Staff Reflect On a Year Like No Other

Last month, staff marked one year since our work lives were upended with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some staff have worked remotely for the past year, and some have continued working on campus. Still others have worked in a hybrid situation, where they go to campus only a few days per week, in order to ensure that de-densification levels are maintained. People@Emerson recently asked a few staff members how their years went.

Britt Locklin is a residence director in Housing and Residential Education. Due to being on campus the entire year, she and her fellow residence directors have been “on the front lines” of helping students navigate this challenging time. First-year students who arrived last fall felt not only the normal trepidation about starting college, but also a fear of attending college during a pandemic. Roommate conflicts have also been more prevalent, since students have been spending twice as much time in their rooms due to hybrid learning.

In order to abide by capacity restrictions on campus, Locklin’s office in the Little Building had to be reconfigured. The office suite is usually a hub of activity, with students coming in and out to say hello and pick up keys or check out vacuums. But, during the pandemic, she’s had to keep her office door closed to regulate capacity—an action that was practically considered “a cardinal sin” prior to the pandemic. She also has to maintain a more structured schedule for student office assistants to keep everyone safe.

Locklin said that one of her pandemic silver linings has been that she learned to be more intentional in taking time for self-care. “This year has taught me a lot about saying no, asking for help when I need it, and taking time for myself,” she explained. She also expressed gratitude toward community members, saying, “I’ve experienced the full extent of how much empathy exists within other humans, particularly students. The amount of thanks and care I’ve received from our students for doing basic things like helping them through a room change or providing clarity on a COVID policy has been immense.”

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Camille Bouknight is the senior associate and operational director of admission in the Admission Office. She has been working a few days at home and a few days in the office each week. Although the Admission team have had to develop many work adaptations, she said the year went well overall. Her team met its enrollment goals and found innovative ways to engage prospective and incoming students.

Working in a hybrid situation was not much of a transition for Bouknight, since many Admission staff traditionally work at home during the application review season. She said that going into the office this past year allowed her a sense of normalcy and helped her maintain a work/life balance.

One challenge she and her colleagues experienced was during the annual fall travel season, when they had to make some difficult decisions about which virtual events to participate in. They also had to cater to the various time zones of students’ residences, sometimes participating in virtual fairs at 1:00 am or meetings at 9:00 pm. These experiences helped her team realize the long-term benefits of offering virtual engagement options for students and their families, since not everyone has the means or time to commit to traveling to Boston for an in-person experience.

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As head of archives and special collections in the Iwasaki Library, Jennifer Williams spent much of her day interacting with people in-person prior to the pandemic. So, like many staff, she has had to get used to conducting meetings over the phone and Zoom. The Archives has been closed for in-person appointments for the past year, so Williams and her team have had to come up with alternate ways for people to access the collections. They ultimately created a procedure that provides temporary, view-only digital access to some materials. She noted that she and her team have collaborated well over the past year to troubleshoot and develop new procedures, which will be in use for years to come.

Williams does go into the office on a regular basis in order to use the department’s technology, such as scanners and printers. She also goes in to complete any reference work that requires the review of physical records.

On a personal level, she has been grateful for the chance to spend more time with her husband and two children, since she is not commuting every day. She feels that her family has grown closer, “despite an increase in the number of temper tantrums from the kids,” she said, jokingly. She said that through coping with the collision of home and work life, she discovered a strength that she didn’t know she had.

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Rebecca Glucklich already had plenty of Zoom experience when she switched to remote work last March. As associate director of alumni relations in Institutional Advancement, she and her team were regular users of the video platform for meetings with their Emerson LA colleagues.

Still, the year has proved to be a “roller coaster” ride for her. The biggest adaptation she faced at work was the transitioning of College alumni events and programming from in-person to virtual. She was surprised to discover that creating and running virtual events was sometimes more stressful than creating and running in-person events. She said, “It definitely took some trial and error to determine the best way for us to coordinate Zoom events. There are also new variables that don’t exist for in-person events, like internet bandwidth! I’d never had to worry about a speaker glitching out during their remarks before.”

Even though there was a learning curve involved with executing virtual alumni programming, Glucklich has appreciated the fact that many more alumni from around the world have been able to attend the virtual events. Without the barriers of cost and space, she and her team have expanded the number of events and the range of content exponentially. And, even though she misses the camaraderie of office life, she is glad that she has had enough quiet time in her home office to produce two seasons of the alumni podcast, Making It Big in 30 Minutes.

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Tim Douglas, an assistant director in Academic Advising, has also been working remotely for over a year. He and his team had to pivot immediately last March and move all of their in-person processes and services to digital formats. Academic Advising is a front-facing team that is usually available for appointments with students every day. They moved appointments to Zoom pretty seamlessly, and they’ve also been available over the phone and through other digital platforms in order to serve students who don’t have Zoom.

One example of the need to create an in-person process into a digital one involved Registration periods. To accommodate the usual “walk-in hours,” Douglas and his team created a system using Google forms. Students signed up for registration advising by submitting a Google form, and Advising staff watched the back end of Google and called the students back as forms were submitted.

Although Douglas admitted that “living at work” has been difficult at times, he said, “I am grateful for the opportunity to work from home during this incredibly odd time in our lives. I am also proud of what my team was able to accomplish…with minimal, if any, interruption in the quality or quantity of services we provide.” He’s also been happy to have more time with his family, including getting hugs from his son just about any time that he wants to.

Nancy Howell (Communications and Marketing)