Eastern Washington University Libraries is creating a digital archive detailing how COVID-19 impacted EWU and members of its community. First-hand accounts and expressions created during the pandemic can help future generations better understand what it was like to learn, work, and live during these uncertain times. We are calling upon you to contribute your journals, memories, creative writing, and photographs to create collectively a better record of how EWU experienced the pandemic.
For more information about submitting to the project, please visit the project website.
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Contentment poems
Joy E. Krumdiack
Two poems submitted by Eastern Washington University alumna Joy Krumdiack (class of 1974). One poem written in Spring of 2020 is titled "Be Content". The other was written in May 2021 and is titled "Content."
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Love rocks
Diana LeBlanc
Not only has the pandemic been stressful, but also the social and political unrest. In the darkest days, I found focusing on "love" as a universal truth helped me through. I painted rocks with "love" on them and hid them for people to find (painting and hiding rocks is a "thing" in 2020-2021).
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EWU COVID vaccine policy comment
Patty Puckett Tingler
Covid vaccines have given me peace of mind that the health of our nation is moving towards a brighter future. I am however, embarrassed as an alumni that EWU has chosen to not enforce Covid vaccines...
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Lessons from the pandemic
Cindy Nover
The pandemic-related campus restrictions started on a Wednesday night right before my students’ final exam. An all-campus email went out at 5pm that said that our school was limiting on-campus classes and my exam that night was at 6pm in person, on paper. I knew the students would receive that campus email and be unsure (or some would be in transit to class and wouldn’t receive the email at all)...
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Remote learning
Patti Kirsch Daggett
I work with EWU MSW students in Vancouver, Washington and we have just marked our 13th month not seeing each other in person. It has been difficult - one of the joys of my work is connecting, in person, with students and faculty.
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Vaccination story
Steven Bingo
It all started with an email from my health care provider sent the day before I was eligible for a vaccine.
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Repatriation from expedition ship in South America
John P. Buchanan
This is my first hand account, being on board as part of the expedition team — in the role of a field guide / geology lecturer / zodiac driver / general naturalist — during the entire COVID-19 crisis as it unfolded on the ship.
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Parenting during a pandemic
Kelly Evans
The pandemic has shed light on the unseen work that many parents do every day. Society can take for granted parenting and sometimes see the work as being not so challenging. As a mother and a full time faculty member, my life as a parent has been significantly altered during this pandemic.
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Anything But
Isabella Bessire
Anything But
I look at the world
Outside the windows,
Outside the mask,
Outside everything.
It's hard look outside
Without seeing what is between. -
Sad Dressler Hall basketball courts
Michelle Schultz
The hoops were removed from the Dressler Hall Basketball court to discourage students from congregating in large groups.
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snyamncut images
Michelle Schultz
These are pictures of snyamncut lounges and one lounge of furniture storage.
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Student lounges
Michelle Schultz
Housing had to consolidate, wrap and remove furniture so students were not allowed to congregate in lounges.
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Housing in a Pandemic
Michelle Schultz
In March of 2020 the world shut down, our students went on Spring Break, some never came back. Faculty and staff went home. Students evacuated, home offices the new way of life; Zoom meetings our only visual connection with people outside of our homes. The hauntingly empty campus, some may say boarded up campus, was the image of March 2020, but it wasn’t the full picture.
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Rime of the Modern Mariner
Paul J. Lindholdt
One need not be an ecologist to be averse to cruise ships. Simple solicitude for human health is enough. In February of 2020, millions watched in fascination as the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship holding the standard capacity of 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crewmembers, was quarantined during an outbreak of coronavirus...
View the full PDF for the full essay.
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Financial challenges
Anonymous
It has been difficult trying to stay afloat financially while surviving Covid. I lost my job and had to live with my parents while I pay for college through my savings. Class wise it’s kind a advantage since I have a room to myself and I get to really focus on my work that means I get to go at my own pase and won’t worry about rushing anything really.
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Year of isolation
Casey Bosse
My diagnosis of covid last June was anxiety provoking. I was one of the lucky ones. A year of isolation summed up in one photo I took.
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Hargreaves Hall during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-21
Pat Spanjer
Hargreaves Hall during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-21.
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Empty bus
Michael T. Nelson
Surreal. Disconcerting. But most of all--lonely. Riding a bus to and back from Cheney, a bus so often overcrowded it was difficult to find room to stand--had suddenly, and with a quiet severity, transformed into a reminder of the fragility of society, and how quickly, the daily norms and what can be expected, unravels.
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December Rain
Bradley Barker
I lost my mother during the covid pandemic. She was in a nursing home which was locked down for most of March-December. In late November, she contracted COVID-19 during an outbreak in the home. She passed peacefully in her sleep on the morning of December 11, 2020. She was an incredible woman of compassion and grace and I am blessed to be her son. I've included a poem I've written called December Rain, along with a couple of photos.
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Time capsule
Steven Bingo
On March 19, 2020, Eastern Washington University closed its buildings to the public. While the JFK Memorial Library opened its doors to staff by June and its lobby to students in November, parts of the library remain a time capsule from the date the library originally closed its doors. Issues of the March 11, 2020 Easterner remain in the study lounge. To date, this is the last paper issue of the student newspaper. The PLUS and Writing Center walls contain old staff photos, the signage on the Archives Reading room is curled from age and the humidity from the building sanitization in Spring 2020. The image of the March PLUS student of the month and the Multimedia Center were taken in September 2020. Eventually, these parts of the library will open, too, but until then, it’s a ghost from the pre-pandemic past.
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Get Lit 2020 marketing
Eastern Washington University. Division of University Relations.
I work in MarCom and came across some of my files from last year. These were published in the BlackLens Newspaper for the 22nd annual Get Lit! Festival. The first one ran in March, "V2" ran in April with a due date of March 15 when we still thought things would re-open. V3 is what ran in April to correct V2. The three ads represent a lot of hard planning being de-railed because of the uncertainty of lockdown. They never ended up having an event. The 2021 Get Lit! Festival is virtual.
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Gardening during the pandemic
Ielleen Miller
Looking through my photos for the past year, the one that says "pandemic" the most to me is this one, taken in late April, 2020. With shortages of specific items such as toilet paper, flour, and yeast, and panic about future disruptions to supply lines, lots of people got into gardening in order to be more self-sufficient. I had seen an article about re-growing certain vegetables, so I experimented with a live butter lettuce, green onions, and a romaine lettuce. Can one re-grow food? Yes, especially if you have a greener thumb than I do. Green onions work well. I thought the lettuce had a more intense flavor. But grocery stores experienced fewer and fewer disruptions, and I never saw a shortage of vegetables. So like other pandemic fads (sourdough starters, jigsaw puzzles, etc.), re-growing food for me came and quickly went.
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Salnave Elementary playground during COVID-19
James W. Rosenzweig
I wanted to share this image to capture what now feels like a forgotten moment in the pandemic -- for the first few days of statewide lockdown, I had taken my daughter to this playground at her elementary school in Cheney, since playing outside was about the only safe thing we knew to do. But then an order was issued to close playgrounds out of fear of the spread of covid-19, so this is a picture taken on March 23 -- you can see not only the big sign, but the faint yellow caution tape that's wrapped around all of the playground equipment. There was something very chilling about it -- at the time it seemed ominous but no one was sure yet how bad things would get. And now, with the playgrounds having been open for many months (though we wear a mask and hand sanitize, etc.), this picture feels more like a dream I had than like a memory.
