SEAHO Report - Spring 2020 - 8

SEAHO NEWS

We are ready to say WELCOME (back) HOME Deacs'!
In an effort to find normalcy in the midst of chaos...
The Office of Residence Life and Housing at Wake
Forest University started a tradition last year to
share Statements of Gratitude at the end of each of
our biweekly all professional staff team meetings.
It provides us a moment to shout out someone on
the staff, from RAs up to our Dean of RL&H, for just
about anything. I mean, who doesn't love a word of
encouragement or the acknowledgement that I see you
doing something great and I want to tell the whole
world and by world I mean our office?!?
Fast forward to the virus known as COVID-19 and its
great impact on everyone's campus. Most of our office
workforce, like many others, are working remotely and
doing our best to make this "new normal" work for
us. Between managing home, whether that is alone,
with a partner, kiddos, caring for parents/relatives,
wrangling pets or whatnot, life is truly different. Yet,
while it's very different we are also still trying to stay
the course and keep normal-ish operations running.
We are having conversations regarding student
move out, or perhaps them not moving out, student
health and safety, de-densifying spaces on campus to
separate our students, family and/or guests coming on
to campus/our halls and how that is managed, public
health concerns, students who don't understand social
distancing nor care to understand it and a plethora
of other things that are swirling around. Yet through
it all, we still needed to take care of our team and at
Wake Forest we made that a priority.
A little backstory for relevance...I joked in what was
basically our last in-person staff meeting when
COVID-19 was first looming that if this pandemic
and its ripple effects had hit our staff team last year,
I am not sure we would have made it. Last year our
office was in the middle of chaos to put it nicely. Staff
morale was at its lowest due to key staff vacancies
and still trying to run normal operations in less than

8

normal conditions and while that is not unique to
Wake, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the
toll it took on us. We did our best to be there for our
residents and other constituents but as a whole we
were tired and stretched very thin but we kept going.
Why...because we had to, it's what we do in this field.
Bottom line, we have learned a valuable lesson as to
why expressing gratitude is so important, not just for
us professionally but personally.
So, back to the present...After a prompt from one of
our staff asking us to keep statements of gratitude
going outside of our in-person meeting time, our
Dean leaped into action. He started an email thread
and asked us all to reply all and share all the greatness
still going on. This simple gesture brought out some
amazing moments of gratitude. The email thread
shouts out our thankfulness for resilience on the
personal and staff team level, thankfulness to our staff
for acting and reacting quickly when matters arose,
gratitude for our staff for navigating all the ambiguity
that has come with this ever evolving pandemic, the
amazingness of our RAs and GHDs, our ability to pivot
and pivot some more when new information was
shared for how we could continue to keep our students
as safe as possible and a plethora of other amazing
sentiments. These little moments meant a lot to our
entire team as we navigated these unchartered waters
together. We reminded each other to take a deep
breath, show yourself some grace, get outside (but stay
6 feet away from others) and don't forget even when
working from home that PTO is still an important
thing.
I am thankful for our entire team and our ability to not
lose sight of the most important thing, we will always
be stronger together!
Keep fighting the good fight everyone! Stay healthy!
Stay hydrated!
SEAHO Report - Spring 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SEAHO Report - Spring 2020
