The Reluctant Psychoanalyst: COVID Chronicles XI: Back in School (For now...)

Why has COVID lingered so long for us? Why is it still determining our functioning in so many ways? These questions are beyond the scope of this post, but certainly form a backdrop for these Chronicles that started as “objective” observations about reacting to the pandemic that have devolved or evolved into tracking much more personal reactions.

Many of my reactions have been critical – especially of my University administration. I know that it is easy to criticize from the peanut gallery. Many of my reactions may strike some as the whining – or the fragility – of a person of privilege. I don’t disagree with that. I have only recently become an “essential” worker. I have been sheltered from that during the most harrowing of times – and I did not have to live through the New York experience or that of Italy, Iran or the early days in China.

In fact, I am not proud of my reactions to this pandemic. I record them more out of a feeling of the importance of doing that while those reactions are still alive and somewhat raw. I am likely to remember them differently than I experience them, especially when I am working from a position of knowing how this has all turned out.

If it goes well, I will minimize my concerns. If it goes badly, I will certainly have a smug sense of “I told you so” and will remember myself as being prescient rather than concerned and uncertain. In any case, reporting on the fly, the histrionic (or hysterical) components of my personality are on display – as well as more than a few paranoid threads. I am living proof of the ways in which stress and stain causes us to revert to more primitive means of managing our experiences – and, perhaps especially for someone who is quite privileged, it is traumatic (with a small t) to have the privilege of being able to manage my own fate taken away from me. If that makes me fragile, so be it.

I have been in the classroom for two weeks. The first week felt more “normal” than I expected. At the last minute, I was informed that I would be moved into a smaller classroom that would only hold half of my undergraduate class. Until that time, I had been slotted into a classroom that would handle all of the students in each section, so I had constructed the class based on that. I was able to secure a large enough classroom for each section of my history of psychology class to be together for one of the two meeting times in the week. The registrar did not approve this – I just saw that the room was open and my students and I opted to risk using it and hope the registrar didn’t schedule something into it. So far so good.

Early in the week, half of the students, masked, are in the classroom. Half of the students are on Zoom. Later in the week, at least theoretically, we can all be in the classroom, though students can join by Zoom. In just the second week, more students are opting to be Zoom participants for both classes. This has occurred for a variety of reasons.

The first request for a Zoom when not scheduled came from a student who was returning from a weekend beach vacation and wanted to be able to come to the zoom room because her flight had been delayed for COVID related reasons. Now, our University went to great length to change the schedule so that there are no long weekends this semester to try to keep the students from leaving campus. We will hold class on Labor Day, for instance, to try to prevent this. It is obvious that the best laid plans of mice and men can be subverted by the average college student...

One student has opted into the zoom room for all classes (except exams where it is mandatory that they be in the room) because it is more convenient for her not to have to drive to campus. Others who have given reasons (they have been in contact with COVID carriers and don’t want to expose the class) and those who have not given reasons have joined her. Some have asked for permission to join by zoom, some have just showed up there. So, on the days when half the class should be in attendance in person, less than a quarter is, though the usual 90+% are there when we take zoom into account. On the days when we are all supposed to be in the room, about 75% have been, the rest have been on zoom. Today – that was reversed. Only 25% of the students were in the room, though it was large enough to hold us all. 75% zoomed in.

I think that most of those who are choosing to zoom and not give me reasons have COVID related reasons – including, I suspect, concerns about being exposed in the classroom. I think it would be hard to acknowledge these concerns, but I suspect they account for some of the behavior. At some point, I may be the only person in the classroom… Assuming we stay open long enough for my students to be as concerned as I am...

My University has installed a COVID dashboard; something I was railing against them for refusing to do two weeks ago. For the first week, there was one student reported to be in isolation. This week this crept up to two, then three, then four and then the report from Tuesday is that there were 13 students in isolation. And yesterday there were 18. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how many are isolated today. This is still a very small percentage of our student body, but based on epidemiological models of contact on campuses generally, it is concerning how many of us have been in contact with those 18 students.

My concerns have been generously addressed by friends and family. I have received commercial and home- made masks in the mail. Thanks to all. I have ordered lab coats to wear that I can throw in the wash when I get home from campus. My students are all wearing masks when we are in class and we are keeping distant from each other – even when we are engaging in small group conversations. All of our administrative meetings are via zoom.

Meanwhile, nationally, about a third of campuses decided to open. Quite publicly, UNC and Notre Dame decided quite quickly to shut down. The New York Times and other outlets have been carrying pictures of students partying in close proximity without masks at places like Ohio State. More quietly, Towson State, in Maryland, is closing. I know this only because a fellow faculty member will be driving back to pick up her First Year Student this week after having dropped her off there two weeks ago. Our student newspaper reports that one of our students who is supposed to be isolated had to be remanded back to her room three times by her RA. Other schools are closing. Are we next? Will we survive financially if we do? Will we survive physically if we don’t? These are the existential questions we are facing as we go about the business of listening to Hamilton! and trying to figure out how the founding and then running of a country is like the founding then running of a scientific discipline.