Pandemics 2020: COVID-19 and Racism Collide

Since the pandemic started, officials in Oklahoma have been turning to Monica Rogers, information science doctoral student, for analysis of COVID-19 throughout Tulsa County. This includes chronicling the rise and decline of the viral spread and discovering that cases dropped three to four weeks after the city of Tulsa mandated the wearing of face masks in public.

Rogers, recently promoted to division chief of data and technology for the Tulsa Health Department, has worked in information science for more than a decade. She enrolled at GSE in January of 2020 because of the PhD program’s flexibility and distance learning options, which allowed her to do her coursework from home in Oklahoma.

Doing her graduate studies while working full-time in a related field has been rewarding and illuminating. As she starts her last year of coursework, she is considering a dissertation research project about data visualization literacy to discover which formats help people better understand different kinds of data. Professionally, she translates data for people so they can have a better understanding of its meaning. For example, she has used her knowledge of virus data to advise school districts. She once suggested a district close schools, less than a month after opening because of high case and exposure numbers.

Since the pandemic started, her job changed and her interest in her GSE studies of data and data visualization grew as she shifted from forecasting the prevalence of chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes to monitoring COVID-19-related infections, hospitalizations and deaths. She now writes the talking points for news conference briefings and has presented data to a local school board weighing reopening. “It makes me grateful that so many people are invested and interested in the data and,” said Rogers, “using the data to inform their decisions.”

Getting classes and school operations to work well in a remote, cyber world was, and still is, intense, exhausting and inspiring. This spring, as the pandemic’s changes settled in, GSE deans, UB leaders and faculty took stock and adapted to the swiftly shifting reality, starting with the 10-day window for getting all instruction online after campus closed in March. Through Zoom meetings, they kept up to date, gained insights and marked progress. In one forum in April, Dean Suzanne Rosenblith shared her perspective on GSE’s experience with Barbara Ricotta, senior associate vice president for student life, and Jay Roorbach, EdM ’19, senior emergency planning coordinator.

For Rosenblith, the challenge was managing what felt like chaos by organizing, delegating, putting the academic mission first and helping alarmed students navigate the new normal. “We’ve had to be really nimble and it’s led to some pretty innovative thinking,” said Rosenblith. “I hope that stays with us permanently as part of the DNA of the university.” 

The panel also talked about the silver linings. During new, virtual coffee meetings Rosenblith started hosting to catch up with students, she was pleased to hear this: With all of the increased communication during the pandemic, one online student felt more connected than ever.

“We can learn from this,” Rosenblith said. “If there’s a barrier, we just have to figure it out what that solution might be.” 

Their work ranges from crayon drawings of nurses in face masks to sculpture and performance art, including a boat from recycled cans, a paper-mâché balloon egg and a yoga session with stuffed animals. 

“For me, I’m playing the role of a global citizen,” said Chen, who is a Presidential Fellow studying early childhood education in GSE’s Curriculum, Instruction and Science of Learning PhD Program. “I just want to help a little bit.”

Chen’s online exhibition features 100 art pieces made by 60 children in seven countries, including her 5-year-old daughter Leonie. The project followed her volunteer work at the Amherst library branches, planning exhibitions of children’s art for hallway displays. After the pandemic forced the closing of the libraries, along with the show she organized about this year’s Chinese Year of the Rat, Chen moved online.

From her blog on the Chinese WeChat app, she asked families to contribute photos of art related to themes of school closings, play and fighting the virus. Submissions came in from the U.S., the U.K., Switzerland, Japan, China, Canada and Australia. Soon she intends to add new exhibits to her developing website.   

“I call this art gallery ‘Born Artists,’” said Chen, a former finance reporter for a British news service and marketing and communications specialist at L’Oréal and Chanel in China. “I hope people can be inspired by these little artists and … be cheered up by their great art pieces.”

Her pandemic work at UB led to an unexpected career insight: How to work within a community.

“I didn’t understand the full meaning of community until I came here,” said Chen. “I felt community was something that was vague and general and big,”

“I didn’t understand the full meaning of community until I came here,” said Chen. “I felt community was something that was vague and general and big.”

Now she includes herself in a series of small communities: At UB, among fellow Chinese students, within her daughter’s school and in her current neighborhood in Amherst. She worked with them all in recent months, feeling inspired by the willingness of people to pitch in on recent projects—with fundraising help, face-mask distribution, video making and the collection of art pieces.

Lately she’s been thinking of community in a new, more concrete way. It is: “Something solid that you do have a connection with … A place that I belong to, based on different dimensions and domains,” she said. “Now I know what a community means.” 

In a Zoom gathering, almost 60 people, mostly white, met to talk in what was the first step in planning forums for creating, and learning about change.

“I do believe, as a school of education, we have a particular role to play in this,” said Dean Suzanne Rosenblith. She then read the names of Black people killed by police this year and stopped for a silent tribute to Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Sean Reed, Tony McDade and George Floyd. 

“Expect some discomfort,” said Raechele Pope, associate professor, associate dean for faculty and student affairs and chief diversity officer and moderator. “You really can’t grow without some challenge.”

Challenges ranged from the global to the personal. The dean had been thinking about the pain her students of color must feel at being dehumanized —for a lifetime—for the color of their skin. 

Another professor said he was proud of the protestors’ bravery and willingness to go to the streets during the pandemic. Someone else spoke up, despairing that the killings continued in spite of it all. “What will it take to cause the change that we need?” she said.

Parents talked about their children. Pope worried about her Black son’s tendency to pause when someone asks him a question. If police stopped him, would they shoot rather than wait?

White parents were concerned about similar things, but noted they are not in the same situation because their children are not Black. A mother wondered at her own unwitting contribution to white supremacy. What about the safety of unarmed protestors and her sons, who worked in law enforcement and carried guns? “They’re out there in the protests and I, honestly, can’t watch them.”

As a Black mom said this year was an awakening for her and her son. As young teen, he didn’t understand why, a couple of years ago, she was so upset to see him run from the corner store where he bought something. Police, or someone else, might misunderstand his running and assume he was fleeing from a crime. 

“Fast forward, in 2020, he’s now having a better understanding of why he’s unable to run,” she said. The bottom line: All kids should feel free to run. “I’m hurt,” she added, “and quite frankly disgusted with the way that things are being handled and where we are in 2020.” 

For the white people participating in the conversation, the issues included abandoning their “culture of niceness” and its practice of avoiding difficult topics, like race. “To be white and to be cautious around race … means it’s hard for me to contribute to change,” said Amy Reynolds, a psychologist and professor in the counseling, school and educational psychology department “For me, it’s been a lifelong challenge to unlearn what I was taught.”

Yet, within this somber landscape, Nathan Daun-Barnett, an associate professor of higher education administration, found promising possibilities of good things that may come. There are at least four, by his count.

1. Graduation rates could rise
“We may see more students complete high school, particularly in high-need districts,” said Daun-Barnett. “One of the barriers for students to finish high school is the successful passage of Regents exams in core academic subjects. This year, New York State cancelled the exams and will waive the requirement under certain conditions, including that the student successfully pass the course. This is the reason we may see additional graduates this year.”

2. Lack of jobs could also provoke an increase in college enrollment
“Related to the first, we may see that more students consider college as a possibility because they have completed the high school credential. It is generally reported that more students are second-guessing their decisions. It is possible that we see overall declines, but it is also possible that students will find that their alternatives to college are limited. The job market is sluggish and going to college may seem a better alternative. This is often what we find during economic downturns but the psychology of a pandemic that has an uncertain time horizon is different.”

3. Online schooling could ease chronic absenteeism and help students with health issues
“We may find new ways to make education accessible to those that have chronic health conditions. We know that there are tremendous health disparities along lines of race and class. And we also know that chronic absenteeism is an important predictor of poor performance in school,” said Daun-Barnett. “We make assumptions about why students are not in school, but at least for some, health conditions play an important role. Now that we are figuring out how to deliver education virtually, we may find that it can be a vehicle for those who cannot be in school as regularly. We still have more work to do to refine these practices, but we are closer now because so many more educators have been exposed to these strategies.”

4. More effective online teaching
“We may also find that we become better at delivering distance education now that all students and teachers have operated in that environment. We have heard from online students that they feel more engaged by faculty now that all classes are online because we have had to be more intentional about how we provide a high-quality education when students and faculty cannot be in the classroom …These are lessons we can and should apply to all of our distance programs,” said Daun-Barnett. “To be clear, at this point, the in-person experience is better than what we provide in a virtual environment, but we may find improvements in these practices because so many instructors have had to shift their teaching to a virtual environment.”

UB President Satish Tripathi responded to calls for change in this unprecedented time by charging a new committee, which includes a GSE associate dean, with guiding university efforts to adapt and change, evaluating curriculum, finding ways to recruit more Black faculty and encouraging community conversations about race and racism. 

The new 16-member President’s Advisory Council on Race formed in July, with temporary summer input from Raven Baxter, a science education PhD student specializing in STEM communication, and continuing work on faculty recruitment with Raechele L. Pope, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy, chief diversity officer and associate dean of faculty and student affairs. 

“Let’s look at our organizations—our campus in this case—from top to bottom and figure out what we need to do, what we need to do differently, and what are some of the best practices that already exist,” said Pope speaking about the need to deeply examine university practices in a June story by WBFO, NPR’s local station.

In announcing the new university-wide committee, Tripathi said he was responding to three historic moments affecting Black and Hispanic communities: the global pandemic that has taken more than 200,000 American lives and counting, an economic crisis that left more than 20 million people out of work and frustration, anxiety and despair following centuries of intolerance and oppression of the Black community. 

“Across the country, protests have brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets … Their outrage has amplified the call to collectively address injustice, racism and violence. Doing so requires nothing less than meaningful structural change,” Tripathi wrote in his email announcement. “More than ever before, UB should serve as a bastion of hope and a community of action compelled by the greater good.”

During her work with the curriculum committee, Baxter was excited by the possibility of a course about anti-racism for students beginning their academic careers. “If you have that knowledge and that awareness before you go out into the world,” she said, “that will help to curb some of these oppressive cultures that we’re seeing today.”

Bringing in perspective, training and insight from people seeped in the work of transforming racism, anti-Blackness and institutional injustice was the reason for creating the new GSE reserve fund for Equity, Diversity and Justice Initiatives. The monies will help pay for guest speakers, workshops, consultants, professional development and other initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion.

“Like many schools and colleges of education, GSE is thinking carefully, robustly, and comprehensively about our sustained response to social unrest,” Dean Suzanne Rosenblith wrote to explain the philosophy behind the fund. “Our approach will be to attend to racism, inequality, educational injustice on multiple fronts – curricular, programmatic, policy, and community engagement.”

The new Equity, Diversity, Justice, and Inclusion Committee will help to implement GSE’s new 2025 Comprehensive Plan and develop new programs and policies focused on diversity and inclusion. The team, which includes faculty from all departments and is led by Raechele Pope, associate dean of faculty and student affairs, chief diversity officer, and associate professor of educational leadership and policy, began its assignment this summer, planning and executing September’s Teach-In. They now have shifted to reviewing curriculum and considering how to increase underrepresented groups of faculty, staff and students. 

The work includes developing a proposal, to be put to GSE for a vote, defining the purpose and function of the new standing committee. 

Pope is keen to evaluate and find approaches, including how advising, mentoring and pedagogy can address racial disparity. “We’ve got an opportunity,” she said. “There are students who are saying that ‘My experience as a Black student here is very different than the white student …’ How do we fix that?” 

Hard work is ahead, she said, but the current momentum is the beginning of fundamental change.

As professors leading classes know, reading books together brings people together in conversation and collaboration. This fall, Dean Suzanne Rosenblith took that approach with staff, faculty and students by launching a GSE-wide social justice reading project with departments choosing books that related to their work.

“I tend to be interested in fostering community and shared experiences–with COVID, and people feeling more estranged from one another, it became even more important,” said Rosenblith. “We are a learning community and when confronted with significant social issues, one way to address them is join together in a common learning activity.”

Chosen by the Counseling, School and Educational Psychology Department, the Dean’s and Admissions off¡ces and the Communications and Marketing team.

Chosen by the Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology.

Chosen by the Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology.

Chosen by the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy.

Chosen by the Department of Learning and Instruction.

Chosen by the Department of Information Science.

“This just isn’t done. Some may think we are lucky that we can afford to shut down normal operations. The fact of the matter is, we can’t afford not to. It’s simply that critical,” said event chair Raechele Pope, associate dean of faculty and student affairs, and chief diversity officer. “In the midst of two global pandemics — COVID-19 and racism — along with a global fiscal crisis, we are witnessing community activism and calls for systemic and structural change that are not going to go away.” 

The virtual event, held Sept. 3-4, deployed the “teach-in” format, modeled on 1960s-era educational activism. Faculty, staff, and students listened and asked questions via Zoom and learned about the impact of racial injustice, particularly in education. Keynote speeches included “We Gon’ Be Alright, But That Ain’t Alright: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom” by award-winning author Bettina Love.

More than 80 breakout sessions were scholars, alumni and community partners who discussed a range of themes—from anti-racist reading groups to the barriers challenges and successes of professional Black women and how students from a white rural community used digital storytelling tools to explore the meaning of Martin Luther King Day. The two days ended with a town hall conversation about how to incorporate insights at GSE.

“Change is both an individual and collective responsibility,” said Dean Suzanne Rosenblith. “As an institution of higher education, we continue this work through the radical act of teaching and learning.”

The discussions were part of a larger national dialogue about racism sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, and reignited by news of more deaths, like the September shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.

“GSE recognizes that it cannot make good on its mission and vision, or on its commitment to equity, diversity, justice and inclusion, without ensuring that all faculty, staff and students have a more fundamental understanding of the systematic violence against Black people and the role that education has played and continues to play in perpetuating systems of oppression,” said Rosenblith.

As the two-day Teach-In came to a close, people started talking about what it meant. That happened first at the final town hall session led by Dean Suzanne Rosenblith and Raechele Pope, associate dean of faculty and student affairs, and chief diversity officer. 

In the days that followed, there was more conversation in smaller groups. 

People said they were grateful that a tough topic was addressed. Speaking freely about the “elephant” of racism in the room was cathartic. It was also awkward and uncomfortable to figure out what to say— about racism, micro-aggressions and injustice of the racist U.S. systems that Black people are subjected to and that white people are protected from. 

And, in part, feeling uncomfortable was exactly the point.

“Discomfort and conflict are part of being anti-racist,” said Rosenblith as she spoke during the town-hall meeting at the end of the conference’s second day. “Creating a community and culture where discomfort and conflict are the norm is necessary to making anti-racism part of our learning norms and it amplifies the idea that anti-racism is a daily practice.”

She then highlighted a comment from keynote speaker, psychologist and diversity consultant Carlton Green: “If you’re not making mistakes while doing anti-racist work, you’re not doing anti-racist work.”

Ahead, Rosenblith said GSE will be looking for ways to support students who may have returned to campus changed or reeling — from a social and political awakening, economic distress, COVID or stress about and fear of the next instance of racial violence. For PhD student Chazz Robinson, the two days of lectures and conversations about inclusion, awareness and justice were gratifying. It was heartening to see GSE take this lead on combating the racism that shaped some of his own academic career.

“Through all the madness of the pandemic … the Teach-In was wonderful,” he said, adding that Bettina Love’s direct and sometimes funny talk about advocating for awareness and change was his favorite. He has used this time to consider his own research interest in finding ways for academia to support Black students like himself from poor working-class backgrounds. “We have systems and policies in place that don’t see people as people … I just hope that I get to be a part of this change… I feel optimistic that change can happen.”