The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a huge toll on not only students’ academic lives but their extracurricular lives as well. After numerous discussions with peer schools and Choate faculty, Head of School Dr. Alex Curtis decided to suspend all on-campus activities until the end of spring term. Similarly, after a conference call on March 16, the Founders League directors decided unanimously to cancel the spring season of Founders League athletics this year.
Even though all activities have transitioned to virtual platforms, the Student Activities Center (SAC) has not given up on maintaining student club life and weekend activities. As soon as the decision was made to switch to virtual learning, Ms. Alex Long and Ms. Colleen Kazar, Director and Assistant of Student Activities, respectively, began to discuss how to preserve the communal and fun aspects of student life. After many conversations with peer schools, Ms. Kazar concluded, “Although we cannot meet with students physically, we are utilizing platforms such as Zoom as our best alternative to see and interact with students.”
Last Friday afternoon, the SAC hosted a virtual dance party DJ’ed by Maxwell Brown ’21. “We coordinated for a student DJ to play music, and we were able to see as students entered the party and danced at their own homes,” Ms. Long said.
Brown said, “It was a new experience. I’ve never done anything like this before. But it was definitely worth the shot because I think a lot of people enjoyed it.”
According to Brown, more than 30 people attended the dance. Since the dance was virtual, Brown felt that “it was harder because I had to swipe to see people’s reactions to the music.” He added, “It definitely was an untraditional SAC dance, but we made it work.”
Brown believes that this online event was as fun as an in-person dance and enjoyed getting to connect members of Choate’s campus: “I am glad I was able to take part in bringing the community together during this time.”
Aileen Cobb ’20, who attended the dance, said, “It was nice to see a lot of the community all together again, and there was a really fun energy, especially with Max DJing.”
The SAC has decided to utilize Instagram as the main platform for advertising upcoming club events. Ms. Long and Ms. Kazar highly encourage club leaders to continue running club meetings with virtual resources such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. “If anyone needs support in facilitating virtual meetings, we are happy to serve as a resource,” Ms. Kazar said.
Clubs such as Choate’s Programming Union (CPU), Economics Club, and the Do-It Club have already made concrete plans for the spring term. Aiyu Kamate ’21, co-leader of CPU, said, “Zoom hasn’t made CPU inactive at all. This term, we will hold regular meetings just like any other term. In addition, we are planning to focus on working on projects as a club, and we also plan on hosting a programming competition.”
Monty Singer ’22, leader of the Do-It club, which hosted on Zoom its first spring meeting last Wednesday, said, “I was worried people wouldn’t come, but we had around 11 people come, which is pretty typical for non-remote standards.”
Many clubs, however, have also had to respond to disruptions of their former spring plans. Conor Brown ’22, the president of Economics Club, explained that the Harvard Economics Challenge, which the club has spent the past few months preparing for, was recently cancelled, leaving the club “without a sense of closure or purpose for the remainder of the term.”
Like other groups on campus, the club is doing its best to adapt. “Luckily, the National Economics Challenge, a similar competition, has been moved online, so we still have something to look forward to,” said Brown. Because of the reduction in necessary competition preparation, the club has decided to take a break for a couple of weeks.
“We are taking things one day at a time and trying to become familiar with this new normal,” Ms. Kazar said.
She and Ms. Long promised to continue to provide support for clubs and offer interactive activities to keep things on track as much as possible. “We are available by email, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom,” Ms. Long said. “We’d love to chat with you and share ideas, so please feel free to reach out.”
