We're going down with the ship. That's the phrase my friends and I have adopted as we've chosen to remain here at Bard College, the last campus to stay open in the Hudson Valley in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic. I know this because a meme page told me, and meme pages speak nothing but the truth:
For real, though. I don't know that we're literally the only campus left, though it feels that way sometimes, but a lot of schools have closed. Bard... Bard has basically closed. At this point, every building on campus is closed aside from the dorms and our main dining hall, Kline, though even Kline is take-out only. The Campus Center is just open enough to receive mail through. That's it. The shuttle is technically still running, but it seems to have gone rogue. Some friends and I tried to use it earlier today, but it wasn't actually adhering to the usual schedule. I managed to step foot on it once, intending to meet my friends on it. Usually, it's packed to the brim around lunchtime. Today, the only person on it was the driver. It's probably a good thing that it's not packed. Avoiding public transport is smart right now. We would too, but I have some friends who genuinely need the shuttle, so it's a problem that it wasn't running reliably. I'm hoping it was just a glitch today, and not an indicator of something regular.
If I'm being honest, guys, I'm not totally sure what I'm doing with this. I think that's okay. Uncertainty seems to be a big part of what's going on right now. At least in part, for myself, I know I'm trying to make things feel a little bit more connected. I've never seen my campus look so vacant before. I'm aware that Bard has issues; Bard is an institution. I also really love my school, and it kind of breaks my heart that this is how I'm saying goodbye to it in my final semester. Maybe that's petty, in the midst of a global pandemic, but it doesn't make it less true.
I also want to explain Bard's response a little, at least the way I see it. I am not an official Bard spokesperson. I understand why so many campuses have decided to close. Disaggregating the population is definitely a good idea right now, and my friends and I are doing our best to follow social distancing protocols on a college campus, interacting only with a set number of people who constitute our "household". A major reason we've decided to stay is that, for a number of my friends, going home would actually be more dangerous. They would be going to the center of cities with high infection rates. I imagine there are plenty of international students who can't go home at this point as well, not to mention students who just don't have a safe home environment to go back to, and students who would have no choice but to go through high-traffic airports. I think from the outside it can be easy to see one school staying open while the rest close and see the decision to remain open as reckless, but I respect the school's decision to stay at least sort-of open to avoid displacing a massive amount of students. At the end of the day, a small college is just like a really weird small town. With the proper precautions, we should be able to weather this like any other community.
I say that now. I admit, I vacillate on this position myself. When I'm sitting alone in my dorm room trying to do work that should be a normal part of class meetings, or having nightmares about contracting the virus so far away from my family, I have doubts. It's when I'm with my friends that I'm sure what I'm doing is right, because at the end of the day not all of us have the ability to leave, and I can't imagine how any of us would handle this if not together. It's the moments with them, cooking in a dorm kitchen and gathering around a laptop to watch ridiculous YouTube videos, that things seem right.
That's the kind of levity I want people to find here, along with the reflections, and so I'm going to end on a funny note: the origins of this blog title. I am, undeniably, a lifelong nerd. My parents raised me that way on purpose. Watching Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of the strongest foundations of my relationship with my stepmom. I dragged a group of friends into watching it, and we had a discussion about who would fill what position if we got to be the Bridge Crew. I will forever be honored that my friends all agreed I would make a good Captain. We got into it enough that my older brother is designing a Starfinder game for us to play on Roll 20 so we can live out our Starfleet dreams. Our first session is probably going to be this Thursday, and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us!
So, as the Captain of our rag-tag bunch of space explorers, I'm doing what any good Captain would do, and saying fuck going down with the ship, not because we're splitting up, but because this is one ship we won't see go down. Take heart. Be kind to each other. When the world seems to be at its darkest is when individuals have the greatest capacity for spreading light. As Mr. Rogers said, look for the helpers, but then take it a step further and become the helper. We'll be taking care of each other here on Bard campus. Take care of each other out there too.
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