Grace Urquhart, junior psychological science major, discusses the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the local theatre community and Jewell student experiences, as well as encouraging people to take care of their mental health through this trying time. 

I like routine and planning and knowing exactly what’s going to happen. I tend to like to be in control of everything that I’m involved with and anything that might affect me. I enjoy a nice equilibrium. This is a fun fact: I could not control the COVID-19 pandemic. I know, it’s surprising. Keeping my world stable hasn’t been my reality lately. My reality has been twists, turns and cancellations. That’s how I would describe my experience of COVID-19 so far – not knowing the plan because things were changing all the time. Everything happened so fast, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Events I had been looking forward to were being cancelled all around me. The last few weeks have been similar to being on one of those deep sea fishing boats during a large storm and not knowing where the next wave will come from or if it will knock me over. Not being in control creates anxiety in me. So does my nicely planned schedule being obliterated right in front of me.  

This pandemic, besides causing me much anxiety and being a monumental historical event that I will have experienced, has affected my life in a variety of ways. The theatre industry is not an industry with many consistent jobs. And when your job relies on the gathering of a big group of people, a stay-at-home order, though necessary, does not work in favor of your job.

Since January I had been working with Faust Theatre downtown as stage manager for their production of Spring Awakening. The run of the show was set for March 12-22. When we finally arrived at opening night, shows at other theatres all around us were closing their productions due to the virus. On the 13th, we made the decision to only allow essential staff to stay for the runs of the shows, meaning that I operated the light board instead of telling someone when to hit the button. By the 16th it was decided that the show could not continue for our second weekend, and all of the hard work and preparation everyone had put into that beautiful show was cut short. The show rehearsing in the space just above our space at the Arts Asylum closed before it even opened, so we are grateful we had performed for at least the audience that we did. 

I had also been mentoring a high school student director, Alice, who had written her own show about depression and suicide. Her show was set to debut April 2nd and will not be performed any time soon due to the virus. I had gotten to know the group of high school students, and I am deeply saddened that they won’t be able to perform. I am hopeful that a performance of the show will happen at some point, but at this time we just aren’t sure what the future will be. Some of the cast members were making their theatre debut in Alice’s show, while others were performing for their final time as high school students – both of which are important milestones as a thespian. 

Even another theatre job opportunity of mine hangs in the balance, as it’s fairly uncertain what the summer will be like yet. And as part of the greater Kansas City theatre community, I have seen how COVID-19 has affected my friends and friends of my friends who work in Kansas City theatre. Many have now been rendered jobless due to cancellations of shows. It has been a sad few weeks watching this happen and will continue to be a hard time until we find a cure and vaccination for this virus. 

Closer to home, we can look at Jewell Theatre Company’s cancellation of their spring musical, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. This would have been the last musical for the seniors, and it would have been some of the first-years’ first musical at Jewell – memories that we won’t be able to make up. And in general, speaking as someone who is not yet a senior, we have lost precious time with our favorite senior friends.

I’ve also lost my outdoor track and field season, like many other student athletes whose spring season is no longer in existence. Though I can anticipate next year’s season, I am grieving the loss of my chance to break my personal record this season, and I’m grieving alongside the seniors who won’t even have a senior outdoor track and field season or a chance to make conference one last time.

And, similar to a lot of Jewell students undoubtedly, I forfeit some of my organization’s planned campus events. As a campus leader, I believe we are grieving the lost time with our organizations that we adore so much. I also believe that this new lifestyle we have been forced into is an opportunity, as campus leaders, to lead and support our organizations in any way that we are able to do so. This is my call to other Jewell student leaders. Remember to check in with yourself and let’s remember to check in with our people. 

While I know others are losing much more than hopefully any of us will lose, such as a loved one, that doesn’t render our feelings about what we have lost void. We deserve to grieve too because we have lost important parts of our lives, many of which we will not be able to get back. Nonetheless, we will eventually overcome the grief we feel and find our way into a period of new growth. 

Finally, I want to make sure that all Jewell students get the necessary support and care that they need during this time. Please contact the Office of Counseling Services at counselingservices@william.jewell.edu for any mental health related issue that may come up during our absence from Jewell. The OCS staff are wonderful and are there to support you. 

Here is the link to join the Zoom meeting happening every Monday and Thursday from 3p-4p: Click here to join the Let’s Talk Support Group. 

Erika Storvick (‘18) has been attending Columbia University in New York City through the dual-degree engineering program at William Jewell College. Storvick recounts a chaotic two weeks as the city was overcome by cases of COVID-19 and her final semester was cut short. 

We don’t receive many emails from President Bollinger. I found that out when I was searching through emails to remember the timeline of events that has happened over these past few weeks. 

The first email we received was March 8th with a subject line “Time Sensitive Update on COVID-19.” This was the first day we were informed someone in our own community was exposed to the virus. Classes were then suspended for a few days while the university prepared to shift to remote classes for the remainder of the week – up until spring break. 

After that first email things began to escalate very quickly. Within two days we had another email that the student in quarantine tested negative but virtual classes would continue until March 30th. We slowly began receiving emails that all events of over 25 people were canceled. Professors started to panic about the difficulty of moving classes online. As an engineering student, online classes sounded dreadful. Most of my courses were hands-on, and the possibility of them being conducted completely remotely brought chaos to our whole department. 

That evening a few friends and I walked down to the Trader Joes on 96th street. We thought we better stock up on some food, very unaware of how quickly chaos was going to unfold. The shelves of Trader Joes were nearly empty, the line spiraled around the entire store, weaving through each isle. Some people looked panicked, while others we overheard talking about how big of an overreaction this was. After deciding not to wait two hours in line, we left the store. Once outside, we saw that a line two blocks long had formed to even get inside. Trader Joes had reached max capacity. I had never seen anything like it, and I wondered if those people were even going to be able to find the things they needed once they were inside. 

By March 12th, the day before spring break, we were informed all classes would be online for the remainder of the semester and those who could should move out of residence halls. However, this email didn’t seem too urgent. Things in NYC were stirring, streets were quiet, no one knew what to believe and no one could see what was going to happen. In two days I was supposed to be on a flight to Miami. Rumors of city-wide quarantines and domestic travel restrictions began to spread, and so taking precaution, we cancelled our final spring break trip. 

The following day, March 13th, a few friends and I took the advice of getting away from campus and the city for spring break and went to Cape Cod. Just two days after we got settled and comfortable being away from the city and focusing on self-quarantining, we received the latest Bollinger update. Everyone was to be moved out of their dorms by Tuesday, March 17th. We had two days to figure out a plan, get back to the city and execute that plan. 

We left that evening, the 15th, and headed for the city. The car was quiet and emotions were running high. Spring break had just taken a dark twist as we realized our senior year and our time in New York City was coming to a premature close. At this point we were just awaiting the next daunting email. We knew the bad news was far from over. When we rolled into the city, it was chaotic. It had been rumored that two individuals on my floor in my building had tested positive for COVID-19. Nervous, but equally excited to be back in my favorite city, we grabbed our liter bottle of Purell and gloves and headed to pack all of our belongings. By the next morning we were out of there and on our way to Cape Cod for the second time in a matter of days. 

I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t have time to make a plan. I just had to move in whatever direction was available at the time. I’m so lucky to have a friend that was willing to open his house up to those of us not from the east coast until we could figure out a long-term plan. We quarantined ourselves for the suggested 14 days before thinking about other arrangements. 

As you can imagine, the bad news didn’t end there. Within a few days we received the email that changed all that we had left of our senior year. On March 21st, we woke up to receive the final announcement from President Bollinger. He wrote to us “with three purposes”. Classes had been postponed once again (woohoo for 3 weeks of spring break I guess), all classes had been moved to pass/fail with no opportunity to uncover grades, and finally, we would not be going forward with commencement in May. 

Looking back on this sequence of events, I remember all the emotions I was feeling as it was happening – stress, anger, helplessness and awe. The somber emotions set in later because I was too frazzled to feel them as it was all happening. I feel the grief now though. I feel it for the seniors who never had the chance to walk across a stage in their caps and gowns. As a dual-degree engineering student, I was lucky enough to have this opportunity at Jewell two years earlier. However, commencement this May was supposed to be a celebration of the completion of two degrees and six years of hard work. The abrupt ending to life on campus as we knew it meant cutting off growing friendships prematurely and being forced to leave behind projects that we will never get the chance to see through, yet having to muster up the strength to finish classes remotely. Now, we will always be known as the COVID-19 Class of 2020. I imagine future interviewers asking about “a time you had to overcome a major challenge,” and oh boy do I have a story for you.

Caris Boegl, ‘18, writes from a hotel in Denver, Colorado,where she is completing two weeks of quarantine after having to hastily evacuate Jordan. 

From Jewell to Jordan

My time at William Jewell College ended in 2018 with a flurry of essays and comprehensive exams. I crossed the stage with a blurry sense of gratitude, exhaustion, relief and love for friends and faculty. The following autumn I began my MA in Arab Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. I took my seat at the orientation table alongside a former British government official, Naval officers, a journalist from Brazil, two Syrian refugees, anthropologists and a Cambridge graduate. Most of them were fluent in Arabic before entering our program. As I sat in daily Arabic classes and studied diplomacy, it occurred to me that I was the only student who had never been to the Middle East. I prayed for the opportunity. Three opportunities arose: a FLAS Fellowship which covered my Spring tuition, a Critical Language Scholarship to Oman, and a Boren National Security Fellowship to Jordan. 

Discussing these options with my advisors, I accepted all three. I postponed the second year of my Master’s degree in favor of a gap year. Last summer I hopped on a plane to the desert city of Ibri, Oman. I lived there for nine weeks immersed in Arabic. After a two week interlude in the United States, I moved to Jordan for 10 months. My language plan included Arabic coursework at a language institute in Amman. But this experience was more than linguistic. It was about exposure to culture and new people: tutoring refugees, chats with – or marriage proposals from – taxi drivers, going to the Friday market, hiking in Wadi Mujib, picnicking by the Jordan Valley, shivering in front of my heater in winter, tasting delicious foods, singing Arabic songs and harvesting olives.   

Evacuating Jordan

In mid-March everything came to a sudden halt. In my mildly traumatic evacuation, a series of coincidences occurred. I view them as miracles, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. 

For weeks in February and March, I felt a nagging and inexplicable urge to leave Jordan early, though COVID-19 had only affected one person in Jordan. My sense seemed irrational. Late one Thursday night, I decided to return to the States. Within the same hour, I received an urgent email from my fellowship: “Evacuate as soon as possible.” I started packing and cobbling together plans to say goodbye to friends. Some asked me a piercing question, “You will come back to us soon, won’t you?” My eyes welled with tears and I focused my attention on securing a safe travel plan. 

On Saturday, the situation intensified. The Jordanian government announced the closure of Amman’s only airport with two days’ notice. This sent me into crushingly intense hours of trying to find a flight amidst a surge in demand. Hour after hour passed with no success. Around midnight, one friend comforted me as I physically shook from stress. I felt dependent on others and God’s intervention. At 1:45 a.m.,, after six hours of searching and calling the embassy, I found a flight to D.C. through Abu Dhabi with a 16-hour layover.

The next morning, after minimal sleep, I vacated my apartment and rode to the airport. It felt surreal. How could I leave so suddenly? I refused to let my mind wander, saving my strength for my 30-hour trip. An airline clerk – realizing I spoke Arabic – pardoned my overweight suitcase, and I gave away two masks to fellow travelers. Oddly, my twin sister’s friend happened to be in Abu Dhabi at the same time as my layover. She booked me a hotel so I could rest for 16 hours outside of the crowded airport. Refreshed, I returned to board a 14-hour flight to Washington Dulles Airport. On the plane, an elderly Nepali couple encouraged me and shared their hand sanitizer. I alternated between sleep, food and music. A comforting thought washed over me: You’re going to be alright.

Before arriving to a major D.C. airport, I fastened my mask tighter in anticipation of five hour lines at customs. Multiple people had warned me about the health risks of transiting U.S. airports during the pandemic. However, I found Dulles empty. I walked along the corridors to my departure gate alone, wondering if I needed a mask. Security guards remarked to one another how odd it was that the airport was empty. On my third flight, I prayed for sleep. I had a row of seats to myself. I sprawled out, surrendering to the exhaustion of 30 hours of travel. After landing, a Jewell friend happened to be in Denver. She picked me up and drove me to a hotel. Unfortunately, I could not return to my family immediately due to health concerns. I had minimal savings because my fellowship had not released my final stipend. Worry overtook me. But, subsequently, my program offered to pay for my isolation-period hotel room for 13 nights. 

Quarantine Period

As I sit in isolation and write, it occurs to me that solitude is not terrible. It allows us to hear our souls. Perhaps my exit was a series of coincidences. To my eyes of faith, the events were the careful orchestration of a deliverer who lovingly foresaw, before I ever could have, the intense hours of my evacuation. Although I transited four international airports and likely came in contact with a thousand people, I have no symptoms for COVID-19. My evacuation was perfectly timed. Days after I left, Jordan imposed a military-enforced curfew. A siren sounded, and residents were instructed not to leave their homes under penalty of arrest. Over a thousand people were arrested under this policy. My mind often wanders to Jordan. Will its health infrastructure be able to support a country with many refugees? How will my friends who relied on daily wages eat? I do not have the answers for them or for myself. Because my program ended abruptly, I have no income nor preset plan for the next four months. But my confidence is in the one who brought me safely this far.

In closure, I will share a few encouragements in these hours of uncertainty. It is beautiful to receive others’ genuine offers to help. It is healthy to embrace humility. It is good to recognize the sovereign one both in moments of fragility and in comfort. As a recipient of extravagant generosity, I hope to give back as well. Please reach out if you need a word of encouragement or practical help. We are, after all, Jewell family.

Chris Seward, senior biochemistry major, addresses fellow students from William Jewell College and offers his thoughts on staying optimistic through this pandemic. 

To my fellow Jewell students,

Somehow I find myself writing this letter to you at 1:35 a.m. on a Sunday. About a week ago I was asked if I wanted to share my thoughts on COVID-19 and the impact it has had on my life. At the time I didn’t want to say anything because I was filled with plenty of negative emotions. I was upset my time ended early, frustrated our curriculum would have to change mid-semester and sad I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to some of my closest friends.

After saying a few choice words, shedding a few tears and reflecting a bit, I realized we are letting the coronavirus get the best of us. As seniors, we were allowing this petty virus to define what our class would be remembered by when it should be the other way around. After four years at Jewell, I have found one of the greatest traits I love about our community is the resilience we have as a family. The truth is we all are fighting our own battles every day. Personally, I first came to Jewell with the passion to create a drumline, yet, outside of music, I didn’t know many of my peers. Adjusting to my first semester at Jewell as a commuter, I couldn’t find the time to get to know the rest of my class, and I struggled. Sophomore year I received a concussion from my dog of all things and missed half of my fall semester. Junior year I faced personal hardship, and senior year we are now faced with the coronavirus. Yet, despite all of our own battles we may face, it is only through times of failure, hardship and trial that we truly discover who we are.

After having this realization and having plenty of time to think while quarantined, I decided to do the one thing I knew how to do best: I was a goof and created a TikTok account. After my first couple of videos, both my family and friends questioned the use of my time – and rightfully so. However, I realized the videos I made not only gave me something to do during quarantine, they made people happy.

A good friend of mine once told me “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” In these times, we should not wait for the storm to pass. We shouldn’t concede and admit this is how the class of 2020 will be remembered. Amid this pandemic, we should embrace the time we have and make the most of today – which obviously means making more TikTok videos for me.

I have truly enjoyed all of my time at Jewell, and I have truly enjoyed all the lifelong friendships I have made. This virus has allowed me to appreciate the time we have and remember what matters most in life. While this is heartbreaking for many of us, this is a test of our character, and I’m glad our senior class has the opportunity to face it. I know our class will not be defined by some virus. We are resilient. While we may not see each other again at least until commencement, there is still plenty of time left this semester to make TikTok videos and strive to leave our mark on Jewell. This is not the end for any of us. In the words of my favorite quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, “This is just the beginning.” While some of you may never see me again, I’d like to think I’ll see you all at least once more. While we have been pushed beyond our boundaries at Jewell, we have all been preparing for this moment. The tests that matter in life never are on a piece of paper or computer. It is life after Jewell when the real tests begin. I hope everyone finds the strength to push through during this time. I will truly miss everyone and the memories we made at this special place. These past four years have been priceless.

Deo fisus labora. I love you all.