COVID: Five Years Later

Five years ago this spring—on March 11, 2020, to be exact—Trinity College joined institutions around the world in swiftly adopting ways to teach and learn remotely during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Early restrictions on in-person interactions soon gave way to faculty and students choosing whether to hold classes on campus or virtually, while evolving government rules about masking, testing, social distancing, and vaccinations continued to guide policy at Trinity for several semesters (see the sidebar, In the rearview mirror, below).

Although the undergraduate students who were enrolled at the start of the pandemic have since graduated, some of the critical changes made and lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt at Trinity today—often in beneficial ways.

More prepared to face crises

Trinity’s Emergency Management Team (EMT) had been in place long before 2020, but it had not faced any challenge as sustained or all-encompassing as a pandemic. As the global threat grew more apparent, the College formed a COVID Steering Committee through which administrators, staff members, and health professionals met daily to address pressing questions and to create plans to guide the Trinity community safely through the pandemic.Joe DiChristina, vice president for student success and enrollment management and a co-chair of that committee, says that the meetings demonstrated the importance of collaboration, as representatives from all corners of campus worked together on difficult issues. “From that came the spirit of camaraderie, of sharing ideas, and the need to communicate more clearly to the College community,” he says. “Relying on one another was important in that scenario, and it’s a lesson learned that continues. Now we really know what kinds of practices to put in place and how to support one another in a crisis.”

Rob Lukaskiewicz, dean of community life and standards and an EMT co-chair, says that the team continues to meet several times a semester. “Some meetings are planned for training purposes, while others are held due to issues requiring emergency or temporary solutions, including burst pipes or severe weather conditions,” Lukaskiewicz says. “We also engage each academic year in a tabletop exercise, which presents scenarios like an emergency evacuation, a chemical spill, threats of violence, or a health crisis.”

DiChristina adds, “The lessons from 2020 certainly help us plan ahead. We’re always looking to be more proactive and more prepared. For example, the College offered training this year for employees about the prevention of violence on campus. The idea that comes out of COVID that sticks with us is, ‘What do we need to do to create a healthy community?’ ”

New level of care for students

Trinity’s partnership with Hartford HealthCare (HHC)—which began in 2019, giving students access to comprehensive health care services and sports medicine—took on greater importance as the College followed HHC’s best practices regarding masking and testing policies, as well as quarantining and treatment of sick students. As DiChristina says, “We relied on their medical expertise to keep our community safe and later worked with HHC to distribute vaccines on campus.”

Demetra Eleftheriou, M.D., M.P.H., regional medical director of campus care for Hartford HealthCare and medical director of the Trinity College Health Center, says the center adopted several policies five years ago that remain in place today. “We ask students to immediately wear a mask if they come to the Health Center with cold symptoms or fever. We’ve learned to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases as quickly as possible, and we’ve established relationships with local public health officials,” Eleftheriou says. “I think we’ve also learned the importance of getting the correct information out to our campus community quickly. Education is the key to ease fears and prevent misinformation.”

Haben Abraham ’10, LCSW, director of Trinity’s Counseling and Wellness Center (CWC), says that the center provided telehealth sessions for students who were remote or in quarantine during the pandemic. She notes that students still have access to telehealth sessions and online support as needed. “The CWC also continues partnering with Student Life, Campus Safety, and the Health Center to communicate student needs and collaboratively problem solve,” Abraham says.

In 2022, the partnership with HHC expanded to include behavioral health services for students through Trinity’s CWC. “To enhance accessibility, the CWC added daily outreach hours so that students can obtain same-day appointments, including emergency appointments,” Abraham says. “Another area of improvement was the hiring of per diem clinicians to assist with the increased demand for counseling services. We have clinicians—per diems included—from diverse racial/ethnic and expertise backgrounds.”

Abraham adds that the pandemic illustrated the importance of care coordination to help students access not only services but also alternative wellness initiatives. “Lessons learned from the pandemic helped the CWC formulate programming that centers psychoeducation, skills building, and community learning across campus and not solely in one-on-one sessions at the center. The pandemic encouraged us to expand the term ‘wellness’ and its accessibility to all students,” she says.

Expanded digital capabilities

The use of Zoom meetings and other virtual gatherings that became commonplace in spring 2020 has broadened. DiChristina says that New Student Orientation last summer offered about 15 virtual sessions for students and their families to meet with various members of the Trinity community and to have their questions answered. “Five years ago, we never would have done that, but it’s clear that students live that way, the families appreciate it, and now it’s something we lean into,” he says.

Alumni all over the world also enjoy increased connections with their alma mater through the Virtual Long Walk, which has offered dozens of online webinars, lectures, and discussions since COVID hit.

Expanded digital communications tools that were embraced during the pandemic still have an impact on academics, offering more options and accommodations for both students and faculty. Geographical limitations have become a thing of the past, as faculty regularly invite long-distance guest speakers to classrooms via Zoom, and Trinity students can attend remote January Term and summer courses from anywhere in the world.

Cheryl Cape, who retired as senior instructional designer in Trinity’s Library and Information Technology Services (LITS) division in July 2024, says the faculty gained experience teaching remotely, which they still may do if they’re not able to come to campus due to illness, travel, or weather. “They’re used to teaching via Zoom if needed, and students are used to taking classes over Zoom. And if a student needs to isolate, the faculty member can record their lecture or the student can view it live,” she says.

Cape adds that online learning management systems such as Moodle and the use of digital projects have become more popular since the pandemic. “Students can create ‘non-disposable assignments’ like story maps, timelines, websites, or podcasts and add them to a digital portfolio, perhaps to share with prospective employers,” she says.

Dave Tatem, head of digital learning and scholarship for LITS, says that faculty and students continue to benefit from the use of the Windows virtual desktop and cloud-based applications accessible anywhere. “Faculty now want to maximize in-classroom time as much as possible,” Tatem says. “The ‘flipped classroom’ model is not new, but during remote learning, faculty put the most meaningful activities in person. I think they’re now even more conscious to spend time in class discussing, answering questions, and doing experiments; they realize how precious that class time is.”

Tatem adds, “A lesson I take away from COVID is to invest in the right technology in the right spaces, and always be ready to adapt.”

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Sonia Cardenas emphasized that Trinity did not simply shift to offering remote courses but instead saw faculty explore how teaching and learning could be sustained in a digital format.

“Trinity’s faculty and staff responded to the global pandemic with agility and resilience, modeling the very best of a liberal arts education,” Cardenas says. “We created a flexible academic calendar that would support all students, and we revised academic policies to accommodate the full range of student needs. It was remarkable work in a short amount of time and under inordinate stress. But we emerged stronger and far more nimble as an academic community.”

Read more:

How Trinity College Went Remote: An Oral History

Trinity Community Persists through COVID-19 Pandemic

Trinity Faculty: How We Teach During the Pandemic

In the rearview mirror