This article is reprinted from the Seton Hall Special Collections and The Gallery Blog: https://blogs.shu.edu/archives/2020/04/reconnecting-with-each-other-in-t...

By Sarah Ponichtera

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life at Seton Hall as it has for millions of others around the country and the world.  In the name of saving lives by practicing social distancing, it has scattered us into our homes around the region and the country.  Although we are now physically distant from one another, we remain united as Setonians through our connection to Seton Hall.

Seton Hall Commencement, 1885

To reconnect as a community, we seek your stories of what this time has been like for you.  We have established a website to submit short personal narratives.  We hope that sharing these stories with one another will bring us back together in a new way, through sharing our personal experiences of this moment.  When we move forward, because there will be a time when we move forward, we plan to listen to these stories together as a community, reflect on what we have learned, and let them guide us into the future.

To participate, please record a 1-3 minute narrative about your experience, using any video or audio equipment available to you, and submit the file to our e-Repository.  Please also submit an image that represents your narrative, which will appear next to your recording in the published archive.

Questions to guide your response:

• What is your day to day life like?  What would you want people in the future to know about what things are like for us now?
• What has been most challenging about this time?  What do you miss about your life before the pandemic?  Are there specific places or things on campus that you miss?
• Essential is a word we are hearing a lot right now.  What does essential mean to you?  Who is essential?  What are we learning about what is essential?
• What is COVID-19 making possible that never existed before?  What good do you see coming out of this moment? How can we re-frame this moment as an opportunity?
• What is it you want to remember about this time?  What have you learned?
• After this pandemic ends, will things go back to the way they were?  What kinds of changes would you like to see? How will you contribute to rebuilding the world?  What will you do differently?

Choose the one that speaks to you, or address more than one if you wish.

With thanks to the scholars and librarians who came together to create this project: Professors Angela Kariotis Kotsonis, Sharon Ince, Marta Deyrup, Lisa DeLuca, and Alan Delozier, Technical Services Archivist Sheridan Sayles and Assistant Deans Elizabeth Leonard and Sarah Ponichtera.

Sarah Ponichtera is the Assistant Dean for Special Collections and the Gallery at Seton Hall Libraries. She can be reached at sarah.ponichtera@shu.edu.