Last year at this time I didn’t think I’d spend my senior year taking all online classes and seeing with my friends wearing masks from six feet apart. I think many seniors like myself probably feel that something has been lost this year. And we unfortunately can’t go back and relive our senior year like we’d imagine it to be. Sometimes I imagine there’s an alternate universe where everything is fine, and I can live my last year of college the way I thought I’d live it.
It becomes really easy to wallow in the “what ifs.” Especially when those what ifs become so idealized in our minds. Instead I try to look at how far we’ve come as a community. I think it’s amazing that we’ve gone this far into the year and have managed a positivity rate of only 1.5 percent. This gives me hope and foritifes my belief in the Gustavus community to take responsibility and stop the spread of COVID-19.
I like to think that despite the changes in place to stop the spread, we still have some things that are exactly the same as always. There’s still mac and cheese Thursdays in the caf, we can still hammock in the arb, and there’s still the Weekly— which I’m rather biased, but is an important part of the Gustavus experience.
It’s quintessential Gustavus experiences like these (more or less the mac and cheese) that bring us together and provide a sense of normalcy. It is my hope that the Weekly can help serve this purpose.
Every week our staff comes together to write about what matters to us, and capture meaningful images of these shared experiences. In a way, the Weekly serves as a long history of the student experience, with each issue acting a new chapter in the collective history.
With COVID-19, we begin a new, rather unexpected chapter that presents challenges we never imagined we’d face. Who would’ve thought that layout night would be conducted (almost) completely remotely, leaving our usually noisey office silent on Wednesday nights?
Still, Ben and I are committed to bringing you the Weekly as it has always been, whether it is online or in print, so we can preserve the voices of students. Furthermore, we can capture a moment in time that will define our generation far into the future.
While we all can get tired of numerous photos of empty classrooms or the vacant football field, we have to remember that this is a mere moment in time that future students will look back on. It is our responsibility as a newspaper to make students’ voices heard in a time of social change as well as an enormous amount of uncertainty.
So as we end this semester, I want to say that I’m so thankful for our readers to allow the Weekly to continue despite all the obstacles COVID-19 presents. In return, the Weekly will continue to provide a space for our students’ stories to be told and become a part of a hundred year tradition—yes the Weekly, (using the title the Gustavian Weekly), turned one hundred years old in 2020.
So as we close on the year, I wish for safety for the Gustavus community and despite the uncertainty of the future, I know there are still great things to come from us Gusties. And as always, the Weekly will be here to report on it.