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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Poem about life during the COVID-19 pandemic
Judson Helland
This poem describes an arc of experience during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Wedding and pregnancy during the COVID-19 pandemic
Caelin Fillingim
This entry describes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on her wedding and preganancy.
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Reflections on the pandemic and immunocompromised loved ones
Autumn Sage
This entry describes the challenges of making it through the COVID-19 pandemic with immunocompromised loved ones. She ends by noting some positive changes that may have been spurred by the pandemic.
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Living hell
Forrest Weeks
This entry describes the difficulty of living through the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Being a student during lockdown
Brenda Barrios
The author describes her entry into Eastern Washington University's graduate program for Educational Specialist in School Psychology during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Busy Doing Nothing
Kiersten Davis
This entry describes the author's struggles with work, family, and the decision to continue schooling.
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Telecommuting and social engagement
Jeffrey Greer
This entry describes the author's experience during quarantine as the student, husband, and father of two.
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Living on campus during the 2020-2021 academic year
Cooper Harris
This entry describes the author's experience living on campus as Eastern Washington University was holding the vast majority of its classes online and the on-campus student population was very small.
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Loss and opportunity
Josh Traeger
The author describes some detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Eastern Washington University and individuals he knows. He also identifies personal opportunities that arose during the pandemic.
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Unprecedented: Collected Poems in Two Voices
Melissa J. Bedford and Shelly Shaffer
A series of prose poems co-written by Dr. Melissa J. Bedford and Dr. Shelly Shaffer about living and working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics covered include quarantine, isolation, and the destabilizing impact of the pandemic on daily life.
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Songs and poem
Natasha Vanderlinden
Two songs and one poem written or composed during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are links to webpages containing embedded videos featuring a performance of the songs.
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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.
