school coach was also my college coach, and she had started up a club program. So she started the Lakers. And she needed coaching help. And I was the president and a captain at the U of M. So like, she saw the leadership role and responsibility that I had just in my nature, and asked me to coach with them, so I started coaching with them. And then in 2009, I think it was a fall Yeah, the fall of 2009, I got the head coaching position of Holy Angels. So I was their head coach from 2010 season to the 2013 season. So for four years, and then like happened into this role at Augsburg more or less, because of when I was graduating from the U of M with a master's degree, I was looking for jobs. I did all my classes in three semesters. So my first semester was just working on my Master's project, and my thesis and so I had a lot of time, I was just doing that. And then that's when, that summer in June, was when Augsburg had announced that they were adding women's lacrosse. And so my coaching colleague, with the Lakers said, I should apply, like I was looking for a job. So like, and she thought I could do it. So I ended up getting the job offer and then actually got a job offer in public health on the same day. So it was like a job at the VA. So with the government and I had been interviewing with them, and they've been trying to like get the position, but government jobs take a lot of approval, and the process is really long. So by the time that I had gotten the job offer for Augsburg, I had, like all the paperwork had gone through. So I had like a weekend to decide if I wanted to go like road A or road B. And I obviously ended up choosing Augsburg because I just felt like there wasn't gonna be another time in my life that I would apply for a coaching position at the collegiate level. And like I obviously it was good enough to get the job offer. So I figured I'd try it see how it goes. And that was 11 years ago, it was in 2012 that I first started so, crazy. Autumn Graleske 7:03 Yeah, that is a journey. Kathryn Knippenberg 7:04 Yeah. Autumn Graleske 7:04 And like a literal crossroads? Kathryn Knippenberg 7:07 Yeah, yes, yes. In every sense of the term. Autumn Graleske 7:11 And what kind of like drew you to Augsburg? Was it? Just like the open position? Or was there something also about Augsburg that kind of kept you…pushed you to choose? Kathryn Knippenberg 7:23 Yeah. I think it was mostly like, at first, it was the open position. And getting the job offer. And I think that there was excitement, because it was the first program in the state. And it was new and exciting. And I got to, like, put my stamp on it where, I'm very much the person who, I've never been, outside of my club coaching, I've never been an assistant coach. So like, I've always been able to, dictate and make decisions and that's in my nature to be that way. I'm not that good of a follower. So I think that that was really appealing. Whether that was good or bad, like I had a lot of learning curves still because it was obviously my first experience and rodeo and, and like having played at the University of Minnesota, and it being club, like that's a totally different world. Like we, our games were shorter. We would play like three games in a weekend. And that was like the norm or, sometimes we play three games in a day, which is unheard at the collegiate level, or I should say, the NCAA level. You're crazy if you play two games in a weekend, like back to back, that's not an ideal time because, obviously, you're gonna be tired and you want to be well rested. But that was just the nature of what we had to do with the club. So I think there was a lot of learning curve there. But I think what kept me and has kept me at Augsburg is like the community here. So like I was welcomed in, I think I met with almost every single coach that was on staff to kind of just like figure out what they do, how they recruit, like how they talk, you know, what are the big like, benefits of being at Augsburg so that I knew how to recruit student athletes and like tell them and sell them on Augsburg. And then within that sort of forming relationships with other coaches and just kind of like really liked Jeff and the way that he runs the athletic department. We're really just like on our own, which is great in some ways and can be hard in others especially when you're starting out, but I did still feel supported when I needed to those first couple of years and then now it's just like I don't have to be in at any certain time. Like we have 6am practice this morning so like now after like this I can go home and I can be with my kids all day. And like hopefully not have to do too much work but it's nice to have like the flexibility and especially having a family it's like not starting out I didn't have a family but like now having a family to have that like little bit of wiggle room and an ability to create my own schedule is like, you can't exchange that for the world. Autumn Graleske 7:23 Yeah. And so for the first six seasons you coached, prior to 2020, How would you describe that experience? Kind of starting the first NCAA team? In Minnesota? Women's Lacrosse team? Kathryn Knippenberg 10:10 Yeah. Autumn Graleske 10:11 And then trying to grow that team and get it going, how would you describe that? Kathryn Knippenberg 10:17 It was like a whirlwind. Those first two years, especially, we're kind of just like, like flying by the seat of our pants. We were an independent team, so we weren't affiliated with any conference. We had gotten kind of, like screwed over a little bit, in the nicest way. Because we applied after our first season, we had applied to be in the Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference, which was like the only conference for lacrosse in the Midwest at that time. And we apparently didn't hit the right timeline for the commissioner. So like, it wasn't posted, and we just applied and at that point, we were too late. So we got pushed back a year. So that's why we were an independent team for two years. And then when we joined the conference, it was like, you know, night and day, at the time that we joined, we were the 12 team in the conference. So like, 11 of our 17 games that we can play in a season were scheduled for us. You know, we had to wiggle some stuff around every year. But it was nice that like, I didn't have as much like outside scheduling that I had to do. A lot of it was focused on the first year was like, I think I brought in, like 10 kids. And then we did, we had some kids that were just like on campus, like we had four hockey players who had played on the club team, played lacrosse in high school, or like, knew of lacrosse, and they played with us. And then like, over the next couple years, it got to be more of just like, it's people that had played lacrosse in high school. We weren't having to doing on campus recruiting. And that was kind of, you know, nice for the the aspect of like, then coaching, like you're just tweaking things, and you're just like, kind of building on the knowledge and skill base that they already have. So you can really kind of go a little bit further than if you're like teaching somebody from the get go. Autumn Graleske 12:02 I know that I remember some teammates that, like Ani, who didn’t play lacrosse until here. Kathryn Knippenberg 12:08 Yeah, yeah, yep. And she was kind of an anomaly like, we didn't need her as a body, where like once COVID hit, we needed bodies to like fill the roster. And I think like budgetary wise to like…those were years where Augsburg was doing really well. And in like, you know, at the beginning, you need a little bit more to just like buy gear and all that kind of stuff to, have that surplus. So our budget was really nice in the first like six years, it was like consistent, it never went down. I had everything that I needed to be able to like support our athletes and run the program the way that it needs to be run, which has definitely changed since COVID happened. Autumn Graleske 12:51 Moving into like, COVID specific. Thinking back to late February - March of 2020. What were your initial kind of thoughts about the pandemic? Kathryn Knippenberg 13:04 Yeah. Well, I remember it like vividly. I mean, I remember so it all sort of, sort of started happening. You know, like you heard about stuff in the news, but it wasn't really big yet. It was like elsewhere in the world. So it was like you knew of COVID. But like, at that point, it hadn’t an impacted us. And it was like the week before spring break was when stuff started to happen out here. And it wasn't necessarily in Minnesota, but it was like, you know, where we were traveling. So like in Colorado, that was where like, you know, cases were popping up in Washington State and Colorado and California. And it was like, okay, like this is now going to impact us because we were supposed to go to Colorado for spring break. And it like I remember that week before we were supposed to leave I think we left on Saturday morning. And it was like Monday we had a meeting with like our athletic trainers and the AD’s and it was me and then like the other spring sport coaches that were traveling, so it was the conversation of like, we're still going like we still feel confident like if anything changes like this was our game plan. And then we had a meeting on Wednesday, and then the meeting on Wednesday was like a bleaker outlook. And it was like “Where are you going?” “Are there cases there?” And at that point, it was like, there were cases in Colorado so they didn't feel comfortable sending us. So at that point, it was like, “Okay, you're not going on your spring break trip.” And then it was like “okay, well, cool.” Like it's shitty. It sucks that we're not going to go on spring break. But I didn't think it would get to where it got. So I think in my wildest dreams, it was like, well, not in my wildest dreams, in my reality. I thought we were just not going to go on spring break and then we were going to maybe have like two weeks of shutdown and then we were going to be able to be back and ready to go. And then it was just like day after day after day it got worse and then it was like what I think it was that Monday that Friday. Like we had already told you guys that we weren't gonna have spring break and then it was like that Friday that the MIAC had decided it was canceling like all spring sports for the rest of the year. At that point, it was like, I think we had a meeting for you guys to just like tell you in person or those of you that were there. And it was just like, kind of like grieving, what that was going to be. And I think at that point, we still didn't know because, you know, yeah, we weren't gonna be able to compete, but I thought maybe we would still be able to have practices like be in person, any of that stuff. And so, like, once all of that stuff started to come out, it was kind of like, okay, game plan. Me and Ryland were like, you know, “how do we keep kids engaged?” “How do we make sure that they're, going to like, going to class but not going class?” “How do we make sure that their mental health is staying well?” “How do we keep, still keep connection, especially since we were in spring season?” And so it was like, you know, talking to Danielle and seeing like, what she could do. So like we did those like yoga classes or Zumba, like online virtual things. And then I think we had player meetings, like, what every week or every other week, we had, like 10 minute check ins with you guys. So it was kind of just like figuring out how we could best, you know, keep you guys engaged and connected. So that like, we would want you to come back the next year. Right? And so how did we manage that and make sure that, like, we were keeping you guys all still feeling like a team and like celebrating the three games that we did play that year. So trying to keep things like as normal as possible without being in person, which was really challenging. Autumn Graleske 16:28 Yeah. And I imagine, also, on top of that balancing, just like, we all dealt with COVID, like, personally, but also being the leader of an organization and kind of in charge of this whole team. Kathryn Knippenberg 16:43 Yeah. Autumn Graleske 16:43 How do you think you balanced that? Kathryn Knippenberg 16:45 Um, you know, I think that it was hard, I think, I think that, like, it was nice, because like you had quote, unquote, more time, but then you also had like, more time to like, think about like, “oh, shit, like, this is really happening in the world.” Like, also making sure that like, you guys were, like, feeling safe, while also like, I was feeling safe, and like checking in about like, your families and making sure that everybody felt like, comfortable. I think that it was, it probably took a bigger mental toll on me than I think I even like realize today. I mean, and I think the struggle, too, was like, then we had to cancel a bunch of stuff. So like, I still had, like, a bunch of work that I had to do behind the scenes of like, you know, canceling busses canceling. Like, our plane tickets, like, I had to tell the airline and I think at that point, the airline wasn't gonna fly anyways, because the airlines shut down. So that… Oh, no, it didn't, it didn't, they didn't at that point, because Mik still went to Colorado. But like, I had to tell them that we weren't flying. And so then like, deal with like, are we going to get credits? Are we not going to get credits? Or like, is this going to go away like, are we going to lose 1000s of dollars in plane, and then like, the Airbnb, like, we lost, we didn't get any of that money back. So like, that was the thing that like, we didn't cancel with enough time to get the money back. So that was like a couple $1,000 that we just like, was a wash. And it was frustrating to try to, like work that out and figure it out. And you feel bad on the flip side of like, okay, these people thought that we were going to come and now we're not coming. So like I get it, but also like, there's a fucking pandemic, like, give us a break. And so like, at the end of the day, it wasn't like a huge thing for me, like that. But that was just like, extra work and extra stress. And like, you know, I didn't know if that was going to come back on me as far as, like, budget wise, and if we would have to pay for that, like, out of our special projects account, which is like our fundraising budget. And so that's like, money that I work hard to raise, so that we have like, extra things, like it shouldn't necessarily be like, operational expenses from at least at that time. It wasn't. And so I think that like it was hard. And also then having, like, my Ella was two, almost two at the time. So it was like I had like an 18 month old at home that I'm like now caring for because like, you know, my in laws and my parents were the ones that watched her and like, they didn't necessarily want to like do that anymore because my husband was still seeing patients because he's a chiropractor. So he's in with people like you can't distance yourself when you're like working on somebody's body. So it was it was a challenging spring, like all around just kind of like navigating the new normal and like still also like working to take care of myself I think was hard. Autumn Graleske 19:32 And then like transitioning kind of like into the summer and then coming back in the fall. Obviously. Students were coming back and players were coming back. What kind of changes then did you see what the return in the fall like? Kathryn Knippenberg 19:50 Yeah, um, so it was hard. Like the nice part was that I had Ryland so like there was somebody to help but like I was also pregnant. So I wasn't went on maternity leave, my second child was born in September of that fall. So like, we had, like COVID Didn't hit us as a team, I feel like really until that fall. So we had 10 freshmen come in, or first years come in that year. And I think that the hardest part was like the policies that the that the school put in place was like, first years, if you're living in Urness, you're in a room by yourself. And then you're in class virtually. So like, you literally don't see people unless you're like going to the cafeteria, which is like, what, three times a day for 10 minutes, 15 minutes that you're doing that because we couldn't eat in the cafeteria, at least for the first part of school. And then like, we could have practices, but then I was out on maternity leave. So it's like, I'm trying to take care of myself, my other daughter, and then my new baby. And like, you know, like HR’s policy, like, you're not supposed to talk to people, like you're not supposed to do work when you're out on maternity leave, but it's like impossible to do here. So it's like I'm trying to check in with players as much as I can, while also still trying to, like, take care of myself. And then like Ryland is doing a great job of running stuff. But then we're having to deal with like, you know, we had pods at that point. So like, you guys had to be in pods of, I think it was like 10 players. So it's like you guys as a team formed relationships with like your pod. But even then, like we had to quote unquote, socially distance that practice which is like impossible for lacrosse, right? Like, you can only do so many drills. So like we had to get creative, while mostly Ryland had to get creative about like thinking about different drills that we can do. So you guys aren't having contact with each other. So it was just like, okay, it'll be a lot of like, stick work, and it's not gonna be a lot of defense, and it's not gonna be a lot of like contact. So it involves a lot of creativity that way, and then also still trying to like recruit at that time. So it's like, we can't bring kids to campus. So how do we like give kids a good feel for Augsburg, which is hard, because like Augsburg his main selling point is the community. So it's like, you want the kids to come on campus because you want to see like how many people you know, when you weren't like walk around campus, like you run into tons of people, you get to see the team like you get to ask them questions. And so it was kind of navigating about like, how do we now change the recruiting process. And getting kids on campus like we use a lot of like clinics and camps and stuff to also find recruits. And so we couldn't do those. I think Ryland tried to do one in the fall. And I think we had one kid that attended. So it's just like, there was like, so many things that like we tried to do that then there were barriers that we didn't even think about that were in the way for that. And then you add in like, even after first semester we had while going in. So we were supposed to have 10 for first years come in, we lost one within like the first month we lost one other one after first semester. One of them didn't even, two of them didn't even come to school because it was online school and they didn't want to pay the amount of tuition that they would at Augsburg just to be virtual. So like there were already down to six first years. And that's like, huge. And to me, that's all because of like policies that were put in place that like were out of my control. Like I can't help that like you don't feel connected to people because you're by yourself in your room, like of course you're not going to like make relationships and feel connected. So that was really like a really big bummer. And that class was going to be really big, right? Like we were about to graduate a ton of people like we graduated nine that spring. And so it was like, like, I think our roster at springtime when I started, when I came back from maternity leave was 15 players. And like you add, you would add the four that we lost. And that would have been like 19, which is much healthier roster size, especially when you then add in, like our restrictions that we had about testing. So fall sports didn't participate that year. And then winter sports had a season but it was like shorter, it was like they had to test. So at that point, we were told like athletes had to test three days a week. And then we still had to wear masks like in practice. And so we were masked and testing three days a week. So that's like extra time that kids have to come to campus get tested. Like all that kind of stuff. We as coaches only had to get tested once a week. Because we weren't gonna have like physical contact with each other. And I think it was different based on like your sport, the amount of contacts that you had per sport. I don't even remember I just know what ours was. But then it's like if you had a bunch of people that had COVID Like then you were out for 10 days. So like if you had somebody that tested positive and at that point, there were also a lot of like false positives. So it's like we had kids that were testing that didn't have symptoms that then tested positive because the nature of tests is like they're sensitivities and specificities and like, there's going to be false positives, there's going to be like false negatives, all of those things. And so that was that was frustrating for us as a coaching. Well, I guess, yeah, I'll get to that. That was frustrating as a coach. And then it's frustrating for your kids because it's like, oh, well, I tested, I tested positive, but like, I don't have COVID. And so then, then if you tested positive, you had a 90 day window where you didn't have to test anymore, because that was when they thought like, “Oh, you've had it for 90 days. Or you've had it. So like, now you're not going to get it again, within 90 days.” So then they didn't have to test but I was like, “but if they didn't have symptoms, and they tested positive to me, they didn't really have it. So like they should keep testing.” So there was a lot of like gray and wiggle room. And then that spring was also when the vaccine started to get released. So it wasn't until like, April, then that people could start, I think it was April, and maybe it came out in March. And then like, but like, you know, college age students weren't applicable for it right away, because they wanted it to go to like those that are most high risk. So I think in April, we started to have players that got it. And at that point, once you got it, you didn't have to test anymore unless you were symptomatic. So that was a little bit nicer. But we had games where we didn't even, have a full team. Like I think we played down a player one whole game because I had kids that were out from COVID. And then I had like injuries which like naturally, you're going to just happen in lacrosse anyways. But like of my 15 players, you know, three of them weren't able to travel with us. What would that have been? Yes, three of them weren't able to travel with with us. And then we had two injuries. So those players couldn't play. So they were on the sidelines, we were playing down a whole game. And that's just like, not good. Not a great experience for everybody. Yeah, so that was really hard to and then add to it like, so Ryland was my graduate assistant at the time. And he left on January 4, he called me and told me he had he had told me before that he was applying for jobs, because he felt like he needed more financial assistance and needed, like wanting to get a full time job. So he was had been applying for jobs. I thought that that meant he was going to stick through the season. And so like I came back from maternity leave, and started the spring season all by myself with a four month old at home, and like a two year old at home also, and it was COVID. So it was like, and then that was the time to that my parents were really nervous about COVID. So not my parents, my dad was really nervous. So he didn't want my mom to watch the kids feel like we lost child care to which was like extra hard on top of all of it. Yeah, it was really hard. Yeah. Autumn Graleske 27:55 And what trying to, like, how do you think? I mean, obviously, that's a lot for you to deal with. How do you think? Like, what, how would you deal with that? Like, was there anything that kind of made it easier? I mean, obviously, you got through it? Kathryn Knippenberg 28:19 Yeah, yeah. So that was it, it was knowing that it was temporary. And that, like, the hope was that at some point, we would go back to normal. And so it was like, I realized that that whole season was going to be an anomaly. And it was going to be what it was. But then it was like, okay, the future like, like if the vaccine is coming out, and people feel good about the vaccine, like hopefully that will help us like not have to wear masks and like not have to test as often. And like all of these other things that will hopefully help it to feel more normal. And so that's kind of like what I rode on and like, what helps me stay positive was that it was just like, temporary, and it was just a time in my life that was gonna be hard, and then it would get better. And like, you know, summers are typically a little bit easier for us. And at that point, it was still like, not as many tournaments were happening because of COVID. So it was like, there wasn't as much that I could even do to recruit, but then like, that also hurts you because that's less exposure to kids. And that's less time seeing them. And I think that that was the first summer that we ran camps and clinics again, and like actually had people attend, which was really nice. And I think that that was like, people were excited and hungry to get out there and like have experiences so it was nice that we were able to do that. And kind of had a good like flip of the switch where like people were like, “Oh, I haven't done this for a whole year” because like there weren't opportunities in 2020. So 2021 was a little bit nicer in that regard. So things started to get a little bit back to normal. But that was like so we had 15 on our roster that year. And then we graduated and/or lost nine of those 15 players. And then because of COVID, like recruiting was very challenging that year. And then you add on to it that like I was on maternity leave in the fall. And then in the spring, like I was the only coach. So I'm running the program all by myself and like that is very challenging. And then to recruit on top of it, it was just like, it was hard. And we couldn't at that point, I believe we still couldn't have kids on campus. So it was still doing like virtual visits, virtual tours, like all of those things that just don't make any sense. And like, it's hard to get kids to want to come to a school that they've never been on campus for, too. So I think towards the end of the spring, we could have kids on campus, but like the visit was just so different from what we were used to that it's like, it's pivoting and trying to find a way to keep it as like normal as possible, while also still respecting the school's policies and procedures that they have in place, which I think was harder than I thought it was gonna be. And I think that COVID just turned a lot of kids away from going to college, in general, because it was still unknown if it was going to be in person or virtual in the fall, too. So we graduated nine, so that got our roster down to six that were going to continue playing. And then we only brought in three. So that's nine people and you can't play lacrosse with nine people. So I charged our team with doing a bunch of on campus recruiting, and I was still trying to find like last minute, what would they have been 2021s. But it was really challenging. I got a lot of like, “oh, I don't want to play lacrosse in college” or like, “I'm not going to go to college” or like “I'm going to take a gap year” or x and z excuses. So that was really, really challenging. So then, like fast forward to 2022 season, and we had a roster of 20 kids, but only nine of them… that’s a lie, 10 of them had ever played lacrosse before. So like the majority of our team in 2022 had never played lacrosse before. Autumn Graleske 32:02 Shifting kind of your coaching focus from just tweaking things to… Kathryn Knippenberg 32:08 Yes, yes. So it's like starting from ground zero, again, like, tenfold because it's like you have hopefully athletes and hopefully people that like can get it quickly. But like you got to teach like the x's and o's and like just like the game in general, and the rules and like all of these things. And at that point, I did have another graduate assistant. So I hired Christina in the fall of 2021. I guess technically this summer. So then I did have another coach that was at least helpful. And then Mik, who was an alum who had graduated in 2021 came back and helped us out, that the whole, I mean, she's been there since she graduated. So it was nice to now have two coaches. So like, they can help me watch stuff, like they can help me do everything. And it's just like more eyes on the people, which is nice, too, when you have beginners, because they need a little bit more help and a little bit more guidance. Autumn Graleske 33:05 Yeah, and then like with Mik, she was supposed to graduate in 2020? Kathryn Knippenberg 33:10 She was supposed to graduate in 2020. Yep. Autumn Graleske 33:12 But um, I know that maybe an upside to the pandemic was that a lot of those seniors that we had, got another year of eligibility? So I mean, would you consider that to be like a positive because then you… because from what I remember from the 2020 season, we were still kind of dealing with roster issues, even like pre-pandemic. Kathryn Knippenberg 33:38 Yeah. Autumn Graleske 33:49 Definitely got exacerbated by the pandemic? Kathryn Knippenberg 34:01 Yeah. Autumn Graleske 34:02 But would you say that, like having some people return, was an upside? Kathryn Knippenberg 34:18 Yeah, I mean, I think that like, like, 2020 I feel like our roster was right around like 15-16. And then like then, I was bringing in a really big class to help, like, make that up. And so, like, it's hard, because like, yes, it was a bonus. That year, we had so 2021, I had three players. So it was Annika, Mik and Megan that stayed an extra year and like Augsburg helped because they offered a program called Augsburg BOLD, where they would offer reduced tuition for their master's programs for kids that wanted to come back and do their fifth year. So that was really nice. But I also don't think that I would have lost as many first years as I did that year if it wouldn't have been for COVID. Maybe like one of them wouldn't have come or wouldn't have stuck out with lacrosse but like that fall was just like so… I mean, and then you add on top of it like the George Floyd stuff. So it's like crime was up in the cities so like, people that aren't from the cities were were a little bit nervous about coming here. And like one of our kids had their car broken into, like the first week living on campus. And so there's like, these things that are setting it up, like for detriment already that like, I don't even know if that would have happened if COVID didn't happen. Autumn Graleske 35:38 And how do you think? I mean, obviously, there were people leaving and issues, but overall, how would you kind of describe the impact that you saw on on the players, like the returning players? As well as like, I know, you mentioned the first years? Kathryn Knippenberg 36:02 Yeah, I mean, I think that 2020 was a really hard season, because of the COVID stuff. Yeah, 2021. Because of like, like, we had team drama, because like, somebody was COVID positive, and then they were going out and like being with other people. And so it's like, well, you're not supposed to do that. And it was like, little stupid drama that like you wouldn't even exist if we didn't have COVID. Because, like, who cares? Um, so I think that that was really challenging. And then just dealing with, like, every game, not knowing who we were going to have and how many people we were going to have. And it was kind of just like, flying by the seat of our pants. But I do think that like, so those kids that were on Spring season, and 2021 are now my juniors. And I do think that they have a different appreciation for what our season is now. Because it is like, essentially back to normal. Like, yeah, if you get COVID, now you're out for five days, like it's not as big of an impact, like it's still present. But it's not to the point that it was those those first two years. And so I think that they have a newfound appreciation for like it being normal. But it was also like, because we had a bunch of new players last year, like the expectations were down, and I think the expectations and then you add on, like just the whole, like, students had everything virtual and teachers were really lax, and they were accepting late work. And they like, you know, we have pass, fail, low pass, like all of these different options that I think hindered our students in being held accountable. So then it was like, and then you add in the mental health piece, and like, people using that to some extent as an excuse for, like, why they don't want to come to practice and like, and I think that like there is valid in a lot of situations. But there were some people that took advantage of that and like used it negatively. And so like that can cause an issue amongst the team when like you're seeing that, like somebody is just like, you know, not coming to practice, but then they're going out at night. And they're like celebrating and like doing all and then it's like go “Do you really have mental health problems?” So I think that that was really hard. And then also from my perspective, like I didn't want to, it was a thin line of accountability, where it's like, if you're saying you need X,Y and Z for mental health support, like, I want to give you that, right. But then it's like how much give is allowed. And I think I gave a lot of give. And then it was like now this year, it's like, okay, we need to hold people accountable. And it's like, you know, what is expected of you like, and so I think there's been a big shift in that regard for our team that I think is hard for some and easier for others. And I think that that was a combination of just like the changes with COVID both in like mental health and just like accountability in the classroom. And then also tied with like us having like a team of more newbies than like returning players last year. So it was like kind of like starting over from scratch and like building that accountability, but like not being over accountable because we needed the bodies and we didn't want everybody to quit. And then like having a fun season and like trying to make it like a good experience so that people come back. And then this year is like, Okay, we everybody's played a year of lacrosse, like, for the most part, I think we have like two people that didn't play lacrosse last year, because they were injured. But they still were a part of the team and they still like saw the games. And so it's like, okay, you know, so now like our level of accountability is going up because like we need to get back to where we were to be a successful program. Autumn Graleske 39:40 Yeah. And you friends with other coaches, like Hamline? How would you like, did you ever discuss kind of like, the effects of the pandemic with other coaches? Kathryn Knippenberg 39:56 Oh, yeah. Autumn Graleske 39:56 How other colleges dealt with the same issues? Kathryn Knippenberg 40:00 Yeah, um, I mean, I think like, that's a big thing. Like the Hamline coach, she's not there anymore. But she is my best friend. So we talked often about it. And then whenever we go to recruiting events, like you're talking to other coaches a lot of the time and so it's like you get a feel for like what other school’s policies were and some schools were more strict than others, like Hamline. When we played at their fields, we were outside but we had to be masked and it was just like “Oh.” So then that week, and like it that was at the point where like, if you were testing three days a week, you didn't have to wear masks at practice. But like, we still masked that practice so that if we had a game that was like that, like, we would know what it was like. And so I think that that was hard to navigate to, is like before every away game, we would have to check in with, like, what the school's policy was like, “do we need to wear masks in the building?” “Do we need to wear masks during the game?” Like, do we need to like, “do we need to test?” “Do we need to show you our tests?” like what what is the policy and so that was kind of hard. And I think it was maybe easier for some others sports that are sponsored by the MIAC, but because we're not sponsored by the MIAC like, we kind of had like less rules, but then like some schools had more. And so it was kind of more inconsistencies that were then like more work for me that I had to keep up with. Autumn Graleske 41:23 And then like, kind of just within the Augsburg entire athletic department. How do you think you dealt with the pandemic? Do you think it was dealt with similarly throughout the entire department? Kathryn Knippenberg 41:40 Yeah, I think each program probably had its different pain points. So like, I don't necessarily think everybody got as impacted by like recruiting numbers as we did. I think it's from what I have talked to other people, it's more the female sports that got impacted than the male sports. And I don't know, like exactly why, like I could postulate, but I don't know how effective that would be. And then I think it's like program specific. And I also think there was a difference between seasons. So like, spring gotten impacted way more than anybody else. Because we had, like, well, and women's hockey did because… Oh, no, they did it, because they didn't make it to the national tournament that year, but like some winter sports had got impacted because their national tournaments got canceled. So like wrestling, they didn't have their national championships. So like, that's huge. That's annoying. But then at least like next year in 2020, to 2021, like, they still had somewhat of a season. And so like we got a whole season taken away where like they just got a national tournament. And then spring also had was super impacted in the spring. So like, we didn't take a spring break trip, because we couldn't fly anywhere. And then like we played, I think 11 games that season, when normally we would play 17. But like we had to not travel as much, our budget started to get cut. And we started not be to be able to like, you know, do as much stuff as we could do before. And then, like the winter sports, you know, still had a season. Fall sports got impacted that fall, but then they could play in the spring. So like they moved that fall season to the spring season. So they still got like, time with their kids. It wasn't obviously like a full season, but like we were the ones that got a whole season essentially taken away from us. And then like a half a season in 2021. So I think like everybody's, everybody was affected to a different degree. And I think that every program was a little bit different in that sense. But like, I think spring sports took the biggest hit for sure. Just with the timing of everything. Autumn Graleske 43:46 Yeah. And just kind of like, looking back like now, things are kind of somewhat normal. And like, obviously, we just spent the last, you know, few minutes talking about, you know, the entire experience. But like, when you think back and reflect on it, what are some of the biggest takeaways that you are… How did navigating, you know everything during the pandemic, kind of make you approach things differently? Or kind of make coach differently? Kathryn Knippenberg 44:26 Yeah, I mean, I think I had to coach differently, because we had a bunch of new players. So it was almost like starting, I think I've said this before, but like starting from ground zero. I think that it gave me a different perspective. I feel like I always valued mental health, but I think it gave me a new perspective, just to like as how impacted it could be. But I think the biggest thing is that it changed the students. And so like it's been a change, for me just figuring out like how I need to deal with this generation versus like, previous generations. And I think like the accountability piece is a big part of it. And so it's just like refiguring out, like the degree to which I can hold them accountable, and then the best way to do it. So I think that that is kind of like the biggest takeaway that I had. And just kind of like, you know, like navigating the new normal and it's interesting still that it's like COVID is still a thing, like if you have the flu, you're fine. You can come to practice, but if you have COVID you can't and so it's like figuring out some of that stuff. And then also like, being okay, if it doesn't make sense to me like, that's one thing, but like, I still have to follow the rules, right. So I think that that has been another thing that's been somewhat challenging to me especially being, like having the public health background and having the knowledge like that is hard for me sometimes that like the school, I understand that they're making a decision to like benefit the whole institution, but like, some of them haven't always made sense to me from a public health standpoint. So that's been challenging. But also like a takeaway of like, this is, these are the rules and like, You got to follow them. So like, You got to just deal with it and roll with the punches. Autumn Graleske 45:48 Do you think that there are any kind of positives that you could gather from that experience? I mean, I know there was, yeah, definitely a lot of negative. Kathryn Knippenberg 45:57 Yeah. Um, I mean, I think it was a time when like, it forced me to grow. So it was like it kind of whether it was maybe good or not, like, I think it was times where like, I was always having to be more on my toes. And I think it definitely helped me deal a little bit better with like, change. Not that I'm not good with it. Because I feel like that's just the nature of like, traveling with a team, like you have to be ready for anything and like things aren't gonna go the way that you plan them to go. So I feel like I've always been like that, but like, it was just like, heightened, like during COVID. So it was like, rolling with the punches and like being ready for anything, and kind of just like, doing a much better job of being flexible. I think that that definitely, like grew exponentially for me during COVID. So I feel like even in practices now, like I was so like, structured of like, this is what we're going to do. This is a practice plan where like, now I'm like, oh, okay, like, we're not getting this today. So like, Let's do something else, or like, we need to go in a different avenue, or we're going to build on this drill and like not do this drill. And I think that as far as like my coaching, that that's probably like, one of the biggest shifts that I've I've seen come out of COVID is that I'm able to be a little bit more flexible, and quicker on my feet, I think in some ways out of practice. Autumn Graleske 47:19 And then just like kind of how… I like to end with, like, these kinds of questions where it's like, how has this process been, reflecting on it? Like, is this stuff that you've thought about a lot? Or did you kind of think about things that you hadn't really thought about? Kathryn Knippenberg 47:40 Yeah, um, honestly, I feel like I like buried it inside of me and like, don't think about it. Like, it's funny, my husband and I was just talking about it the other day, because it's like, like, there are times when like, now, you know, it's like, running a program, having two kids at home, like, it can be a lot. And so it's just like, he was reminding me that like, this has been happening since like 2020. And like, that was not, like, as easy as it was to the fact that like, I wasn't having to come into the office every day, like, I was still doing a lot of work. And it just didn't necessarily seem like it because it was all from home. And it was all like, I had my kid with me all the time. So it was like, but I was still doing work and still on like player meeting calls. And so I think that there's a big part of me that is just like buried a lot of it and not like thought about it again, because I don't feel like I need to but maybe I do to like be able to reflect and see, like the good changes that came out of it and like the benefits. But I feel like it's like when I look back at it later on in my life. It's gonna be a time where I'm like, Okay, I survived. I made it through. But like that was really tough experience. And so it's like, I think if anything, it's made me realize like how tough I am. And how like, adaptable, I guess that I am at the same time. And so I think like in that sense, it's made me reflect a little bit, but I feel like more than not, it's like, just a time when I don't want to think back on it. Autumn Graleske 49:06 That's yeah, that's completely fair. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you like thinking back on it and reflecting Yeah, for this interview, I think that you gave a valuable insight into this specific kind of aspect of Oxford. And yeah, I think that that concludes our interview. Kathryn Knippenberg 49:25 Awesome.
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- Title
- Transcript of Oral History Interview with Pastor Babette Chatman, 2023
- Collection
- COVID-19 Oral History Project
- Search Result
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Willow Piotrowski 0:00
I would just ask you to state your first and last name and your date of birth, please.
Babette Chatman 0:07
My name is Babette Chatman, and my date of birth is April the eighth.
WP 0:13
Okay. We're just gonna get started then. So my first question is what prompted you...
Show more Willow Piotrowski 0:00 I would just ask you to state your first and last name and your date of birth, please. Babette Chatman 0:07 My name is Babette Chatman, and my date of birth is April the eighth. WP 0:13 Okay. We're just gonna get started then. So my first question is what prompted your decision to join Augsburg's ministry full time in 2019? BC 0:23 I had been a collaborating partner with Augsburg University's campus ministry since 2007. I'm an alum. And so I've always had a relationship with Augsburg's campus ministry. And so when the pastor position opened up, I felt like I would give it a try and apply. See if it worked out? It did. WP 0:48 Yeah, how has that been going just in general? BC 0:50 Well, I started in 2019, and in 2020, we had the COVID pandemic. So, in some ways, it started off really great, and in other ways, I think it, in some ways, I think it revealed to me why I really love this work. WP 1:12 What were you, speaking of the COVID 19 pandemic, what were you doing and what were your first thoughts when you heard that COVID extended the spring break? BC 1:20 So we were on campus, and we were actually planning— campus ministry does an alternative spring break every year. And so we were planning a trip to go to New Mexico. And so we had student leaders that were helping plan that trip. And so imagine all the students are watching and waiting and wondering, are we going to be able to go? And so we all kind of hold our breath. Because we know it probably wasn't gonna happen. WP 1:49 So, that obviously changed the fact that you could do the trip. Are you planning on doing the trip again at some point? BC 1:58 Well, yes, they, we ended up doing the alternative spring break trip specifically in New Mexico, we did it spring break 2022. So they did it last year. WP 2:10 How'd it go? BC 2:12 From what— I didn't participate. I didn't go. Our co pastor, my co pastor went. And the students that went said it was amazing. WP 2:21 How did COVID-19 change your plans on Ausgburg’s campus like personally? BC 2:26 Well, the biggest thing was for the first, I believe it was six months, right, was it? That we had to all go shelter in place? And that meant that we had to adapt how we did and shaped Christian or faith communities, right? So we're an interfaith campus. And so we are student facing. And we offer programming for our Christian identifying students, but we also do some interfaith programs with our Khalil and Muslim students as well. And so trying to figure out how we could shape or continue community virtually, was the question. And the challenge as well as the opportunity. WP 3:17 What, what ways did you find to do that? BC 3:20 Well, we did things. We started doing pre recorded services, we would do live zoom services. We were very mindful of everything that was going on during the pandemic, which included the, the social justice or racial uprising. And so we were really mindful around using media and so we were really intentional about offering prayers and concern. So every day in rotation, one of the staff would offer a blog that was a prayer, focusing on some of the tensions but also some of the hopes that were also arriving. WP 4:08 How did— did you write one of these? BC 4:09 I, I wrote a couple I was part of— There were three of us, there was me, at the time pastor Justin Lind-Ayres, who was my prede— I'm his predecessor. So he was, at the time he was the director of Campus Ministry. And we had a pastoral intern, which is a student preparing to be a pastor. And so each one of us would write a blog that was a prayer and kind of a reflection. WP 4:37 How did, how did you format the writing? How did you come up with what you're going to write? BC 4:44 You know that’s int—, it's a good question. I don't know. We know how we, we just, I think we listened. Right? I think we watched and we learned what was going on. And there was some things that, that were true, whether it was a pandemic or not, right? The issues of social justice. But because the pandemic was having such an economic and social impact, we offered prayers for, what's the word they use? Crit— Was it critical workers? What, what was the word they use? Well imma use critical, but I can't think of a way right now. But those workers their work didn’t change. So one of us would pray for postal workers, or the medical professions or grocery store, like gas station attendants like, and then we, we did prayers around, appreciation or gratitude or? Yeah, yeah. I'm sure there were others because I think we did it maybe for at least three months. So imagine… 12 weeks? WP 6:02 How did, how did your life change during the pandemic? BC 6:12 Well, I think there were levels to how my life changed, so I'm single. So there were times where being home and being isolated was, was very isolating. Which caused me to really manage my mental health. I come from a large family, there were 13 born, there are eight of us now but I was always in constant con… communication with my siblings, especially my sisters. But they don't— they live in other states. So I spent a lot of time in our like, a family chat. And I think I was also very mindful of what I was seeing in, on social media that might have caused me concern, or tugged on my heart for other people. But it also put me in a place where I was becoming very aware of what I call the machine, right, capitalism, those systems that, you know, cause us to work really, really hard to create and produce for a very small group of people that really benefit. Right, the group of people, they get really, really rich during the pandemic, when everybody else didn't. WP 7:33 Did that shape, the, the way that you guided people through the pandemic? BC 7:39 In some ways, I think more than anything it shaped the way I had conversations, the way that maybe I challenged some thoughts, but also the way that I allowed my thoughts to also be challenged. WP 7:55 I read that you had, when the vaccine was coming out, that you had sessions where you helped people who were maybe hesitant about getting it, or nervous about getting it, guiding them through that. BC You read that? WP Yeah, could you tell me a bit about that? BC 8:13 Well, I'm an advocate of vaccines. I am one of those people that get vaccines every flu season. But I'm also originally from Detroit, Michigan. And if you go back and research, you will see that the COVID the pandemic, the virus, like it had a really bad impact on the, the the community of Detroit, and that was a lot of black identifying people. Right. And so, that speaks to the kind of injustice around health care. And, and yet, I saw that there was a vaccine so because I believed that it was better to do something to take risks. Then every opportunity I had, I was encouraging people. And if it was a matter of me helping them identify where they can get a vaccination, I will do that as well. WP 9:16 Did you have any, any struggles or anything while doing that? Did you find anything challenging? BC 9:23 As far as access or as far as the, if the effects or the impact of the virus? WP Both. BC No. You know, one of the things that I think we, I would hope that we teach students and I think some of them hear word of mouth is around networks, right and, and resources and people are, now [inaudible 10:04], God's greatest resource people, humans. And so knowing people who know people to give you that access, right? So it is is, is not my nature to say that I know somebody, so I got my vaccine, vaccination, and not know that same person and advocate for others. So there's an example. There's a person who's relative had surgery, and it turned out to be major. But at that time, no one could go to the hospital, right, you couldn’t really sit with your family. And then the time came where you could be vaccinated. Right, so I knew this person, and their mother couldn't go see they father because, right, because there's such a lace, only these crucial people have access. But sometimes you know, somebody, right? And so I don't know if that's what you read. But yes, I'm guilty. I, I used my network to get somebody vaccinated quicker than they probably would have otherwise. But that meant that they were able to be in a hospital with their loved ones, right at a crucial time. To me that’s using your resources, using your privilege for the right reasons. WP 11:13 Do you think then that in some ways, the COVID pandemic made your bond with the community stronger? BC 11:20 In some, in some ways I think so. Because the conversation shifts, right, I saw that there was this image that resonated, stayed with me, still stays with me. And I don't know how much it, how true it was, but I think was in Venice, where they showed how once everyone went into shelter in place, Earth healed itself, right? Muddy, dirty green water was crystal blue, and urban and wildlife were just out walking around, right? And that really resonated and it gave me this kind of thought about humans are so arrogant to think that the universe, right, revolves around them. But what if the pandemic was the universe way of letting Ear— humans know, no, actually, you really should appreciate this. Right? Cuz, right trees, clean the air that we breathe, right? Water helps sustain our life, water’s a living source. And so I did feel like, one of the things that happened during the shelter in place was Earth, kind of healed and replenished itself. And the reality is that it did that in six months, right? So imagine, now, I'm not preaching. But imagine, if we really did do the work, right? You already know I'm going with that one, right? To care for the environment. Imagine the impact we would have to reverse it, if we would just follow the lead that we saw during the pandemic, but I don't know if the people that need to have been paying attention was paying attention to it, you know, the machine. WP 13:11 So with the way that the pandemic happened, you've mentioned some really important, like positive things. How did being virtual change the way that you interacted with the community? If at all. BC 13:25 I think being virtual taught me because I'm, I was a little slow around technology, right? I would never imagine being able to schedule a zoom, share screen. So in some ways, it brought me right, you know, current in the 21st century. I think the things that challenged me around was even my own diet, right. But also, what the importance of human contact, like real human contact. Yeah. I feel like does, like, think I answered your question. Say your question again. WP 14:07 How did, how did being virtual change the way you interacted with the community? BC 14:11 Yeah, so I would say there are different levels of what I identify as community. So the Augsburg community, most of it was virtual. The first chance we, I got, where we were coming back, and there were those who, if they didn't have to come, they could remain working. I was one of the ones, that was at this point, I felt like it was crucial that I be on campus right. And many times I was, that I was here just in case I was needed. My, my closest circle. It was realizing how much I appreciate them, but how crucial it was to be in contact with them because it's real easy, right to get unhealthy in isolation. And then the larger community would have been me watching and wondering how post pandemic, can I have a positive impact on the community that, the I don't access regularly? WP 15:15 I read that the staff here are available to all students for, like, sort of counseling-esque services. Did, did those services— or, were those services available during COVID? BC 15:32 Yes. Um, so if you know how to check a Google Calendar, our calendars are always updated. And we were always available. And, and, and while counseling is a tricky word, because we're about pastoral care, which is really a compliment and being present, and actively listening. Counseling, in my mind, I'm really clear, belongs with CWC, and I would never want to be accused of not staying in my lane. But for the most part, I think the availability was for the same thing that I also recognized in myself, which is longing for human contact. And so yeah, there are a lot of meetings, sometimes it will be one to one zoom sessions. There were times when there were like zoom groups, right? Where maybe I'm meeting with two or three really close friends that are really struggling, they're struggling together. And so I think there were several students that I met with weekly, just to let them know that they're not alone. And just to know that, you tell me anything. There were times where we were all on Zoom, and we weren't talking or anything, it was, it was the semblance of being in the same room together. Right? So there were times when our videos were muted, right, but we could hear each other talking. Or we could say, are you still there? Because it, it at least gave us the appearance of being in a space together. And I think that was something that happened that was um, that I didn't realize the importance of it, right? The importance of contact and being in relationships. WP 17:30 As, as the one year mark hit during the pandemic, what were you, what were you thinking about? Sort of? BC 17:38 I was, my first thought was, how long was this gonna be? And what was the reentry gonna look and feel like? WP 17:48 When campus first opened its doors to students to live and go to class on campus, did the ministry offer any services to help with the transition? And what did they look like? BC 18:02 I don't think it was necessarily services, we, we went, we offered chapel gatherings. So campus ministry offers daily chapel Monday through Friday, 20 minutes is incorporated in the flow of the program on the campus. So because we had to have minimal gatherings and I think by the time we reentered I think we can have, it was either 25 or 30, but everybody had to be spacing, so we had to chapel space, where we could offer chapel. And at that time, we like did three days a week, which was in person, but we would limit, but we also live streamed. But then the other thing at the time was passed with Justin and I, what we did was we volunteered, we agreed to be on the COVID response team. And so the thing about the COVID response team that I feel like wasn't we saw as an important contribution was that engaging students that were either quarantining because they were exposed, or had tested positive for COVID 19, and were in isolation. And being mindful that, you know, I think they just would like people checking on ‘em or if they have questions, or they have somebody that they can contact. WP 19:23 How did you first get involved with the COVID response team? BC 19:27 Somebody recommended to the lead, that you know, we might be useful. Like it might be, that we might be good one. We have a skill set for pastoral care. We were, we, we were on campus, right. So we were available, and we understood the importance and the value of the work, but I definitely think someone suggested us. WP 20:01 So you mentioned live streaming. How did that go? How did, how did the first live stream you did go? BC 20:09 Well, we didn't know what we didn't know. But we have an amazing office administrator, Janice. And so Janice does all of our video, our IT, or ITC for chapel. And so it was, it was, we did it over zoom. And we have a projection screen. No, we don't have the, we don't have the technology to do live stream like, you know, big universities and colleges. So, it was, it was a zoom, a camera and a laptop. And so we would record those. And we would li— we were streaming live. So we would do the service live, and anyone who wanted to could sign on, and but that would also be recorded and posted. And so we still have those, I think they're still on our YouTube page. But I think it went okay. We— were a lot of people signing on? No, I think, I think the time of isolation or sheltering in place was really complicated and difficult for everyone. WP 21:17 Did you face any particular difficulties during isolation? BC 21:21 No, there were times where I felt like I was borderline depressed. But I really am grateful for my network of friends and family. And that was probably the biggest thing and being healthy is kind of hard, right? To really be active when you can't be um… [Pause] WP 21:48 Sorry, I just totally lost my train of thought. So now that sort of things have gotten sort of back into a good rhythm. Have you taken any of the stuff that you did during COVID and continued it just as services or just in case? BC 22:09 I'm trying to think what I have incorporated into my daily life post pandemic is, I think, how I make myself available to students, I think, where I understand for me, it's important to be available for the students when students are available, not that students have to, you know, work around my schedule, which I think sometimes they think, you know, if they can squeeze in its window time. But I do believe that the students are the client, right. So as much as is possible, then I try and make myself available. And the COVID told me that that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be in person, that I think that I can still engage and provide quality pastoral care, whether it's in person or virtual. I think I've learned how to do presentations, share my screen. But also to be more open to what I think the divine or the universe is up to. I think that's one of my takeaways from the pandemic. WP 23:32 We've talked a bit about your, your personal beliefs and how they grew during the pandemic. Do you want to tell me a bit more, more about how you sort of came to some of these realizations? Or, or what inspires some of them? BC 23:51 So I think young people, I would identify you as a 21st century leader, right? So you, I would say anywhere from, I want to say 16 to 30 are my 21st century leaders, right? To see how resilient you are right to, to even to be here with you, and to recognize that you're very aware of yourself, right? The things that you, things that give you strengths, and the things that cause you to be weak, right. But you survived the pandemic and, and in your academic career you didn't give up. So that motivates me. Right, like that gives me a lot of hope for the future. When I think about the uprising, so right, we can talk about the pandemic and I talk about the death, the murder of George Floyd. And how I think most people that that were here, were not afraid, right, because they knew what the uprising was about. And so what happens when a lot of people have a lot of free time? Right, it gives them time to really be self aware but aware of the world that they want. And so the other thing, and I heard a speaker say that it's around being social justice or social change agents. Right. And I think Augsburg, my hope, and my desire is that they're equipping you all to be change agents, right? Like to go out there and change the world to be a world that you want, for yourself and for your friends and peers. So that's my biggest thing. And what it means to be a pastor. Right, it means a lot more than just being religious. Right? Yeah, I think if, if I can’t help people, right, really try and gain meeting, right, to see the divine, right, to have their own divine experiences. Then my religiosity is meaningless. WP 26:10 You mentioned George Floyd. And you're right, we can't talk about the pandemic without talking about what happened. When the uprisings started, how did you process everything that was going on? BC 26:27 I think the uprising happened in, in um, like, levels of sequences, right, and so there were parts of me that was like, yeah, this is gonna get worse before it gets better. But pretty much every step along the way, I was like this, this makes sense. How do you get the attention of the people that have the most influence? Right, or the people who seem to be desensitized to the struggle of the marginalized and it's not just like, black identifying people. It is BIPOCs. But I think it's also poor folk, right? And I think poor folk are across the spectrum, right? It— that's a class, is some that I think we don't talk enough about. But I think I did a lot of internal processing. I think a lot of what happened to George Floyd brought up my own internal oppression. So I found myself more of a spectator than a participator. But also feel like those that were on the ground participating, were the right ones to be on the ground participate. I am aware of what I would call my sphere of influence. And so I stuck within my sphere of influence. WP 28:00 Did you talk to students or people about what happened? BC 28:06 I talked, if I was approached, I did not pursue conversations because everyone in my opinion had their own relationship with the uprising. I think, as a university pastor, my, like, my role was to one, be available, two, be present. But I see myself as the university pastor, which means I’m the pastor to anybody on this campus, you, faculty, staff. Anyone. And so that means that there are many people who had their own and had different experiences with the uprising. So remember, I told you, there were certain students that I was meeting with weekly, all of them I was meeting with, as it related to how they were experiencing the, the impact of the, of the uprising, whether that’s anger and frustration, or if it was trauma. Right. And so for me, that was my priority. Right? Where do my community, the people that I feel called to, where do they need me to be? And so that was my priority. Did I go to rallies? Yes. Right. Did I show up when they asked for all clergy to be there? Yes. Did I go to certain things? Yes. Did I go as Augsburg University pastor? Probably not. But did I go as clergy, did I go as somebody that's called and ordained? Yes. But I also went as a black woman. Right? Because these tragedies happen in my community way too often. And it's not by accident, in my opinion, that the uprising started in Minneapolis. It’s really weird, but I also feel like it was a perfect storm, right? It was a lot of people not leaving home. Right? And then you get you 21st century leaders who, who were in a position to rise up. WP 30:11 Have you seen the George— have you been to the George Floyd Memorial square? BC 30:18 Mhm. WP 30:19 Could you tell me what— what, could you just tell me what it was like when you first went? BC 30:24 So I think my first time going. I can't remember if it was when George Floyd's brother and nephew and son were coming, but I know I was there. And there was mass chaos, because it was really a lot of people, and there was a lot of media because his family was there. But in many ways, it was very emotional. Although I feel like my first time might have been when they invite— they asked clergy to come and march. But when I went as a clergy, I think I did just what they asked us to do, you come, you're— you come, you go, you rally. But it got to a place where I was like, okay, but there was a limited time for me. And I think it might have been where it fit in my schedule. But I do remember when I came there when George Floyd's brother, and nephew, and I think it was his son was there. And I spent a lot more time. But I spend time just being there and trying to connect with the spirit of space. But I, if you check and see when we returned back, so that would have been fall of 2020. We, uh, pre-recorded our Advent Vespers and a portion of the recording I recorded at George Floyd square. WP 32:04 What prompted you to make that decision? BC 32:06 It was a decision both pastor Justin and I made based on what the theme was. And because we, we didn't want um, we didn't want our, we didn't want the world to forget. But we don't want our community, the Augsburg community, to forget. And because the part that I recorded, it was contextual. It was important, I believe for both of us as leadership, planners of the video, or of Vespers that, that piece of that Gospel be read at the sight of George Floyd. WP 32:52 Could you tell me what the piece was? BC 32:55 I can't look at, I would have to look it up. And I don't know if I have it in front of me, let me see. Sometimes I'll have the— See, sometimes I'll have the program from, that's not it. So the, the theme for Vespers, 20, December 2020, would have been ‘Come now breath of God’, and so the artwork, it was around, one, George Floyd calling his mother, right George Floyd saying I can't breathe. And Advent is around the preparing, the preparation of Jesus coming. Right? So there was this kind of emotion around when George Floyd called his mother, he said ‘Mama Mama’, and how instinctively any mother would have responded. And so with Vespers. Right, the mother of all mothers is a mother of Jesus. And so to read this piece, and um, and it just felt right to read that piece at the square. WP 34:20 Sorry. BC 34:21 I'm sorry. Do you, do you want to pause, get some tissue? WP 34:27 No, I’ll be okay. I get very emotional sometimes. So the fact that I'm going to relate this back to the pandemic a little bit, the fact that COVID caused you to have to start these live streams sort of created a space that allowed you to make this decision. Would you say that, that um. Words, the the impact of of the livestream being at the memorial Do you think that is more impactful or was more impactful than being in person? BC 35:05 Impact can be positive and negative. Let's just say it was both. And so, so here's where I'll be candid. And this could get me in trouble. Right. But I have to assume the risk. So as a black woman, that’s called, right, to serve in ministry. There are times where the prophetic has to be prophetic. And even in the scriptures, and in biblical scripture, there are times where the prophet, right, they want to kill him. Right. But it doesn't diminish the prophecy. And so prophetically, right? We said what we said, right? And our hearts did not convict us that we were wrong. And most of those that that witness that video, were affirming. Now, there were some who are of a certain mindset. Who didn't appreciate the mention of George Floyd. Well, I would say that, that, that really. That's more about them. And their inability to see Geor—, the spirit of George Floyd, his humanity, right? No, no death, like that is justified. Not when there are witnesses saying you're doing too much. And so there were, there were a couple, right. But when that communication made its way here, passing Justin, a white male privilege, my, my coworker, my colleague, but the director of Campus Ministry, when we saw the area of where this mail came from, it was obvious that it would probably be a rural predominantly white, if not all white. And so for me, I was like, Well, I'm not responding to a white man. Right. And Pastor Justin said, I will. Alright, so yeah, which I appreciate I know, it's probably better that he responded than right. And that's for the university. WP 37:38 Did did uh, okay, sorry, sorry. Was that emotional? Or was that moment? That sort of response that you got? How did that— BC 37:56 It didn’t surprise me. So I know that there are people out there who have isms. Some, some of them embrace it, they willingly right, are racists, are victims of their own ignorance, in my opinion, I know they're out there. But I know as, as, as, as someone who has lived a reasonably long life, I also know how to pick my battles. And spiritually, I believe that the Spirit of God will rebuild me, what’s my battle, and what’s his. But it still disappointed me because this was someone who was an extended member of the Augsburg community, which tells me that even amongst us, right, there's this hate or bigotry or at the very minimum, right, this white body supremacy that’s amongst us. WP 39:11 Uh. BC 39:11 It— WP 39:13 Oh, oop, sorry. BC 39:13 No, no, no. Go. WP 39:15 Do you think the pandemic made that more obvious? BC 39:21 Absolutely. WP 39:23 Yeah? Can you— BC 39:23 In some ways. Right? But I would, I would also say, the 45th President of the United States contributed to this Well, he did not create it. Right. He was not the originator of it, but he definitely released it. He manifested, he embodied it, and the way he embodied it, he gave others permission to also embody it. But I do think that the pand— pandemic was a perfect storm. Right? Um, that perfect storm produced the uprising, right. And within the uprising, there were people that were watching full of hate, and they were trying to figure out where to put the hate and the blame. And so those two things manifested itself. Right. And the pandemic and as we were moving towards endemic WP 40:22 We've, we've sort of passed the, well we have passed the sort of self isolation portion of the pandemic. How has, how has that shaped people's relationships on campus, if you've noticed, or how has it shaped your relationship on campus, with campus? BC 40:42 I think once we came back, and as we move to a safer time of being together being with people, I think it has caused me to be more intentional about building relationships on campus, engaging people where they are. I, I don't think I isolate. But I'm an introvert. So at the end of the day, right, I'm really fine with being with myself. But I do find myself being intentional around engaging more staff than faculty because faculty have their own group or wha— or their own community, but just spending time with people right, just checking on ‘em, right? Just be like, Hey, how you doing? You know, drop a meeting on my calendar, I just want to see how you doing. So when I talked about the machine, one of the things that I felt happened, even within a pandemic, and I think it's true now is that people don't really engage conflict. Right? They talk about the mass exodus, right? It's really easy now to have a conflict at work and as, as opposed to sitting and working it out. You just upgrade your resume, you just move on, right? And, and my desire is that that, that if, if I have any opportunity to participate in eliminating that, or at least delaying it. That's a goal, right to meet with people's, especially if I hear any, just a grunt of dissatisfaction, I just want to meet with you, and encourage you to sit with the conflict, or the discomfort, and, and to put the importance of the client, which is the student, right, just think about the student. And yeah. WP 42:56 Have you noticed this, the mass exodus, have you noticed that on campus at all? BC 43:02 Not so much the mass exodus, I mean, just be I think at the beginning of the pandemic there was, there were some, there were people that had to leave. But when I talk about the mass exodus, I'm talking about, like, a universal, right, like, I know people who have really, really good jobs, but the pandemic, it did something in them. And I don't know if it's good or bad. I just know that my personal concern is around how we deal with conflict. And I just think that those times where we were working remotely, spending a lot of time working off site, that I think there, there is, it's, it's a skill that you have to relearn how to sit with tension. Yeah. WP 44:10 How have you sort of implemented the maintaining, like satisfaction and stuff in your daily life, or just on campus? BC 44:19 Well, I'm fortunate like my colleagues, my, my department, my team, like we work really well together, like we function really, I think we function really well. We're a high functioning team. We know each other, we trust each other. And I think a real benefit is that we laugh together. And we spend time knowing each other as we address the work that we get to do. I think, I’m, there are areas on campus that I feel like bring me joy, and so I, to the best of my ability I position myself in those areas. I think this, this year, I've done it more than any other and I'm really enjoying it like I have actually made more sporting events than I have, in all the time that I've been in proximity of this campus. And it does give me joy. I like sports. But I think I've restructured how I spend my time whether that’s my, my working time, and my free time. WP 45:36 What was your first day back on campus like? BC 45:39 Well, no, I was. I was not off campus, as as long. So I think when we went to shelter in place, which would have been March, and I think, by that August, I think everyone was coming back. And so I think I came back to campus in July because my contract, I'm 11 months, so I'm off for June. But I think once we came back on campus, we were back and I believe, all the classes were remote in the fall, right? But I was here all during the fall. So we were what we call, was it crucial work, was it—what's the word? Not instrumental. There's— right? Right there is at the tip— I can't think of a word that's terrible. But there— it was... But so it's not instrumental. But we were, I consider myself it was, it was important that I was here. I can't think of the word now. Which is terrible, because I am recording. And I can't get a word and it will come to me— WP 47:05 Right after the recording. BC 47:09 But I think when we, when the campus shut down, which was March, right. So March, April, May. June, WP 47:21 Is it vital? BC 47:22 It's not vital, but it's like that, right? If I can't, and I'm not going to, because I get distracted. But in my mind, I'm not gonna be satisfied, but I'm talking to you. And I'm gonna try to think of it. But I know that because we were part of the COVID response team. Where there were some people on that team that were remote. But we as staff, we split it so pastor Justin, and I, we would alternate what days we came on campus, but he has small children, school aged children. So I took the majority of the days. So I was on campus three days, he was on two, and Janice, our office administrator, she was also here, I think four out of the five days. I don't know that. That answered the question. So I feel like I was probably within the first wave of faculty or staff that came back on campus. WP 48:33 Did you? Did you already have your office all set up and stuff and you came back? BC 48:39 Yes, I wasn't in this office. I was in the office next to it, this was pastor Justin's office. But what happened when we found out that we were going to be sheltering in place. We just kind of packed up, you know, some of the crucials. I- I've always had a desktop. So I knew that I would be using my own computer. I grabbed some books. But I could also, if I needed to I could come on campus, although I admit I did not come on campus like those— I think it was March, April, May, I probably didn't come just because we weren't supposed to come on campus. But I think once the city's government started slowly opening up, then I think I started coming on campus. I need structure. So I felt like for me, and I'm only speaking for myself. I think there were other people who did perfectly fine working remotely. I need structure. I knew that I needed to be in the office because it's too easy for me to be in community when I'm isolating and being in community is that, our media, like in chat groups or some. WP 50:06 What was it like when the campus was basically empty? BC 50:09 Lonely. It was lonely because, eve— my office was right next, but like, this is a nice view. And although you can't really see it now, maybe because we're still transitioning from a really ugly, snowy winter, to spring, but I was lonely. I didn't see anybody walking. Right. And so, so he may never listen, see this. So. So President Pribbenow I think oftentimes, will walk to campus. And there were a lot of days where I would be here, and he walked by, and he would just wave, sometimes he wouldn't even look, but he knew I was here. Right? And but though, for me, just being here, when he walked by and waved, that was community, right? That's, that's, that's the impact of not being in isolation, right to see somebody and they, there's no conversation, but there's, there's a wave, and I see you. And so. So for me, it was good. My— the community and neighborhood I lived in I had, I was in an apartment building. And we were a really close group of neighbors. And so we spent time together, right? Like we had our own New Year's Eve in the hallway kind of thing. So I had a personal community that I wasn’t, I didn't need to isolate from cause we were like our own family. But outside of that my extended community is this campus. And so I was ready to get back. And I love what I do. WP 51:49 Did you notice anything— in the transition back, did you notice anything in particular that stood out to you? BC 51:59 I think in the transition back, it was just that there, there wasn't a lot of bodies, there wasn't a lot of movement. I think that was the thing that stuck out the most. WP 52:10 How about when all the students came back to campus. BC 52:12 They're, the moments like lets say, in the fall, the first, I'll say maybe the first three weeks, right, everybody, you could see the community, we would do… The first week, we would do a block party out here. And so we did, we had to do the COVID restrictions where everything was pre packaged, and we had to keep people at a social distance. But we were out there together. Right. And that was really fun. And I think that lasted about three weeks. And then the numbers started going up. And so then it became where I was just watching this and watching and watching for people and like, feel like daily, I started seeing fewer and fewer people walking. But I think also I have more than enough. Not more than enough, but they're at that time, if I'm not seeing people that meant the numbers were, were crea— increasing and then then my engagement shifts to checking in on students. WP 53:25 Overall, just now, have you do you think the pandemic has made people more or less social? BC 53:36 I think it's in pockets. I think. I think we are still social beings. Right. I think we were created to be in relationships. I think that I think people who have social anxiety, I think the pandemic heightened that, right. But I think that even in that, there's something about human contact. Right. I think it's a matter of figuring out how to relieve or lessen the anxiety. Right? And being present. Right and, and having really low and realistic expectations. I think others we’ll call them the super extroverts. Yeah, I think they are glad to be back. Right. And I think they love their person. I will say that I think the university has been really intentional about creating programming around building community. Right. So I think if you want to be in community, if you want to find places and ways to gather, I think the university is offering them. I think you, and you as the individual you, I think you just have to make up your mind, you know, to give it a try. But I do acknowledge that students have to allow themselves, right, give themselves permission to engage at a, at a level that they're comfortable with. WP 55:13 Just sort of similar to that question. Do you think it's, it's brought more people to the ministry? Do you think people are more spiritual than they were pre-pandemic? BC 55:26 I think people are more curious. Right? I think everybody's spiritual, right? I think we are all spiritual beings having a human experience. It’s where you experience spiri— or spiritual— spirituality, I think is the mystery. I think that we have a large Muslim population, right, as you can see that they are really focusing in on their commitment and their practices. I think we have a really small huddly of the Jewish population, but you can see that they're really focusing in on their practices. I think, as as far as those that might identify as Christian, I think, I think there are various aspects of how they're practicing Christianity. But I do think that more people are living and responding out of their faith. Then before the pandemic. WP 56:35 Is there is there anything— what is the wording for this? Was there anything I missed or anything you thought that I would ask you? [Pause] BC 56:58 No, no, I think, I think I didn't know what to expect. So that way, there's no disappointment. And, and that also allowed me not to be anxious around the interview. So no, I, I, I think I think I experienced your questions. I was curious. So no, I don't think so. You asked really good questions. Yeah, no, I think I think you did. WP 57:33 Thank you for doing this. BC 57:36 Oh, no, you're welcome. Thank you. WP 57:37 I really appreciate it. Just gonna stop the recording.
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- Title
- Transcript of Oral History Interview with Azucena Esparza Hernandez, 2023
- Collection
- COVID-19 Oral History Project
- Search Result
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B= Bethany Harvey (interviewer)
A= Azucena Esparza Hernandez (narrator)
B: Hello and welcome to the Augsburg University covid-19 pandemic oral history project
for Professor Michael Lansing’s History 300 public history class. Today I am
interviewing a friend of mine who is also a fellow Aug...
Show more B= Bethany Harvey (interviewer) A= Azucena Esparza Hernandez (narrator) B: Hello and welcome to the Augsburg University covid-19 pandemic oral history project for Professor Michael Lansing’s History 300 public history class. Today I am interviewing a friend of mine who is also a fellow Augsburg student. My interviewee has experienced Augsburg classes and campus life during the trenches of the pandemic, the beginning of the pandemic. It is currently 8:38 on April 3rd of 2023 in Minneapolis Minnesota. B: Alrighty can you state your full name and your pronoun A: Yes, I go by Azucena Esparza Hernandez and I use they/she pronoun B: And what is you year and your majo A: I’m a third year majoring in studio art and art educatio B: And when was your rst year living on campus A: My rst year was in 2020. (Fall 2020). B: How did covid affect your living situation, like on campus A: There were de nitely a lot of restrictions relating to living on campus so it was hard to kind of get to places just with knowing the restrictions of leaving your room sometimes felt like a chore because you kind of had to be prepared for leaving. You had to be prepared to be outside and cautious of the environment so going to the dining hall and making sure you had your mask on and checking when the bathrooms were open while they were being sanitized as well as the restrictions for campus events making sure to check in and I thought things were sanitized and wearing your name with social life and meeting new people was hard also when everything was online and events were. so yeah . s ? s n ? ? r fi fi fi B: So you found that kind of challenging A: I found that challenging as well but I think there were some positive aspects to it as well because I was able to choose what I wanted to attend to and what I didn't and when I did have that motivation to get outside there were things for me to do. B: So our rst year were we were obviously very isolated and our dorms and I was wondering if you could talk about how you went about making friends and how you went about doing that, like what tools did you use and what resources did you take advantage of, like campus events or social media and such and if like you had a roommate and what and how you got the roommate A: Another thing that was hard for my rst year living on campus was that I really have to nd my own way to make friends on my own I found my rst roommate through the Facebook group and then I had to reach out on my own and follow people on social media from just the zoom display names and nd my own way to like make my own friendships whereas if we had been in person I would kind of be forced to see the same people all three times a week and then I'd have to talk to them in person and do that so it was hard but I learned new skills having to make and build friendships. B: So you mentioned you had a roommate, did you nd any challenges with having a roommate with the online courses because obviously you both had to do like Zoom courses in your dorm in such close quarters, can you just explain some of those challenges A: Honestly I think most of the time our schedules were pretty different from each other so they didn't overlap but I do remember we would have meetings sometimes that would overlap and I remember my roommate once had a meeting with her advisor for classes and I just sort of had to put my headphones on which feel a little silly but it was kind of what we had to do and something else that was kind of fun was that during our oor meetings for our dorm we would get to join them together on Zoom which was like on the same screen. B: And can you describe like your extracurricular activities that you did during the pandemic fl fi fi fi fi fi fi ? fi ? fi ? fi A: So my rst year I joined student government and I actually ran for a rst-year class president and won so that's what I did my rst year and it's funny thinking about it now because the only really motivation that I had to go for that was because everything was online and over zoom and I knew I would be able to get to the meetings because it was just opening up my laptop which is different than now where I don't think I would have the time or energy to do that because I know I'd have to get up and get to the bus and go go to campus and go to the meetings which I think that affected my like motivation to be in different groups but I've been a part of the Echo for all of my time at Augsburg which is really interesting to me to see how it's changed. Kind of the same thing I joined because I know I'd be able to get to the meetings and also I was just interested in being a part of something else my rst year and I was the opinions editor for a semester until we went back in person and I decided that I would be more t for something more visual so I also applied for the layout editor job I just found myself enjoying that a lot more and being able to go into the of ce and physically work on the paper rather than emailing people back and forth, so that has been a big change too B: So you say like the beginning of the pandemic kind of open you up to ease into bigger groups like echo and day student government A: Yeah I would say so. B: How did covid effect the classes you were taking that rst year A: During my rst year I was a political science major and I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do but taking those classes online and seeing how different are rather how much professors didn't change their material to be updated to teach over Zoom made me realize that that wasn't really what I wanted to do and how there are so many different teaching methods to be more helpful for zoom. B: Did you nd anything challenging with the zoom classes at all A: Not having a lot of interest in classes was a challenge but also something I added to it that was Professor is kind of just going through slides and not really changing up their material for that and because of that again not having the motivation to log into Zoom or keep my camera on to participate in class. B: Do you feel as though you got us suf cient education through these online classes A: I think so although it was boring I think it was kind of the only thing I had to do during covid so it was good to dedicate myself to it. ? ? ? fi fi ? fi fi fi ? fi fi B: So during our sophomore year we had a in person classes but the masks were still mandated so can you describe how like the mask mandate affected your classes / education at Augsburg A: I don't think that it affected my education too much but it was really nice to know that everyone was protected and we were all following it and we're all able to keep healthy and keep her community health B: How were your classes set up differently to accommodate for the mask mandate A: sometimes there would be more space between students other times not so much it really depended on the class all right and do your current learning environments differ from one nice room and aided do you think I think so there's a lot more activities now I feel like in my classes which has been really fun where I was before professors were kind of have to give a disclaimer being like we can't really do this activity because we can't we have to maintain that space between us but now that has kind of wind it down do you think it's easier to like enjoy your classes without the mess and like make friends and be social and stuff. I think so being able to see people's faces and expressions and hear them a little bit clearer but I think when we had to wear masks we all kind of knew the reason why so. B: Can you explain the transition from zoom classes to in-person classes with masks and then in-person classes with no masks, when the mask mandate was lifted back like after spring break last year, and then if there's any difference between your the classes when after the Mandate was lifted to your current classes right now A: I think one of the biggest transitions was from Zoom classes to in-person classes with mask because being in person with everyone you could kind of realize how big your class was and like all of the people that were really in your class and that was a really positive transition for me I think being able to see everyone physically. It wasn't so much of a very dif cult transition to go from a classes with mask to in person with it was positive transition because I feel like being able to see people's faces in their expressions and getting to talk to people a little bit more from my classes was exciting and new and then from then to now wasn't so much of a big transition I feel like everyone's sort of get more used to being in classes and going back to quote-unquote normal. B: And can you describe any major changes from pre-pandemic to post pandemic? I guess we started at Augsburg like fall of 2020 so that's not really pre-pandemic, but I guess if you could describe if you notice anything like different from then to now, obviously there's some big big changes but like anything else you know ? ? ? y fi A: Yeah I think one of those big changes has been Community I think everyone has been coming together a lot more and I feel like that's one of the more obvious ones you were talking about but also I have noticed people caring for each other a lot differently I think especially at Augsburg when we have all these resources like a covered the share shop there's a lot of different opportunities for people to help each other out just been really positive and good to see. B: Do you think Augsburg did a suf cient job at handling the pandemic A: I think in general yes looking at other schools and how they handled it one of the big reasons why I chose to come to Augsburg was because they were helping out a lot of students in need during the pandemic so I got way better nancial aid at Augsburg because of the pandemic and that obviously has changed my life course just for my education and I think that was really positive because a lot of schools weren't really doing that as well as having a mask mandate in like really enforcing all of the covid precautions that we had and housing students that needed to be isolated and there were like some smaller things needed to be dealt with regarding that housing kind of like later in the pandemic there were some things that kind of got paid less attention to because of the pandemic. But I think overall I think it has done a suf cient job. B: Do you think like anything more could have been done A: Yeah I think just like keeping that same rate of attention to covid precautions throughout like all of the years that I went down would have been good but like I understand the needs a kind of let go of some of them as people were getting vaccinated and healing I guess. B: Do you think if a pandemic or something similar would happen again do you think Augsburg would be like prepared for it more A: I think so I'm having that pandemic team that they had put together was smart and like knowing what to do in those situations and I feel I would feel comfortable being at Augsburg if that ever happens again. B: all right and do you have any last questions for me or for the project at all A: I don’t think I do ? ? ? fi fi ? fi ! B: Alright thank you so much!!
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- Title
- Transcript of Oral History with David Crowe, 2022
- Collection
- COVID-19 Oral History Project
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49:56
Speaker 1= Andrew Crowe
Speaker 2= David Crowe
Speaker 1
0:00
The following interview was conducted with David Crowe on behalf of Augsburg University for
the Augsburg during COVID oral history project took place on the second of April 2023 in
Eagan, Minnesota and will be stored in th...
Show more 49:56 Speaker 1= Andrew Crowe Speaker 2= David Crowe Speaker 1 0:00 The following interview was conducted with David Crowe on behalf of Augsburg University for the Augsburg during COVID oral history project took place on the second of April 2023 in Eagan, Minnesota and will be stored in the Augsburg archives. The interviewer is Andrew Crowe. So David, could you tell me a little bit about your background and education before you got to Augsburg? Speaker 2 0:23 I got my Bachelor of Arts degree in biochemistry at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, in 1995. I moved from there to the University of Minnesota where I got my PhD in neuroscience in 2001. Between 2001 and 2008, I did a combination of researching, research and teaching at various times and various combinations over those years and then I was hired by Augsburg College, which was what it was called at the time in 2008, into the biology department. Speaker 1 1:05 What has your experience been at Augsburg since you joined? Speaker 2 1:11 I've been in the biology department since 2008. I primary primarily teach upper level biology courses, neurobiology and physiology every year with a variety of other courses, intermixed those courses and their lab components. Introductory bio honors, science, anatomy and physiology in both types of introductory bio, special topics. So that's been my teaching, I continue to do similar research to what I did. As a graduate student and as a postdoctoral fellow. I still collaborate with Dr. Matt Chafee at the University of Minnesota on our research. So I continue to be involved in research over the last three years. I've been the chair of the biology department. Speaker 1 2:05 Would you say you enjoy working in Augsburg? Speaker 2 2:08 Yes, Augsburg is a great place to work. Great. I work with a great group of people in the biology department. We have great students. It has been generally a pleasure. Yes. Speaker 1 2:21 What made you want to be a professor. Speaker 2 2:26 In college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I enjoyed science, I was a chemistry tutor. And I kind of learned that I was good at helping students learn things I enjoyed teaching. So in graduate school, and after graduate school, I took the opportunity to get teaching experience to see if that would be something that I would want to do full time and it really clicked with me, I enjoyed it a lot. And so I made it a goal of mine to teach at a place like Augsburg Speaker 1 2:59 like to take us to early 2020. As the news of COVID-19 was spreading throughout the world. Were you following the news that early? Speaker 2 3:13 I was following it fairly closely. It seemed like something that had the potential to be very serious. And what I did personally was find a bunch of scientists, experts in the field who were speaking on social media, in particular on Twitter. And I started following a large number of what I would consider some trustworthy experts. And from them, who were keeping track of something that was inherently confusing and difficult to assess. I could at least keep up with what the experts in the field were thinking at the time. Speaker 1 3:59 So given that you were aware of the potential that this virus had to throw the world off course, were you developing a plan for your classes, even before the school was officially shut down? Speaker 2 4:11 The biology department I think was doing what I was we were following the situation fairly closely. So I think we were thinking about it, maybe maybe before some other other people were. But we really didn't even start thinking about it seriously until maybe a few weeks before the classes did end up going online a few weeks before spring break probably late February, we were starting to discuss contingency plans. Starting to discuss it at first, you know, with our more vulnerable faculty members or our older faculty members be forced to come in. The first options weren't just going online altogether, but maybe having some reduced presence on campus. So we had a lot of different discussions about the potential things that we could end up doing, generally focused initially on on the safety of the most vulnerable. But as the as the pandemic pandemic seemed to be worse and worse, and I think as news out of New York started to show, you know, hospitals being overwhelmed, I think it became clear that more than just keeping our older faculty away was going to going to be necessary. Yeah, we were talking about it. Weeks, a few weeks before, it was actually shut down. And we were keeping track of what other schools were doing, as well. Speaker 1 5:48 Okay. You said the older faculty members were more at risk? Was this? What was sort of the feeling around campus? Were people taking it seriously, did they think it was going to be a big thing, were the students not worried, were the people who were more at risk worried? Did you have to convince people to be worried? Speaker 2 6:11 Definitely, the older faculty members were the most paying the most attention to a generally, and were the most worried as particularly if they had other kinds of health issues that make them even more vulnerable. So not just within the biology department, but across campus, we did hear from older faculty members that they were worried about it. Because I think certainly by the late February, it was clear that this was a disease that affected people who are older, a lot more than college student aged people. I remember at the time in my classes, the students didn't seem to be concerned about it at all, were even a little bit mystified why why we would go online or why classes might be canceled, or why even some faculty members would would not want to come in. So I do think there was a in early March amongst the student population. I sense that this was probably no big deal. I remember, there was a very famous graph shown on social media from scientists became quite well known in terms of flattening the curve, the idea that if cases peak really, really rapidly, they're going to overwhelm the, the countries or regions capacity to help those people in hospitals. And we were seeing that in Italy. We saw that in New York City, right, even in some places here in this country where the disease occurred so quickly. As right. I was able to remind my students how exponential growth works. But yeah, the disease take takes over so quickly that it can can overwhelm the capacity to treat people. And so I was able to sort of show the students this idea of flattening the curve, the idea that perhaps the same number of people will get it. But if there's a way to keep everybody from getting it all at once, we can save many, many more lives that way. And so I used it as an opportunity to teach students about various biological topics, in addition to actually explaining to them what the nature of the threat was. Speaker 1 8:39 Do you think that Augsburg took the threat of COVID as seriously as it should have in the beginning? Do you think they move towards moving online classes at the right pace? What did you think about the process to moving to fully online? Speaker 2 8:57 I know, I remember that we were probably one of the last colleges to make that decision. I know, faculty in the biology department had been paying attention to what other schools around the country were doing. And we're a little dismayed that we weren't going online or suspending classes for a week as quickly as some other places. On the other hand, I think the the disease was peaking more in the northeast of the country. So cases hadn't started to go up here in Minnesota by that time. But yeah, there was there were certainly people who thought we were going too slow, if I remember right. We were or the administration was was listening very closely to Minnesota State Health Department and kind of taking their cues from from that organization. In addition to having the I think they had a COVID task force So I believe the, the head of Augsburg physician assistant program, who is an expert in I think communicable diseases into our public health was part of that decision making group as well. So I personally thought they were being reasonable, but I do know that there were others that thought they were they could have been a little bit more proactive. Speaker 1 10:23 On March 16, Augsburg University announced that it would be moving to fully online classes due to rising cases in the US and Minnesota. What were those last few weeks of the semester, like when everything went online? Speaker 2 10:40 So we, in the biology department, had been making plans for this. Even if it was just for a couple of weeks, we had spring break, and I believe an extra week after spring break just off to help us make that transition. One of the big things with the Biology Department, well for teaching was how we how were we going to continue our labs? You know, these are sort of inherently hands on experiences and and we had a lot of discussions about what we would do. For those, there were there were some thoughts that maybe we would have, you know, some small number of students come in, keep them distanced and still try to do some on or in person, lab work. I think we ultimately decided against that, given what, what we learned over the next couple of weeks about the nature of the disease and things. So we were throwing ideas around, I think, ultimately, what we ended up doing was was doing a lot of biological simulations, it was, of course, a very good opportunity to do disease transmission simulations. And so we did a lot of that type of thing. I personally was teaching neurobiology, for which the labs are very technical. And I was able to find some online replacements for the types of experiments we did, but ultimately found them to be pretty lightweight and not not engaging in either intellectually or in a technical or practical way. The other thing that biology department had to think about, and I wasn't chair at this time, but we were all part of these discussions was we have a greenhouse filled with living organisms and marine aquariums. Both of which need constant work, literally, like literally every day. There's need to be maintained, those need to be plants need to be watered. Fish needs to be fed. filters need to be changed. So we had to think about how we were going to make sure that our facilities our living organisms, were going to survive over the course of however long we were out. Speaker 1 13:17 Did they have someone come in? I'm assuming and take care of those? Speaker 2 13:20 literally. Leon Vanek our botanist, came in and made sure the plants lived and Bill Catman runs the marine aquariums would come in every day, they would just have to make sure no one else was around and time so that they could do it in isolation. But Speaker 1 13:46 yeah, so you were Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee in the spring of 2020. Could you describe a little bit about what the Academic Affairs Committee normally does, and then what it had to do during the shutdown? Speaker 2 14:02 So the Academic Affairs Committee is the Committee on campus that approves any changes to the academic program. And that can be anything from a description of a course or the title change of a course even to approving new courses to approving new majors. During that spring we had been having and actually the entire school year, we had just wrapped up a campus wide look at a proposed general education plan that would would change all of our liberal arts foundations and things and, and so I the maybe the week or a week or two before the pandemic hit, I gave a presentation at a faculty meeting giving the Academic Affairs response to the proposal. We No voted it voted no overall on it. So that kind of thing changes the academic plan, changes in grading systems. The other thing that we were doing in this case, fortuitously, during that academic year, as one of the things I wanted to make happen was a committee of technological, if not specialists, but some group on campus. To take a look strategically at how we use technology would vary specifically, with regards to teaching courses online. Again, this was all before the pandemic hit we, we had a sort of an ad hoc decision making structure for accepting courses to be taught online. And I thought it would be useful to have a sort of a broader discussion about where the college university goes, in terms of how we offer things online, as it was, we could have probably just accepted piecemeal courses to be taught online, then all of a sudden, you know, when Augsburg student could potentially get an entire major online, right without ever visiting campus. And so I thought it was important that we had sort of a more strategic discussion about where we were going with that. It turned out that that group of people that we had gotten together on with us now the technical TEL area, it's all I remember technology and technology enhanced learning committee, maybe I should probably know the name of that those people became a huge boon to the campus because they could get together as a group and start helping the campus together, prepare for online learning. And so it was nice to have them all together at the same time. So that was kind of fortuitous that they were already meeting and talking about technology. Speaker 1 17:03 What specific challenges did you face on that committee? After it went online? Speaker 2 17:11 We've almost entirely had to drop our normal slate of proposals to begin dealing with changes to the academic proposal, the academic program necessitated by the pandemic, one of the first things that we did was see proposals from various places on campus. Student Success Office run by Katie Bishop, putting in proposals that we're going to help students through what was going to obviously be a stressful time. And so one of the first things that we did was, I believe, pass a proposal that allowed students to opt to take a course pass fail, and not have it count towards the limit of of Pass Fail courses, the, you're allowed to typically have, I believe, we also let them choose whether they would get pass fail at the end of the semester, once they saw their grade. So some very specific proposals came in very early, trying to cope with the fact that that, right, this was going to be difficult for everybody. We also heard from Student Government, and so the student government was a strong voice for the students. And it really impressed on us how stressful this was for the students. Once we were in our zoom classes, it was it was hard to interface with the students and sort of in a personal way, right. And it was much, much harder to get their feedback. So it was really, really useful to have student government come to AC and explained that students were really stressed out about it. They have some very specific proposals for how they thought classes should be should be graded. The Academic Affairs Committee discussed those specific proposals, we sent them on to the Faculty Senate, in our group that would be looking at something like that. And we took them very seriously. And ultimately, what we did is we came up with a number of policies that we thought would be fair, but also make sure that we were still doing our job educating students, we need to make sure that we are still maintaining our accreditation. Giving every student today is not something that the accreditors would generally see as fulfilling our educational mission. We looked at what other students other schools were doing, and we tried to just just do what we thought was was best in terms of the academic mission of the college but also understanding that this was an unprecedented moment for both faculty and students. In addition to some of the formal policy changes that we signed off on, we also wanted to I think this was one of the main things in response to the student concerns is that we wanted to let the faculty across campus know, what the students were thinking without having them write, interact. So we were sort of a conduit for the students concerns. And so we put out a statement that essentially said, you know, this is new territory for us, all students are, you know, never signed up for online courses, you know, they never signed up for any of this, a lot of them are going to be in really challenging home situations, dealing with financial stresses and potentially right COVID At home. And so we sort of strongly recommended that, that faculty deal with students in a way that was ultimately, you know, compassionate. That was, that was the sort of thing we wanted to stress, we had some specific recommendations about extending deadlines and, and other other things grading on curves. If you don't normally do that. You We can't tell faculty what to do. That's, you know, a strong pillar of, of an academic institution is academic freedom, right? We are given the freedom, and there's responsibility to treat the teach our classes as we think is best. And so anytime that that you want to get all the faculty to do something together, it can be difficult. And so knowing that, like not every faculty member will be on board with everything, we felt like we excuse me, we felt like a strong plea to the faculty that we we put on the website, and it was sent out sort of daily in the Augsburg mail that goes out every day, we sent that out a number of times, just a request that faculty treat students with compassion. And we all treat each other with compassion as well. And understand that this is difficult for everybody. So I think I think ultimately, I think ultimately, that is actually what happened. Speaker 1 22:33 What plans were made in the summer of 2020. Regarding the upcoming school year, did they ever consider a hybrid model? A hybrid model, like the ones that high schools in the state were using? Or were they set from the beginning on fully online? Speaker 2 22:50 No, there was a lot of discussion. In that summer, about what the school was going to do, I remember filling out a survey that asked about what I, you know, got my opinion on it. I remember being mildly offended when it seemed like it was worded as if I were not fulfilling my duty if I wasn't coming in and teaching classes online. And I know, again, some of our older faculty members were not entirely pleased by the the implied suggestion that if they weren't doing coming in the they were letting everybody down. So I remember early on in the in the summer, there was a lot of uncertainty. But I believe at some point in time, maybe mid June, I don't remember remember the timeline. But at some point in time, there was a realization that the fall for sure was going to be online. And that probably spring is as well. And so throughout the entire summer, from the moment I became chair, on May 1, we as a biology department would have regular meetings, essentially discussing what we were going to do with both our curriculum. We have a lot of lab classes and we have a lot of things we want our students to learn before they move on. But also how we were going to approach our individual courses you know, in the fall, sorry, in the spring I don't believe many of us were familiar with or had the the option to jump on on Zoom and use them for our classes. So in general, we all move to a sort of asynchronous online format in the in the for the last few weeks of spring. But we started becoming more familiar with Zoom, all of our meetings, of course, were held over zoom, we all got a lot more familiar and if not happy with it, at least used to using it and so we We felt like we were going to be able to deliver our courses, or at least the lecture portions of our courses over zoom. Any port in the storm, I guess, right, it's nice. We no one thought it was going to be optimal. But we talked a lot about how to do it as best we could. And we all help each other out. We all helped plan the introductory courses, which are kind of the most important courses for our students coming in. We needed to decide what those students what experience they would get as first year college students coming in. And if it were going to be online, how to give them the best, the best learning opportunity that they could. In terms of labs, we did decide that we were going to try to do a lot of simulations for the introductory courses. A lot of what they learn is, can be can be simulated, but we knew that they were going to be lacking a lot of hands on technical skills. For sophomore level classes, we had to cancel our cell biology lab, which is one of the places where they learn a lot of techniques that they will use throughout the course of the rest of their career at Augsburg as biology majors. So we had to make some contingency plans for that. We knew that sophomore level genetics course could have quite a bit of online component. There's a lot of things you can do with online genetic databases. And so we were as a as a group planning some of our what we call our course, core courses, first year biology courses, and then our sophomore level courses, all all bio students have to take those. So as a group, we worked together on those. And then we just discussed amongst ourselves, you know, the things that we were planning on doing for our own upper level courses. So we worked quite a bit together during that summer, in preparation, Speaker 1 27:04 you mentioned you became department chair that may Could you tell me a little bit about what that entails? Speaker 2 27:12 Yes, to some extent, I could never give you a complete description of all of the things that the department chair does. The department chair essentially is the administrator for the departments pays attention to course schedules hires adjuncts, who are part time faculty that need to take teach classes that we don't have full time faculty to teach. The chair deals with the budget, which was a completely up ended during the COVID years. The chair deals with any questions that students have of the department, it could be complaints, or it could be questions about the schedules. The chair organizes departmental meetings and works with the faculty on things that the department was working on. Before the pandemic, the biology department had big plans to begin working on developing a new curriculum for our first year and potentially second year courses. That was one of the things that we had planned and that the pandemic disrupted, we were also going to undergo what's called program review. So every so often, every department has to undergo an external review by external reviewers. And we were planning on doing that as well that got up to up ended by the pandemic. In biology, there's a lot of management of the lab spaces. We have a lab manager that helps out with that as well, but keeping track of the use of the labs as well. I'm sure there are lots of things I'm missing. I'm very, very busy as department chair Speaker 1 29:14 That sounds like a lot of work. Speaker 2 29:17 Basically anything that comes up and so it's always you know, it's always something different. Speaker 1 29:23 Yeah. You kind of touched on it a little earlier. But what were some of the difficulties in the 2020 2021 school year, the first full year of the pandemic. Speaker 2 29:38 We can discuss that unless you wanted to discuss teaching during the Speaker 1 29:45 Oh yeah, I mean, what were some difficulties with teaching during that year? Speaker 2 29:49 I forgot what year was which. This is the this is the online year yeah. So as as much as we can worked together and prepared. And as much as we continued as a biology department to work, talk with each other about how things were going, it was still still fairly difficult. We were all doing this for the first time. Like I said, the there were a lot of useful resources developed by the technology committee that were available to us, we made full use of all of those. All that I believe one of our classes in biology was taught synchronously, online. And we thought that was important, we thought that having that the back and forth having students be present, if even if a resume was important, so almost all of our classes were done synchronously using Zoom. I think here, my personal recollection is probably the most the most useful be the first semester, one of the courses I was teaching was animal physiology. I had for many years prior to the pandemic, wanted to flip the classroom teaching technique by which students sort of learned the basics before coming to class. And then we use the class time to have discussions and things and, and I had tried that with getting the students to do reading before class, but I was never really able to, I think be strict enough to enforce it, just because it's easier for the students and easier for me not to have done it. So the pandemic, actually in the the fact that everything was going to be on a computer, allowed me to, to actually flip the classroom. And to do that I did one of the other strategies, which is to record a video lecture. And so my goal was to have a video lecture pre recorded for every class period. And then we would use the class period, for discussion for problems for q&a. Any number of different ways that we could make use of that time? That wasn't just me. Right? lecturing, they could watch that beforehand. And then we could use the zoom time. Better, I would have Google documents were students who had been randomly assigned into groups could get together and write out answers on a active as a Google slide because they could draw pictures, but they'd write out answers to study questions or to discussion questions. And then they would go into zoom groups together and do that. And then we often meet at the end of class together and discuss everybody's answers. So you know, that's the, that's the dream is that they'd all get together and discuss the questions and we could talk about it. In reality, a lot of students, you know, logged in, but probably never contributed to discussions, I think, you know, there are a lot of discretion interactions where people are, I didn't force anybody to have their camera on, I think, you know, that was something actually, and we discussed in a sea that we, you know, we couldn't enforce that there are a lot of reasons to not enforce students having their camera on even though I, I, I valued every one of my four or five students that regularly had their, their cameras on and it was always good to have a core group of students that and this is true of any class, but that is engaged in and can keep discussions going and, and helping other students. And it's, it's fairly hard to, to get responses from a black square on a screen. And so, we did the best we could and and you know, that was those were the general class periods for assessment of the lecture lecture portion of my class. I essentially. So I normally have weekly quizzes instead of tests and they're, you know, sheets of paper, pen and paper. I didn't feel like I could have weekly assessments. So instead, when sort of two or more traditional three or four tests, the tests, I know, a lot of faculty across the country, we're making use of really, what I would consider heinous spyware, or the surveillance states kind of have programs that would track students eye movements and force them to look at the screen. And I didn't want any part of that. And I don't think any, anyone in our no one in our department did, although we did have one faculty member who literally sent his his test out via the mail, in sheets of paper to the to the students. But what I did is I made online tests, and I allowed students free access to their notes, to my videos to the book to the vast store of knowledge that is the internet in order to answer the questions. And so, you know, we had given that I had to change a little bit of how I, you know, construct an assessment, typically, if they have to sort of have everything sort of, at their fingertips without being able to look it up, I have to ask a range of different types of questions. Ideally, in an upper level biology student, right, all my students are able to really understand what they're learning and so that they can, they can not only explain it, but they can use that information to make new inferences to predict what would happen, right, I can ask what if questions, but, but if I only ask those kinds of questions in class and a normal class, right, only the A students will, will do well, so I generally need to ask a range of questions, sort of that, right, the students that just kind of want to memorize some things and learn things at a surface level can at least, you know, make sure that they pass the class. But online, we're all the information is just there at their fingertips, I was, I was able to, I guess, have have tests that were almost entirely, you know, deeper levels of understanding. Here's what you know, I can even say, here's what we know about, you know, this aspect of physiology, given that, right, and these other things that you've learned, you know, what would happen if if the animal did this or was in this environment? So I could ask more questions like that. And so I would, I learned a lot of what to do and what not to do and ask, ask or any tests like that. But it was definitely a change. And I didn't want to enforce any kind of surveillance state. Observations, I figured I would just let them have access to all the information that they wanted. So that was how the lecture part of my class went. Biological classes have labs associated with them, it's really, really an important aspect of our students education, and we were not able to have them in person that year. So for physiology in the fall, what I thought I could do that would be beneficial to our students was help our students learn some basic computer programming and data analysis. Those are two things that I do in my research. And they are things that I teach my summer research students to do when I when I had when I mentor students, both, I guess, both over the summer and over the school year. And the way I set it up is I had students learning from an online a free online computer programming source. And then I had a number of of exercises that they would do. And each lab is four hours. So I would just sort of hold a four hour session where I would give some some lessons and basic background in the first half an hour or so. And then the rest of the time the students would be able to work and I would just be available via zoom. In my experience, computer programming is quite difficult for a lot of students. And, you know, I'm kind of trying to teach them maybe a whole semesters worth of computer programming just over the course of, of, of a lab you know, 15 weeks but but have a lab and I didn't want to make it a you know, an entire computer science course it's labs or one credit. And none of the students of course, when they registered for physiology in the spring, they were thought they were registering for regular physiology with their the fun in person labs that we normally have. So knowing that students did not sign up to do computer programming. I didn't quite make it optional, but I did understand that not every student was going to was going to click with it. And so I was as long as they were making an honest effort to do the work. You know, I got an A a small handful Have students really, really did really, really well. One of the things that happens when I teach students programming is that sometimes they learned that they really are good at and they love it, and they want to keep doing it. And so a couple of those students became my summer research students. Another one, use computer programming and his other research program that summer with a different professor was now able to, to do some more advanced analysis. So it helped, I think, a number of students and it didn't, it didn't hinder students that really didn't sign up for the next semester with neurobiology, I could not justify an online lab, there was just I just could not think of a way that was not a waste of everybody's time to do the kinds of things that that I thought are valuable, I think are valuable in a neurobiology lab. So I just canceled it, was one of the few labs that actually got canceled, but that and cell biology, we just didn't feel like we could do them justice. Speaker 1 41:03 So the summer after that year, Augsburg was looking into how they were going to bring people back to campus. And there was a bit of a debate around whether or not they would be requiring vaccines or not. And there were some rumors throughout the summer that they would not be requiring vaccine cards. Obviously, in the end, they did but if you could tell me a little bit about how you thought that process went, whether you thought they should require vaccine cards or not, and just where you stood on the whole thing. Speaker 2 41:38 Well, the entire biology department, as people who know about diseases and basic biology, could not have been more in favor of requiring vaccines. Literally one of the most positive benefits to humanity that had ever been ever been discovered. and the vaccine that we knew was out for COVID had was better than I think anyone could have ever imagined it was going to be. Some of the experts were saying that if it had a 50% success rate, that it would least be something and it would be a benefit. And it turned out that its ability to cut down on on on the worst aspects of the disease was 90-95%. And so it was it was extremely, extremely good news to have that vaccine. And yeah, we were all in obvious agreement that the college would be best off to require it. I think by that time, we all knew that college students really were not particularly at risk from this disease, you know, there's a risk to everybody. But we were really concerned about the most vulnerable, both on campus and off, right, this is a, you know, communicable diseases aren't, you know, just something that a single person gets, and that's where it stays. And so, we've thought it was really, really important that our students be vaccinated, not just for all of our faculty members, including some that are older, others that are immunocompromised, or both. But we also have students in that in that in those positions, but also, you know, for students, families, for their parents or their grandparents, and honestly, you know, for society in general. Having a high vaccination level is important. It's it's a, it's a societal good, and the biology department felt very strongly about it. So we were worried when we heard rumors that, you know, there would be no requirements at all. And ultimately, they came up with a requirement that wasn't really a requirement. And it probably could have been stronger and if it were stronger, it's probably a fact that there would be students that have parents or grandparents now that that didn't, or that don't because of that policy. Seems likely. Speaker 1 44:23 Well, yeah, as you said in the end, they did go with a semi requirement for the vaccines umm, going into the 2021 22 school year. Could you give me a quick summary of that year as everything was finally brought back in person? Speaker 2 44:40 So we were all ready and excited to get back in person. Masks were required and is sort of relatively annoying as they are generally people didn't have a problem with them and teaching with one isn't optimal, you have to talk a little bit slower, a little bit more louder, and it hurts the throat a little bit more to have to make your voice carry yet even more. But honestly, the the masks and the the, you know, the things having to do with the keeping the pandemic from spreading weren't the main thing I remember from that time, it is just how. how difficult it was for students in general. After having a year of online teaching where everyone was kind of trying to do their best, students weren't as prepared, right, they just had not been educated as well, right? Because we were all trying something for the first time both faculty and students. And so we ended up making as a faculty, certainly in the biology department, a lot of sort of extending a lot of the sort of treating students with extra compassion, we ended up extending more deadlines, we extended, you know, just we we found that just to keep the students with us, we had to, to back off on a lot of things that we would normally do. And students still struggled. And, you know, interestingly enough, I think we probably went too far in removing a lot of the structure that the students actually benefit from I know, I've talked with people whose whose job it is to help students who need accommodations, people in the class office, for example, and, and they sort of uniformly say, yeah, you actually have to have, you can't remove all this structure. And we thought, I think, you know, we were we were helping them by removing a lot of the structure. But I think ultimately, it hurt. And so we learned when we move on. But it was it was a difficult year, both for students and faculty coming back from from a year of online teaching. Speaker 1 47:18 And last question here, What would you say are some of the lasting effects of and you kind of just touched on it there COVID In general, and some of the policies and ways of teaching that had to be developed, because of COVID. Speaker 2 47:35 I think there have been a lot of effects in terms of ways of teaching. I can now. In fact, I did this two days ago, you turn on Zoom, for students that are sick at home, we don't want students who are sick to come in, right. It's one of the things we have learned. And so if a student can come into my class and hear the discussions via zoom, that's potentially a good thing I do. You know, I made zoom an option last year, and I think too many students took it as an option. And it turned out right that the students that mostly attended, and making air quotes for that right via zoom didn't do as well as the students that showed up in person. So it's a balancing act that I think we're going to have to deal with. But it gives us more flexibility. Without the new technologies that we've we've learned, I think students are, are still showing the effects of not getting the background education that they normally would have. The sciences tend to be very sort of pyramid structures, where students really do have to learn things in order, we have a lot of prerequisites, we have a lot of biology and chemistry that students need to learn before they can start learning about other things. And, and students who missed out on the best education for that, I think, continue to struggle a little bit. But I think in general, and this is probably society wide. And this is just an observation. It's I'm not sure it's now certainly seems to be true. But as of now, here in what year is it? 2023. Yep, thank you. In the spring of 2023, people in general, and this seems to be faculty I talked to and students I talked to everyone is just very, very burned out very tired, exhausted. And I think it's just a hangover from everything that we as learn as as learners, as teachers as a society went through over the last couple of years. That's just the there seems to be a general thing. Speaker 1 49:49 Well, thank you very much for your time. You've provided some excellent insight. Yeah, thank you.
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HIS 300 INTERVIEW.mp3
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Luke Salisbury
This is Luke Salisbury with the history 300 oral history project for Augsburg University. I am here today to
interview Ms. Rebecca Johns, Vice President of Opera�ons for Augsburg University, about her
experiences in dealing with the...
Show more Audio file HIS 300 INTERVIEW.mp3 Transcript Luke Salisbury This is Luke Salisbury with the history 300 oral history project for Augsburg University. I am here today to interview Ms. Rebecca Johns, Vice President of Opera�ons for Augsburg University, about her experiences in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. We are in Memorial 124 on April 4th, 2023. Track one of Ms. Johns’ interview. So please tell me a litle bit about your background working here at the university. Rebecca Johns And thanks for doing this project. It's very interes�ng and I'm really glad the students are documen�ng this moment in history, which we all hope is only historical. I started at Augsburg in 2019. And I was head of marke�ng. So my background is in community. I do have background in crisis communica�on, so that was a litle bit helpful as we get into the actual event in 2019. Then I was moved into a new posi�on here at Augsburg, which is Vice President of opera�ons. So now I in addi�on to marke�ng, had oversight and s�ll do of public safety, facili�es and finance, all of which came into play. Luke Salisbury Thank you. Now tell me, what did you first think when you heard about the coronavirus on the news? Rebecca Johns Like the first �me I heard about it? Luke Salisbury When the word coronavirus or COVID-19 first appears. Rebecca Johns So this would have been January 2020. So I'm going to give a litle context. So I moved into my posi�on like I just said in the summer of 2019 and we didn't have a CFO yet and in January of 2020 we no�ced a discrepancy in our budget where I'll just cut it short. Two different spreadsheets and we calculated the wrong number in our budget by a million and a half dollars in the financial aid area. This is what was on my mind. I didn't know where the problem was. I just knew there was a gap-I was very worried about this. The board was asking about it, and a person in the next door office was very worried about this coronavirus thing. And I remember her bringing her phone out and showing me a picture of a cruise ship that had a whole bunch of people on it. And she looked at me and said, what is a residence hall but a cruise ship that doesn't never leaves the dock? And I looked at her and I went $1.5 million and walked away. And she's, I remember going really right. So many of us. Right, there's SARS, there's bird flu, there's Ebola. And in the United States, they don't come to us right because the public, the public health people. People do all the work that they do and they stop it and it never comes, you know, deep into our I didn't assume that's what was happening. I had no idea that that was my first encounter with that. I recall with the didn't last long right prety soon got prety serious, yeah. Luke Salisbury Oh yes, for most of us it. Started off that way when you. Rebecca Johns Yeah, yeah. Luke Salisbury First hear about the. News now, when did it first become clear that Augsburg would have to do something about the spread of the coronavirus? Rebecca Johns Two steps there. One was kind of subtle, so we put a task force together. We met in person, right? This is before the shutdown. I remember being on a call with the Minnesota Department of Health and then. Go to the mee�ng and on. This task force are people from our physician assistant. And our nursing right. They understand some of this, so one of them. Was even an epidemiologist. And I remember hearing from the Minnesota Department of Health. They used this phrase that made no sense to me. Back then. It makes a lot of sense to me now, they said in a very calm voice. This has moved beyond mi�ga�on to containment, which you know makes my heart skip a beat now, but at. The �me I'm like, what does? That mean and. The physician assistant and the nurse looked at me and said. We no, sorry I got that wrong. It has moved beyond containment to mi�ga�on, right. We cannot contain it. It's coming. All we can do is manage how we respond to it, and then I said oh, what does that mean, right? So s�ll I don't know enough yet to be scared. But that is a moment. Then literally we heard within that the governor was going to shut things down. I think it was March 13th. We might have heard about it the day before or two days before. So we knew we were all going home. And we didn't know how long or what that meant. Luke Salisbury So you said there was a two step process. So the first step was when you put together a task force with the MN Department of Health, and then the second part was when the governor made the announcement. Rebecca Johns I mean, we didn't work right. We were working on things and looking at the informa�on, so the first step wasn't so much the task force as understanding that it wasn't going to be contained, even though it didn't sink in. And the sinking in moment was when the governor says everybody go home and again, I'm the head of opera�ons. And I run communica�ons, so an e-mail must go out to everybody that says something and that e-mail has to come for me or the president that I help. Right, right. Saying you can't just say the governor told us. Go home over the home. Right. You have to explain some stuff so that. Was a very. Pivotal moment from in my from in. My personal experience with this. Luke Salisbury Thank you for your descrip�on. Now, what can you tell me about the course of ac�on that was ul�mately decided upon by the university? Like could you elaborate a litle bit on what the university decided to do? Rebecca Johns In that moment, that first moment, not sure if I'm remembering all of it right, so I remember that in the communica�on it said everybody, you know who can work from home do work from home and it was very clear that there were some folks who couldn't. Like maintenance operators, if you're going to work on the boiler, you're going to come touch the right because s�ll the all the public safety of course is going to be here, but everyone else is going to go be home. We had I don't know what order everything happened in. I remember ge�ng the call from the chief strategy officer, but he runs IT and it was a phone call. So I'm all ready home. When this happens, so I can't. I don't think it was before the shut. I don't think. It was a�er. The shutdown, maybe it was the weekend. He called me. And he said. There's a thing called zone and we think it's going to be that everyone's going to get licenses for it and we I don't have so many licenses with them already. Like we could right now, buy a corporate license before they run out of IP addresses. I don't know if that all makes sense, but it costs. This much money. And remember, I'm sure at one point. Well, $5 million already. But, but I'm far enough into understanding this is bigger than a blip and like, buy it right? So by the �me you send the go home order, I think we had zoom bought and everybody has a zoom account if you have a login, students included. OK. So we had already extended spring break for a week knowing we were going to switch the classes online. Switch is too easy of a word. It was a lot harder. I really had to work really hard to finish that year out. What I remember about that e-mail most, though, was two things. One was sort of small and atack. We didn't know how to not get COVID. So I was wri�ng like when you go home, you know social distancing and I had to explain it. I had to find what social distancing was. Nobody knew what that meant and what what to do. I think we were even. I don't know if I advocated it like we washed our groceries. I don't know if you remember that, so I remember that like weird explana�on thing we didn't have. We didn't have masking yet on the radar. The bigger thing was that I understood that all of these people had to figure out. I'm just thinking about their jobs. Not even their lives, right? Kid those to school. What are all those things parent in a nursing home like? Just to keep things going. Every single manager I would say about the managers, you know, they're. Some of them, you know, 30 years old, they've. Been working for a. While but you know they're not seasoned. They got to figure it out, like, how is the marke�ng team going to work? How's it advising going to work? Every single one had to figure out how, and I knew that I had. I could do so litle to solve the ques�ons that they had to figure out how to do to keep things going and. This is the. A really stark moment in a career this is you, vice president of I don't care what are not in control and this only works if all of these people do the best they can and you do and you figure out how to support them. And it was so I thought it was so unfair to put on this to me young. People because I'm older. Young managers shoulders to like, hey, this thing has never happened in the history of any of our lives and you. Go figure it out. Do your best. I remember I. Was here at in the. Office and it was kind of an icky day like it is today. I remember going walking around the quad many �mes just kind of I think I was. I was sad. I was grieving. It was. Too much? No, it turned out to be OK, but. You know, can we? We didn't know. We didn't know. We didn't know if we'd ever see each. Other again, right? There was an invisible disease out there randomly killing people. Right. So it was a bit emo�onal, yeah. Luke Salisbury There was a scary �me. I mean for all of us, especially those of us who have vulnerable members of our families. It was scary for us all. Rebecca Johns Yes, absolutely. Luke Salisbury Now would you mind elabora�ng a litle more on what experiences the university and yourself had regarding things such as zoom and or online classes? Like what sort of pre-exis�ng experiences there were. Rebecca Johns You know very litle with zoom. I'm I'm. I don't. I don't know. In the classroom. I did my MBA here and at one point one of my classes, one of my instructors was traveling a lot and you know she did remote mee�ng remote classes. She was really good at it. But it it takes a lot. So the preponderance of us didn't have that. IT had had zoom for a while- two years before that. I remember being in a conference in Chicago and we had to talk about the budget, and they (the IT) sent me a link and I clicked on it, and it was so much beter than being on the audio conference. But we didn't rou�nely use it. So there wasn't very much of that. This was all new, but not ge�ng groceries was new. Not visi�ng your family was new, you know, so all those things were hard. But there was so much more. And there was so much more than that. Luke Salisbury Thank you. So going on to our next ques�on, you said earlier that there was a planning process that was enacted in order to decide exactly what the university would do to contend with the virus situa�on. Could you go into a litle more detail? Rebecca Johns Yeah. So we cons�tuted this task force and there was somebody on the team at the �me who had at a different university done a task force for H1N1 in 2009, and he helped set it up. You need these people, these people. But his in his experience you have you talked and then the virus went away, right. So that was the different, so. Once, once we shut down. I went back to my. Calendar because it felt like forever. And I'll tell you. What we met every morning. Seven days a week. For three weeks, it felt like forever. I was surprised. It was only three weeks. There was so much informa�on coming in that you gave this informa�on in the morning. I don't even remember if I mean the governor. Had a daily. Thing and we had to decide stuff. I don't know what we would have been deciding. I mean everyone, everyone went home alone, the classes were online. We must have been we. We had to figure out things, how to make this happen. We were s�ll doing. Our work, the budget, s�ll had to. Come in all of that. The mistake we made and again I. Found it in. The calendar. It only took a week to figure it out and fix it, but again, it felt like forever. The mistake that we made was there was this really great group, this task force, that had IT on it and help people and residence life, like all of the faculty representa�on that were students were all these people and all their smarts doing all this stuff. But it was disconnected with the leadership decision making process. So everything we go in the morning and the task force. But then the President and the Provost, when we said we're going to, you know, change this or do that or recommend they they went, we had to back up and explain the because we knew a lot because we're in the flow of it. And I remember that was working so poorly. In a in a. You create a situa�on room. The leaders are in the room. The informa�on comes in the room. The experts come in brave and we we were missing that and I remember looking at a communica�on from the you and it was sounded very clear. We're all making it up right, but we're going to do this. We're in this, we're going. And it was from the president. And then. We said we need to communica�on like that, Rebecca. And I'm looking at. I'm like that president's in the room. I can tell she's in the room. My president isn't. We do this discussion and then So what we. Ended up doing is. We had met in the morning with the task force and in the a�ernoon with the Provost, the President and chief strategy shot four people. I mean, and we and it was only week gap, but it was so hard that I almost couldn't speak about it on the phone with the President when I was trying to explain the problem. It it, you know, we were �red. We were working prety hard. It was scary. Sorry, we got that going and that helped a lot. I remember the �me we decided to not work on the weekend that we were going to take the weekend off from the mee�ng. It was three weeks. And whatever the comment was, the the the the influx of informa�on has slowed enough that we thought nothing's going to change so much over the weekend we have. To change our decisions. Luke Salisbury I can imagine. Rebecca Johns Tell you what we were deciding, though. There's no vaccine yet, and all the students were home. You know, maybe, maybe athle�cs, social distancing. There was no tes�ng yet. All this stuff is common. You know? And then George Floyd's murdered. Can I talk about that for a minute? I don't know if it’s one of your ques�ons. Luke Salisbury Go ahead. Rebecca Johns Though I'm not going to go into the history of that, others can look that up. What happened here on campus? You know, 3 miles away from it so right in the middle of all of this. And if you were around in the Twin Ci�es, there was a �me when what ul�mately happened is the governor calls in the Na�onal Guard. But the reason the governor called in the Na�onal Guard is that the Emergency services, police, fire and ambulance were so busy they couldn't cover things. So the head of public safety here calls me and says there's no emergency service. If somebody falls down and cut and breaks something or cuts their head and I call 911 nobody's going to come. Nobody's coming for anything. No fire department. There's a fire, there will be no fire trucks. There will be no ambulance. There will be no police. I can't keep this campus safe. We had about 100 people this summer living on campus. Mostly interna�onal students. OK, so we need to not have them be here at risk, we think. And I remember we had a talk about a situa�on when we were all day long trying to figure out what to do. And we ruled out things like bringing in armed people, and we couldn't hire any because there weren't any because they were being hired everywhere else, and it was a bad idea. We decided to evacuate the campus. But where to? Maybe a hotel. And he said, what if I'm moving to the hotel and the hotel gets atacked? There's s�ll no right answer. So we decided we need to get them out of the city, far enough away and the University of Wisconsin River Falls are just wonderful partners. Our residents live called their residence life and yes, bring them. They didn't ask for money. OK, we had to get a bunch of volunteers to get. In advance with a. Bunch of students. Students are the ones who get COVID without symptoms. So you're right, because they're healthy ones. So we have that risk of it's a pandemic. Well, once our student body hears that, they're going to Wisconsin, most of. Them didn't want to go. Many of them, and this was an oversight on our part, and I'll tell you how we handled that later. They want to be in their civic demonstra�ons. Some of them were afraid of Wisconsin. I don't blame for that either. I'm from there, I can make fun of Wisconsin. The people who went had a great �me. They were outside that pizza. Like it was like for them, a moment where there was no pandemic, right? But I understand I. Won't stay here. So a�er we came back and the students were unhappy that, you know, those were their two. Op�ons we we worked with student government and we've actually talked about this at conferences because here's what you had to do. If you're going to, you're going to engage students in a moment like that, and this is what we tried to avoid and avoiding it. Was the mistake. You have to say we cannot keep you safe. You have to admit that to them. And we were worried, you know, if we say that a parent's going to get mad at us or whatever. Well, if you don't. Cut them in on the on the story. Then you can't. You can't explain your solu�on and you don't. Get their input on the solu�on. So we we set the stage that next year and said if something like this happens again we're. Going to come. To you, we're going to shoot straight and say this is how dangerous this is. What we think what? Do you think big lesson? Following a pandemic, when we're all home on zoom with our various challenges going on in our lives. Luke Salisbury Well, that is certainly a very powerful story. Thank you very much for going into that. Now when you first chose to move to an online format, what challenges did you an�cipate for moving classes to an online format? Rebecca Johns Well, I'm not maybe the best one to answer that because I'm not in charge of the academic program. I have a degree that I got online in the 2000s. But I don't teach four classes. I can imagine doing one, but I have. This was the Provost and the Deans, right? Figuring out how we're going to finish the semester. The harder thing, so I don't think. I don't think I personally did. The Deans were on this task force and. They held that. Maybe now I'm remembering some of the work we had to do right, like all the decisions we had to make, that they were asking, there were ques�ons that were grading policy. Ques�ons were all kinds of ques�ons that I might not remember because they weren't my decision. Make I mean it as a test would sure make sure they were made and they were made with the right input. But that you know, that's the purview of the academic program. The harder part wasn't there wasn't that first year. You didn't say this, but wasn't that finishing that spring of 2020, it was contempla�ng the fall of 20? 20 right. How do you know where to stay? Because not everybody understood that we were going to be doing this. More than a couple of months, that was not that might have been those folks that tried the denial route. One of the things that happened I don't know, those are one of the things that happened was in in May, in March or in April, we canceled commencement. We had a a date with. The US Bank Stadium by which we had to cancel. Otherwise we owed a. Lot of money. So we cancelled. It and the. Students were very mad. We can't believe you cancelled it. Why don't you just postpone it? Everybody else is postponing it. And I knew that nobody could pick a date. That would be safe. There was no informa�on that knew how long we would be not able to have an event. That size. But it wasn't common knowledge yet, so there's no postpone those that postponed it, postponed it, and then cancel. Pulled it. We canceled it. We were honest and then we got when? We got you. So we said fine, fine. Call the postponement to an undisclosed date. We ended, which ended up being. 2022 Yeah, so, so I didn't answer your ques�on, but I I wasn't very close to the thinking about the classes. I know it was a lot of work. I know it was exhaus�ng for the for the those who had to plan their courses and they know it was not necessarily energizing for everybody who had to go to class. Wait for a long �me. Luke Salisbury Do you feel that events went “according to plan” in regards to virus con�ngency? What I mean is, do you feel that the university’s plan went off successfully? Rebecca Johns To the extent that one can be successful in a pandemic. I think we were able to isolate people who were sick, give rooms to them, get food to them (unless they could go home) so that it didn't spread. I think we did a fair job of containing poten�al spread early on. I think we did a really good job of ge�ng the word out and making available both tes�ng and vaccina�on to everybody that wanted it. I mean, we relied on government resources to provide those things. But for the coordina�on of ge�ng them out to folks, I think we did a prety good job. You know, if you would have done nothing, I think that we would have significantly different results, but I would not call the experience one of feeling successful. It feels like you're barely holding on at all moments. Luke Salisbury I see. Thank you very much for elabora�ng on that. Now, did you ever have any sort of worst case or best case projec�ons? Rebecca Johns Not projec�ons. I'm good at not envisioning a thing I don't have enough data on. That's the only way I know, but I went to the Peace Corps when I got to Africa, people said “is this what you pictured?” I'm like “I didn't picture anything.” So then I'm open to what happened. So I don't think I would have projected it. There were models early on; nobody talks about this now. They were ridiculous. I mean, (they were) based on what? Right, that's being building assump�ons to some kind of math and nobody knew what to assume. I would look at those and think “oh well, this thing shows that it falls off if we just get to June or if we can just get to April.” I was coun�ng my months away and every �me you got to June and April they get pushed out, right? So this curious moment, which is not what you asked me, the scariest moment because you're doing all this stuff. And people in the hospital and we start to realize that masks are important and especially for the healthcare providers. So it's PPE, personal protec�ve equipment and 90 fives again for hospital people and ven�lators. This is when they were pu�ng people with COVID on ven�lators. They don't do that so much. We learn a lot more if you can. Have a ven�lator, you die. And the federal government was. Ge�ng in the way of states, procuring those things they were. Not suppor�ng it. So now the now the governors are bidding against each other. So we're all compe�ng with each other all in the same country. Not only that, the federal government was interrup�ng the supply chain. There were governors who shipped things on private planes so that the federal government wouldn't know it was a shipment of masks because they would take them. So you're si�ng there in this moment going, you know, we don't know how to get food. I mean, there were people doing food, but those people were at risk, right? We don't know how to-we hope the vaccine comes if one doesn't, this is really bad. And the federal government is stealing it from us, we're screwed as well. Nobody's helping now, and I just I have a lot of gra�tude to the Minnesota Government and governor's office, I think they did an excellent job. Public health and his communica�on, Governor Walz’s communica�on and their decisions. They made them kind of quickly. They would li� things and like, say, tomorrow you have to wear masks. So tomorrow you don't have to wear masks. I'm like, does the government know? That he can announce something that can go into effect. You can implement that. And I don't just mean Minnesota there. Were many many. Governors who deserve. A lot of credit for holding it together. But that was that was the most dire �me when I thought the US government was working against us. Luke Salisbury Well, thank you for elabora�ng on that. Now how would you describe the overall community response here at Augsburg? Like how would you feel the community, the faculty, and the students responded? Rebecca Johns There's a range of responses to the virus itself that I'll talk about first. Or maybe I should talk about the second one. So some people are much more comfortable, you know? Let's get back. I want to go to my athle�c prac�ce. You guys are making a big deal out of it. Not that, you know, I don't, mean. That all the poli�cal moment. They were making fun of anybody but they were fine. And then there were people on the other end, and everyone, everywhere in the team who's like, I'm not ge�ng a room with anybody. Once they have to have a mask on and they have to be vaccinated once we have vaccines, right and everywhere in. So there was no way to decide protocol and prac�ces that was going to work for everybody. So that on one side they're pushing it. You know, we're we're in close contact for for for more than 15 minutes and you have to quaran�ne. They make sure not to stand next to any. But they're like, look, look. At their clocks and make sure they were only 14 minutes so they wouldn't have to quaran�ne. Maybe I'll do the same thing, no? And we had a couple of �mes where there was one big. What we call what you call those. Clusters like where 10 or 15 people end up ge�ng coded because a bunch of students. Got together, played football. I mean, it was football. It wasn't even but, but. But then there was this football party and we know that that's though that was the source. Of it, I think what everybody did. I'm a litle disconnected from this. I think there's this place where our mission really maters to us. Educa�ng this student body is really important to us. And whether or not people thought about that directly, the energy that went into making this work was prety substan�al. So I don't know if I would say people were energe�c, but they didn't give up and tried a lot of things, you know? I know different �mes, faculty, you know, people have their videos off, maybe for good reason. We discovered new things we should have thought of it, but we didn't. We gave out laptops for students that didn't have tech. Well, the bigger problem was they didn't have Wi-Fi. So we have new Wi-Fi hotspots and so it's doing all this stuff and then some of them, even if they have the Wi-Fi, there's no place. In their home. Where it's quiet enough, they've got a big. You know, they don't have extra rooms, so, you know, zoom wasn't the answer to them. That was just the beginning of the things they needed. So all along the way, we're like, how do we make this work? How do we? Make this work for everybody. Do you just kept doing that when I'm skipping in all of this and I'm aware that I'm skipping it because I didn't see it, although I experienced it. Were the deep losses and concerns people had for their friends and family that we were also carrying along the way and that wasn't part of the task force job, but everyone had. We were all losing things. If nothing else, Christmas together or whatever our holidays were, right? And people were losing people and s�ll trying to. Go to school and so. Showing up and keeping going is a way bigger success than it sounds. When you say that. And a lot of people s�ll graduated. There was a moment you just this just reminded me in the honest convoca�on. I can't remember what year it would have been. It was the people gradua�ng that year with honors who? Would have done their last two. Years in COVID, so they would have been sophomores. And kind of. Somebody said something from the podium like you did. Really well in. You applied yourself, whatever. And in this �me you did this and it kind of dawned on the whole world what these people had done with a lot of help, you know, back everybody. Right. And we just started clapping and just couldn't quit clapping because it was kind of amazing. To see success in the face of that kind of a hurdle and it and those are the honor students and not everybody did right. You say the community, but there's a whole bunch of people who. Who couldn't keep going to school? There's just too much headwinds in their world and their families and whatever was going on. So a lot of people fell through the hole who might have made it if it hadn't been for the pandemic. Luke Salisbury That's really awful. What lessons do you think were learned from this whole situa�on? Rebecca Johns The one I men�oned earlier about how nothing's top down. You're not in control-that one is stuck with me. The need to equip and support, but believe in the disparate talents of everybody. It's not a new lesson. We all know you know communi�es and diversity and all those things. We say it was just so palpable, but this this wasn't one person or even a task force making rules and everybody following the rules. When when you made decisions and then people tried them and they said, you know, it doesn't work this way, can we do it that way so that feedback loop that input, that exper�se from the people on the ground showed up big �me? The other one, which I don't think we learned it but should have: a pandemic should have odds. Works fine, but like generally in our society, it should have made us more generous with each other, and I think we didn't learn that lesson. I think we as a society are more polarized and more fearful of the other and more “I got to protect mine and if you're successful, then I need that too, not you.” Not to be too successful. Because it means somehow means I'm not. I think we went too far in that direc�on. And I worry about it because another pandemic and or climate change is going to call on us to act like this again. Maybe it already is. Which means we need to solve things in community with everyone's exper�se and I'm afraid we didn't learn that lesson well enough. Luke Salisbury As a community is Augsburg prepared for situa�ons of a similar nature to the coronavirus pandemic? Rebecca Johns Yeah, if you know if a different virus came and you know public health, said what public health that said we got to do this. We would be able to do it again. It won't be exactly the same, but you know, we know some things that none of us knew because we didn't live through it before. But everybody's, I don't just mean house, but everyone's fragile. Right financially. There would be people just like I can't do it again. I'm not. I can't teach this, I can't learn this way. I thought we'd be done. And it won't be the same, so I don't know. I don't know if I have a good predic�on on that. Some people just pumped. It's no fun. I don't blame them. Some people will s�ck to it. Some people will say, hey, I've seen this before because we all have. Here's what we do and maybe, you know somebody who didn't have the lead last �me because they were younger or whatever will say I can. Leave this one. I have energy. Luke Salisbury Now, earlier you men�oned coopera�on with the MN Health Department, how would you describe the coopera�on with health officials? Rebecca Johns Yeah, Minnesota Department of Health is amazing, but they have a team that was focused on higher Ed. and specifically our challenges, so you know the Center for Disease Control or Minnesota Department of Health will come out with guidance on events or guidance on congregate living and we'd say does this apply to a dorm? Is congregate living a dorm or not? Like what is (congregate living)? How do we know? We've literally had the head of that group walk through our dorms with us and look at how it's set up and get her opinion from physically looking at Urness Hall, which is different from Luther. But she's like, oh, the apartments are fine. Do this. That that's how commited they were. And we had a, I think it was a weekly call where they would tell us everything that they knew and provide a lot of documents which were very deliberate, right. They didn't just write them and send them out so that they and every �me they made a change, they understood the impact on 15 other things. And so there was food service, there was events, there was all kinds of pieces. They were quite amazing. There was funding focused on, you know, and I remember not that recently. So when the they that the special funding stopped and those people had to go back to their other jobs and they s�ll doesn't go but. They're not dedicated like they were. And maybe we don't need it, but I don't think we would have made it without the informa�on they gave us and they end up briefing the governor that they were amazing. Thank you well. Luke Salisbury What would you say were the biggest challenges for the community here? Rebecca Johns You know, coming back. Then we come back in the fall of 2021. I remember saying this mul�ple �mes. It was harder to figure out how to come back than it was to shut down. Nobody wanted to shut down, but we knew that at least we'd be home, not exposed to anybody else. Right. And then you just figured out and realized how much you hated it coming back. Now that was not everyone. People were comfortable in their cocoons, and now you're asking me to come back and I live with my, you know, 90 year old mother and I, you know, I have this immunocompromised child and we're one that can't get vaccinated or what have you. And so there was a lot more mo�on around the decisions that had to be made to return, and it was trickier and one size couldn't fit all. And then there are people who are, like, you can't have excep�ons. You have to have the same rules for everybody. I'm not sure I agree with that. It was a lot more emo�onally difficult to decide to talk people into doing it and then for them to actually in many cases do those things. We were at one point, so the vaccines came out in. So I don't know what we did the fall of 2021 It's all a blur, like when? When you first emailed me and said, you know, would you do this interview? And I was going to go back. I did go back in my calendar. To look at kind of my schedule. I went back. To last year I went back to 2022 and I'm like I'm not even close this start. Like that's how. Weird �me is I know you know this, but. The people listening to this tape don't. So I don't. Know when we did the fall change? Want the vaccines start coming out early? 2021 and by fall 2022, we're having this conversa�on about whether we require the vaccine or not. So what does? That mean, and there were faculty don't remember par�cularly. Maybe not only that there were faculty who were. Adamant that we had to mandate it and if. We didn't mandate it. They weren't. Going to come back to. The classroom, because they needed everybody vaccinated, and I wasn't certain. I s�ll not. Then a mandate made more people get vaccinated than would have other. Guys, we have good numbers, but it wasn't 100%, it wasn't going to be 100%. There were some schools who said “if you're not vaccinated, don't come here.” That became moot when Omnicron hit then later on in 202122 when Omnicron hit me. Being vaccinated didn't stop me from transmi�ng it, so there's no there's no point in making somebody else. It reduces a litle bit beter than stop it, so having people. You know, I remember the. Late summer 2021, I'm talking to some people, prety smart people and they said two of them. If you're vaccinated, you can't get COVID and you can't transmit it. And I'm like “oh no, that's not true.” So we didn't have everyone even understanding everything together. And then there. Then the emo�on on top of that. And then I talked about people who want to stay home. And remember there's like “we got to get back together.” You know, this campus needs to be vibrant and alive. And so you have both those things happening at once. That was really hard, and you had to make judgment calls and decide stuff and tell people to follow it, and hope you weren't wildly wrong. Luke Salisbury Yeah, that's certainly powerful. You say when you. Rebecca Johns It's exhaus�ng, is what it was. That's exhaus�ng now I think. Luke Salisbury Well, how do you feel that Augsburg as a community has changed, or did we already discuss this? Rebecca Johns I don't know if you asked me how we changed. That's hard to do because even then, even without a pandemic, every year a group of students graduates and a new one comes in. So we have. The same we have a culture, but the students. Create this place and as much as anybody, right? And that popula�on, 4th of it. I'm oversimplifying changes, right? So during. Who would know that turnover happened but away from here? And by the �me we come back, some of the folks that graduated? It had never been on campus, and so they're building their their their because they love zoom. Their Co crea�on didn't happen right. So I keep saying it now, everybody's new and then there's the big what they called the great resigna�on of the employee turnover, right? So some of the departments I run, nobody's been there for more than a year. So how did we how do we print the magazine? How did we decide stories of why does the locksmith report to DPS and not to? This is not like all of this historical stuff. It almost doesn't mater like how should we do it now if we've got smart people, everybody's new. So we have an event and the person running that. Events that it's the end of the school year, so every student org has an event and that advisor has never done that event. Here at Oxford, all of them. So do I invite? The president's leadership team, do I? Does everybody like? Well, well, how do we do this? Not how do we put the event on the events team is good, but there was a staff apprecia�on event recently wasn't on the calendar. I'm like going to put it on the calendar. Nobody knows to come, but everybody know we're all just. So did we change? I think we're changing. We got to kind of find ourselves. Again, I will say that the mission of this place didn't, in fact, it cemented more than ever. It became we know we have a lot of in our student popula�on, folks that. You know, they don't have a lot of, they don't have extra money, period. Right. So they're already in a scenario where the kind of major thing happens in their family and school just got a lot harder and. And so you know that's that's that's s�ll true, but it is, it is exactly those popula�ons that we're trying to. Make sure get a degree so that they get into leadership posi�ons so that those families and those scenarios have people in leadership spots. They can serve that the world that they're experiencing is represented in the kinds of products we make, services and policies and all that. So our mission didn't go anywhere but deeper. A way of ge�ng things done. Actually, our culture is always asking ques�ons. Anyway, so I think that serves us well. Why are we doing it this way? How do we? Do this? Who's? In charge. Lots of ques�ons, right answers. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Indiana Jones. It's old. There's a point in there. He's chasing the truck. All this stuff is happening and somebody turns him and goes. What now and. He says. I don't know. I'm making this up as I go. That's what a lot of what? It's like that was a litle bit. Luke Salisbury Although that was wonderful, I appreciated the analogies so. What would you? Describe as overall posi�ve and nega�ve changes. Rebecca Johns So a posi�ve change. I don't think everyone agrees with me on this. I think we were over scheduled. I was, I'm an introvert. I work, I get worn out by people and in my job I have. I have a lot. Of things I'm going to be going, I. Have something three nights a week now for. The rest of April. This celebra�on now and and what's fun? It's beau�ful, I. Don't even have to interact that much. I have to sit there and enjoy it and it wears me out. And I know before I keep saying this before the pandemic, I almost never went home from work I had. I went to something else. I don't know what I was like. What was I doing? And and how did I do that? I was exhausted before the pandemic. Now the pandemic made me �red emo�onally and it was scary and all this, but I actually changed my sleep. So and you see this, this is the part where people might disagree with me. You see this cadre of. I'll just call it people. I don't know if it what the age is, but you know 40 and under and as they think about their careers and where to work and how how much to go in and all this, the considera�on about loca�on and and and working there. And I don't want to call work about. What work life balance? Because I mean using that term. I think it's good that. We're asking that ques�on. That I'm not just iden�fied by how hard I work, how long I work for this corpora�on. Maybe I believe in it. Maybe it's a good product, but really. It's here for shareholder. And so I'm OK with working for places product or service I believe in and their shareholder return, but how? Hard do I want. To work about how much of myself and my family's �me do I. Want to give up? I think that's good that people call it selfish. It's hard as a manager, it's harder as a person who's like we need to be together. We need everyone back the the the management hasn't figured it out. But the United States produc�vity went up when we didn't make everyone drive to Zen building every day. Boy, we would have never that that was an experiment that we would have never done if we hadn't been forced to. There's a lot. Of learning le�. In how we work, and I think it's a posi�ve that it's being asked versus. Just being assumed that you're just. Going to pay your dues and. Work really hard and. Maybe you'll rise up and maybe you won't. Not nega�ves. I think I men�oned already, which is unfortunately it didn't bring us together. As a na�on it cause. Just this and this is true if you study. I haven't I what I know from people who've studied autocracies. Is that challenging �mes? Economic collapses those those are actually moments when people tend to go more, not toward community, but more towards strong man and autocra�c leader, because everything's such a mess. People are so frightened that if somebody promises they'll fix everything they believe in, then they're willing to give up their freedom for that. And that's what's happened here to for some of us who are trying to change the vo�ng laws and make it harder for par�cipatory democracy to happen. And I worry about that. Luke Salisbury We'll see what changes here at Augsburg. We think will be las�ng. Rebecca Johns Oh, I wish you to ask me that early in advance so I could have thought. About it, there's some things. I think the. Maybe this is just too prac�cal, but so faculty. If I teach. Tuesday, Thursday and Wednesday a�ernoon. I don't necessarily comment on Wednesday morning, but maybe I have office hours, right? It's not a. Nine to five job, but it's not and it never. Ends to be. Factual about it but but but the office. Time, right? If I don't teach on Monday, I. Don't drive up from Northville if that's where I live on. And staff, it wasn't like that he came to. The office in the morning and. You le� in the a�ernoon. And I think that in my opinion, I don't know if I've never said this with leadership and who knows. Who would agree with me or not? That's a litle more fluid now and we've got more. People working from home. Some days we've got and you know you come in if you have a mee�ng. But does the mee�ng have to be in person? Can we so we. This extends beyond Augsburg. You know, I can meet with our my bankers in Chicago and they don't have to fly here, so it's easier to schedule and it doesn't harm the environment and we get our work done there. Our board, there are board commitees that meet that way. So there is a a facility with Zoom that has an advantage some�mes. If you don't always opt to it. And never get to meet the people in person. So having ge�ng rid of those arbitrary boundaries, I don't know enough about the classroom experience, which you know is the whole reason we're here to comment on that, that that's a prety important one. What does this mean for teaching and learning? But I wouldn't. I don't know enough to answer that. Luke Salisbury All right. Well, thank you for answering that ques�on anyway. So how would you describe Inter community? Coopera�on here at Augsburg. Rebecca Johns You mean related to the pandemic or this? Luke Salisbury Like sort of related to how, like coopera�on between faculty and coopera�on between students, like how well did people respond to dealing with the changes caused by the pandemic? Rebecca Johns Again, I'm a litle less close to what the facul�es experiences. I know a bit more about the students living on campus than the students in on athle�c teams. You know, there was unfortunately during maybe this is don't know how great of an example this is always two dining services. All right, so. The first days that we had people living on campus and we were going to bring dining services back again. I don't know if that was a. Fall 2020 or not? And we had a plan to keep. Everyone apart from each other. So we set up this giant stanchions. You remember the s�ckers on the floor, and you know that line was going to wrap all the way around downstairs. Down the steps and into the first level of Christensen. And we had events was organizing all this. It's just lunch. We didn't do it right, but. We were, you know, when people going to it was going to be boring in line and all this and we were really worried about the experience. And so they asked for volunteers. So I came. Chief strategy officer was there people from athle�cs. They were great volunteers, you know, to help with. The line and. Make and make sure people weren't upset or whatever. And I remember because it was the first day that I was going to, we had we're wearing masks by now. The first day I was going to be in a building with. Hundreds of people, we're all. Going to be wearing masks. But I hadn't been in the building. With I didn't. I didn't go to. Grocery store and I, I and. Again, remember, 20 year olds are healthy. And they don't. You can't tell that COVID, so I'm like, oh, and and and we talked about it because we're afraid. And So what do you do? You go and you don't die, and then you go again because you're fine. So that kind of coordina�on. Had it happened a lot, a really sad story happened later that year, which was. A person in the dining. She was an employee. I don't remember for stroke or heart atack. Anyway, she passed away in the in the dining hall. In the morning when we're ge�ng ready. And so we couldn't serve food up there, you know, though, medical people and all that. So the kitchen was able to use the other kitchen and make to go meals again for up down campus. And then we set up at the botom of the stairs, you know, not not up in the dining hall, but down at the botom. To to to for people, to. Pick up their meals and leave and so. Again, I'm at my house and this is all being planned takes. Say, how can this? Work will be hot. I don't know how the students know. Whatever all this. How do we tell the students without trauma�zing? It was so sad and it was based on so many die and people who knew that person and they were there when it happened. DPS people did CPR and it didn't work was trauma�c, trauma�c and so I came to campus to see how it was going. And the events team was or some of them were, you know, standing there handing out the meals and the students. I mean, I don't want to. Say they were fine, but. Maybe it was just like just one more thing. Of course, of course. I'm picking on male, but nobody was complaining. They're like thank you for the food. Can I? Have more granola. They they just took it and s�rred. That happened a lot. How do we do this? OK, I got to do that. OK, now I got to get tested twice a week if I want to be in this theater produc�on or in this play on the soccer team or whatever. How do I do that? Do I do that? The students? The funniest thing about that thing is to line up outside across the street to get tested at people center. It was cold out too, but that especially athletes had to get tested mul�ple �mes a week and they're all with their bikes, right? So they they would be joking around and having fun in. Line in a pandemic and that was heartwarming to have people s�ll. You know, enjoy each others company. People just stayed people a lot. That that helped. Luke Salisbury So overall in regards to the whole pandemic situa�on here, Augsburg, if you were to sort of summarize what happened or rather summarize what was learned, what do you think could have gone beter? Rebecca Johns Think about I don't know beter. I think that. Would have made it. Easier, and this is never going to happen. Is it would be that more people would be. Comfortable with ambiguity. Because some some people are more or less comfortable with it, right? And maybe that's a mistake. But the folks that wanted clarity when there's no clarity to be had, it was hard for them. It was hard for the task force and people like me making decisions and explaining. And and they were upset because it wasn't clear. And I can't make it clear now if I give my wish and everybody's comfortable with ambiguity, maybe we would have planned poorly. I don't know. So I don't know about beter, but in a �me of basically chaos. That's what we're talking about. This is. There's actually a theory. It's called complexity leadership, but it's basically leadership theory based on chaos. The the biological you know your biology major, right? The biological and physics chaos. Quantum theory where? You have to watch what's happening because a small ac�on can create a big ac�on later on and you don't control either of those things, and the power is in the interac�ons among the. Nodes and the nodes. In this case are people. And so the more you lean. Into that you're doing as best you can. Again, right. I think about folks. In a war zone. Who are doing all of this stuff as? Best a human can. And it's s�ll a tragedy. Does that mean they could have done it beter? Which means the the condi�ons aren't impossible. And yet, heroics happen, and the difference between our COVID experience and those things are that moment when we first shut down and I'm standing in my yard at 8:00 PM and it's it's it's it's March, so it's dark. And silent. So nobody on the freeway. I can usually. Have like nobody right at that moment. I don't know if it's ever going to get beter. And I think about the folks in the war zones where, you know, it first becomes clear that there's going to be conflict and ours didn't end up in the worst case scenario. And there's and there's do, you know, the refugees who they literally have to abandon the place. So I I I don't want to make the comparison that I know how they felt at that moment and we lucked out because in retrospect we are. Beter off. I was going to say fine, but. I'm not sure. That's true. So I don't know. Most, most of Mandela said this once in an interview with Oprah about himself. She asked him something like. And do you have any regrets about how you handled this and that the other? Thing and he says it sounded wrong. Whole audience gasped. He said no. I couldn't have done anything beter. And I was like, here's me. And then and and he kind of no�ced that his what he meant was and he explained. He says, I'm just one person. One person can't make the. I can't be so. Thinking so much of myself that I might think that if I had done. Something the whole world would have been beter off. You know that's that's thinking too much of yourself. So could we have done it beter? But maybe the point just is that we did. Luke Salisbury Well, thank you for men�oning that. Now one thing I was going to men�on was you said earlier that you didn't know. If I think you said things would get beter. So so you also men�oned that �melines kept ge�ng pushed back as to when things would improve. So could you elaborate on that a bit like did you ever have any sort of personal thoughts on when or if things might? Quote UN quote become normal. Rebecca Johns Yeah, yeah. I was always five or six months out in my head. So The thing is shuts down and I know that it's. That our our biggest problem is next fall. Remember whenever I. Was yelling about. Commencement and then I'm working on commencing. But I know right. And then when fall starts. We didn't know how it was going to work because we had some students back, right? So I'm like, well, we'll know a lot more in November. We're at November 2020 is when the. Football party started. We had giant spike in cases, right, and it was really hard because we had to isolate all these people and test them and find them. And we contact tracing. We did a lot of contact tracing. And who are you with and? And get those names and find that person. It was just in the medical team, you know, in athle�cs work. Too exhaus�on. They worked so hard on that. OK, so then you think. All right, well, it will be. Will be good in January, but we. Come back in January. I'm like now we have a vaccine, but it's rolling out slowly and while figh�ng for. I don't know if you. Remember that and I remember saying at that �me. Three years from now. But I got my vaccine a month before you were met. Won't sound like anything. But in that �me. Oh, my God, you got your vaccine, and I haven't goten on. The list yet? A week was a big. Deal. OK. So then we hit in the summer or when I referred to the summer of 2021 is the �me. We all the first �me we thought COVID was over. And my dad had passed away in February of 2021 and we couldn't have a funeral, so we had it in the summer of 2021. So we're outdoors is nice, and I remember if you've ever had to plan a film with funeral, you fight with your siblings because you're all of your stress. And I. I was the only one in my family who s�ll thought there was a problem with COVID. I'm the only one plus some really old people. Who were mastering the church service, right? Like no one ever wants to fight, nobody got killed during that. That we know of, right? And my sister who's. A medical doctor. She's like we were planning it, of course, in April, we were planning it and she said, well, you know, it's going. To be different. In July. And I'm like, yeah, it's. Going to be worse and it's just it's been July just at the end of July, cases start creeping up because Delta. Was star�ng. We didn't have a. Word for it. Yet by two weeks later. Here they they shut the church back down, right. Built it incoming. I remember taking a box of masks over to the library because we're going to reins�tute the mask mandate and the students working on the library see me show up with this box, and they could tell what it was. And they're, like, incoming. They may write down. Their reins�tu�ng it. So people thought was over with the vaccine. People thought it was over with Delta. A lot of people thought it was going to be over, including medical specialists did not see armed crime coming because a whole different variant. And I just kept doing the well-being. I'll do a lot more in December, so. Then what? It's actually helped me not be so diligent. Vigilant is they don't report the numbers anymore. So I can't tell if things are going. Up and down very well. They've been prety steady. I I do a month, a weekly report. So they s�ll look at that. It's prety low right now, it's prety good. Right now, do I think it's all over? It wouldn't surprise me if not, and it wouldn't surprise me if so, so I always people say, where is this going to? Be in three. I'm like, well, we'll see in three months. So yeah, I had a different rela�onship with the �meline than most people I was working with, which helped in making decisions and was some�mes harder because. You had to bring along. I listened to a lot of podcasts with epidemiologists who are way more. Pessimis�c than me? Luke Salisbury Well, thank you very much for men�oning all that. So we've hit the one hour mark. Rebecca Johns Oh, OK. Luke Salisbury Yeah, we're going to conclude things here. Like what sort of lessons for prosperity do you think you would men�on about this whole situa�on? Rebecca Johns You know, I don't know if I thought about it exactly the way you just worded it, which is really nice, but when when Professor Michael Lansing told me that, you know, we're doing this project and that it was going to go. Into the archive. I was thinking, you know, somebody listening to the the narra�ons. Decades from now, as as we've done now about, you know, this 1960s or whatever. To to hopefully hear not the mechanics of it, but the emo�on of it right? How how, how hard things were. How you how you gonna have to do this work while? Now, losing your father in my case. He didn't have COVID at a heart atack, but it's s�ll met my mom. Didn't go into the hospital with. Him and it s�ll meant we. Didn't have a funeral. And there's a million families like that or more, right. Who went to this different, different pace of that, that there's a las�ng. Having us on all of us from that. And you know, in the future when people read about what happened or don't like the 1918, I don't think we hear the emo�on enough. How hard it was to. Stay in it emo�onally. And so I'm, I'm hopeful that. What did you call it, prosper. That's the just recognize. Can hear the humanity of it. Not the horror show the scary contagion movie. Not, I mean, the science is important. Ac�vi�es, the decisions, but the humanity of it. I hope that this projects like this help people tap into that. Luke Salisbury Well, thank you very much for men�oning that. So did you have any other ques�ons or anything else before we wrap things up? Rebecca Johns No, I really appreciate your ques�ons. I remembered a lot more things because of them and this whole project, so I'm just very grateful to. Should be a par�cipant in this look. Luke Salisbury Well, thank you very much and I appreciate you taking the �me to go through this with me. So once again, this is Luke Salisbury concluding my interview with Ms. Rebecca Johns, Vice President of Opera�ons for Augsburg University, about her experiences dealing with the coronavirus Pandemic in Memorial 124 on April 4th. 2023. Thank you again for your �me and for all of your considera�on with this.
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