When classes were canceled last March at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, students and staff were in a state of limbo. From the chaos emerged a desire to document the pandemic. Enter The Holy Cross COVID Chronicles, a collection of oral histories, testimonials and visual media documenting experiences within the community during the pandemic.
Twelve students, under the guidance of Holy Cross history professors Lorelle Semley and Cynthia Hooper, collected these experiences last spring, summer and fall, covering twelve different subjects areas.
Now, with a new round of funding from Holy Cross, the project will continue this spring, a year after it started.
"One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot — because I feel like we all need to start asking ourselves — with the year anniversary [of the pandemic], what's really going to change?" Hooper said. "Do we even want to question this narrative that we have, like what life is going to be like when we all return to normal? What is this phrase 'return to normal' supposed to represent?"
We also heard from three of the 12 students who participated in the project: juniors Elle Kearns and Helena Connell and senior Sienna Ablorh.
Click on the audio player above to listen to the full episode.
Segments:
Lorelle Semley and Cynthia Hooper - 1:40
Sienna Ablorh, Elle Kearns and Helena Connell - 11:49
