By RYAN DICK
BG Independent Correspondent
Student organizations at Bowling Green State University are wrapping up their first semester during the COVID-19 pandemic. The unusual semester required groups at the university to quickly adapt to the new way of life.
For established groups, this meant changing how meetings and events are conducted. But for new organizations, it meant finding students willing to join during the middle of a pandemic.
Senior Donovan Gaffney is the president and founder of One Nation of People Against Racism, a new organization to campus this fall.
Gaffney said the organization has struggled to recruit members due to the pandemic. “People are so caught up and trying to deal with COVID, a lot of people don’t want to add a group on top of that.”
ONPAR is a social justice organization with the goal to combat racism and promote equality among different marginalized groups, according to Gaffney. The new group has 15 members and uses the online meeting format Zoom to conduct their meetings.
He said online meetings are helpful because they don’t need to rent out a room. “We can meet wherever the people are at.”
Earlier in the semester, the organization held a public online meeting for the community to join and discuss current world issues. However, Gaffney said the meeting was cut short when people joined to troll the online event.
According to Gaffney, the trolls were making racist and sexist claims and started to share vulgar adult material on their webcams. “He just came in trolling saying, ‘women aren’t allowed in leadership’ and ‘slavery wasn’t a bad thing.’”
Gaffney said the experience taught him how to efficiently use features on Zoom that can help prevent future incidents.
While COVID-19 has impacted ONPAR in many ways, Gaffney said the best thing to come out the pandemic is passion.
“COVID-19, I feel, has brought people who are really dedicated to this,” he said. “It is a challenging time for people, and you really have to be passionate about this to join.”
For the established organizations on campus, such as the Undergraduate Student Government, the pandemic required a transition to online meetings.
“General Assembly, Executive Board meetings and internal committee meetings all take place via Microsoft Teams,” USG Speaker of the Senate, Michael Johnston said. “Personally, I feel that the shift to online has increased the amount and quality of record keeping.”
One problem with the transition to online meetings is the lack of human interaction within the organization. This is because members are not required to have their camera on during meetings, Johnston said.
“This can present an Open Forum speaker with a screen of rectangles filled with initials and profile pictures. The lack of human expression and interaction takes away from the experience of a General Assembly,” he said.
With all of the difficulties USG has encountered during the pandemic, Johnston said COVID-19 has strengthened the organization. “Our response as an organization to the challenges presented by COVID-19 has shown that USG is an organization that is unwavering in its resolve to serve the undergraduate student body.”
While groups such as USG are meeting virtually, the Falcon Marching Band still meets in person.
Head Drum Major Derek East said COVID-19 protocols have altered what is taught during practice. The pregame show is out this year because to the common two-step spacing bands use violates social distancing guidelines.
According to East, the band also provided every member with two face coverings.
One face covering is worn when members are not playing an instrument. While the other is for members to cut a slit into which allows the mouthpiece of the instrument to fit into the covering.
“We have also provided all of our wind players with bell coverings, except for the flutes and piccolos,” he said. “This allows for a reduction in the aerosols that the instruments spray out.”
East said even with all of these measures in place, they also broke up the rehearsal schedule into smaller rehearsal groups.
“This means that the full band rarely gets to meet together,” he said. “It makes rehearsals difficult occasionally, but it also feels strange to not see the full band every day.”
During Football games this season, the band performs the halftime show from their socially distanced seat in the stands. East said he is looking forward to being able to sing the Alma Mater with the full band, once the pandemic is over.
