As a resident assistant, my primary responsibility is to ensure every student living in the dorm feels safe within our community on campus. My regular duties include sending emails regarding upcoming events, campus news, and acting as a resource for students. I am always available to answer any questions the residents might have, and if I can’t find it myself, I have a long list of folks who can help out. On an average night the job is pretty uneventful, I hang posters and help students who might’ve locked themselves out of their room. The upperclassmen halls are always rather quiet, and our building has a reputation for being amongst the most uneventful. For the majority of the year, it was smooth sailing.
As spring break began to near, things began to pick up. In addition to my own classwork, I was responsible for meeting with every student on my floor of the dorm in order to complete a quick one-on-one meeting. With strict deadlines and serious consequences for not completing them, I began to feel overwhelmed. As I headed out for class one morning, I made a plan to knock on each student’s door while on duty that night, in hopes they would answer. Class was long and uneventful, like every class before it. Before we left, our professor mentioned off hand “stay healthy, I know there’s some virus going around, I don’t think it’ll affect our class though”. I made the long walk back to my dorm and carried myself up the two flights of stairs. I threw my jacket onto my bed and made a cup of tea before collapsing at my desk. My days’ work was not yet over, I still had emails to respond to and meetings to set up. My desk was a mess of sticky notes, reminders, to do lists, and a stack of posters I had to hang up before break.
My phone vibrated and I did my best to ignore it while I was working. It vibrated again, this time I looked. A group chat had sent an image, oddly cropped and without many details, but its message was profound; “The University of Maine would be shifting to remote instruction in response to the recent outbreak of COVID-19”. Without much information to go on, and no word on the website, I brushed it off as a hoax, I’d seen more extreme headlines over less. I continued working as normal. Again, my phone vibrated, this time more information. I saw the headline on the local news website, though still nothing on the school website and no emails from my boss nor the department of student life. I closed my laptop, my tea still sat on my desk, amongst the mess. I put my jacket back on and started off to my boss’s office, maybe she would be able to clarify what was going on for me. A few students stood waiting outside my door, asking what was going on and if they had to leave campus. I told them I was on my way to find out, but until then to continue as usual. On my walk over, I noticed the headline was now on the university system’s website, but still no email confirmation, nor a post on the official campus website. I entered the staff office; my boss and a few coworkers were already talking. It appeared as though everyone found out the news at the same time, all the way up the chain. We still had no news on what we as RAs were supposed to do, or how this would affect our jobs. My boss didn’t have any answers for me, and her boss didn’t have any answers for her. “So, what do we tell the residents?” I asked. Across the board, the only response we could provide was “we don’t know anything you haven’t heard at this point; I’ll send you updates once we hear back”.
Without any answers, I walked back to my room. On my way I saw cars being packed, and students on the phone, trying to figure out how they were supposed to react to the news. I sat back down at my desk, my tea was cold, my posters; still unhung. I could hear commotion in the hallways. It’s frustrating, having so many people look to you for guidance, when you, yourself are lost. I had so many unanswered questions, did I still have a job? Do my deadlines still apply? Have my responsibilities changed? I didn’t have a single answer. Throughout my duty shift, I sat behind the desk with a line of anxious residents waiting for me. I repeated “I don’t know anything you don’t at this point, sorry” until the phrase lost all meaning. During rounds I halfheartedly strolled around the building. Everything was quiet, just like the night before, and yet a tension hung in the air. At the end of my shift, I returned to my room. My tea still sat on my desk, my notes and reminders still clung across my wall and tabletop. I entered my duty log “all quiet, uneventful night”.