Feature: Community Response to COVID-19

People across the globe continued to come together this year to address the COVID-19 pandemic. At Tufts, students were invited to return to campus in person and students, faculty, and staff completed a successful academic year with the use of new protocols like testing, physical distancing, face coverings, and vaccination.

With some students unable to return to campus or needing to isolate after exposure to COVID-19, faculty quickly adapted to offer hybrid classes with both in-person and virtual elements. From Zoom discussion pods and Slack chats to make-at-home kits to podcasts and videos, faculty and students got creative this year.

The School of Engineering community continued to give back and to conduct research related to COVID-19. Professor Helen Suh of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) led a study of camps for children that remained open during the summer of 2020, to determine the effectiveness of everyday measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 among children and staff within camp environments. The researchers found that face coverings were key and that coronavirus spread reflected community spread.

MS student Tom Ribeiro of the Department

Helen Suh of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and colleagues developed an award-winning app to help users understand their risk of contracting COVID-19. The team’s app, called Covis, won first place in two rounds of the MIT COVID-19 Challenge’s Beat the Pandemic I and II — virtual hackathons that addressed pressing issues rising from the COVID-19 crisis.

On the one-year anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, senior Jared Jaramillo of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) looks back at the ways that the community stepped up to help underrepresented, first-generation, and low-income students at Tufts when students returned home in 2020.

I think shock and disbelief were the biggest feelings that everyone shared when we first got the email about the university closing down. There was a couple of hours of what I would call a standstill, in the sense of asking myself and others: “What is going on?”

But because money was allocated, students were able to get a huge amount of support. From the FIRST Resource Center, we heard things like: “We’re buying boxes. Just pack all your stuff. We’ll figure out where to put it.” Or: “We know a flight back home costs a lot of money—no problem. We will help pay for your ticket.” That level of support ended up being very helpful.

What I remember most clearly now is how, even in this chaotic time, everyone really helped out so that students could stay calm and get home. Our engineering professors understood what we were going through and were lenient about the assignments that had been expected from us. The students helped each other out; I would drive people to the airport and help those who were lucky enough to find a storage locker move their belongings.

As engineers, we often struggle through difficult patches with projects and assignments. COVID-19 took that struggle to a different level of reality. Now, it wasn’t just academics, but real life. To see how people—staff, professors, peers, and students—rose to meet that difficulty was extraordinary. We were fortunate to have people who understood that there are things more important right now than finishing a project or a homework assignment. It came down to “Let’s get you taken care of. Let’s help take care of each other.”

Read more at go.tufts.edu/jaramillo

Jared Jaramillo