As summer trades its torrid weather for fall’s “maturing sun,” big decisions loom in the air regarding the future at the College. As anticipation builds up, we look within our community as well as outside it to find overlapping issues, from COVID-19 to systemic racism, all chipping away at our complacency. While it seems like we are approaching a boiling point, we also find ourselves asking: could this crisis present us with opportunities?
In the latest issues of Mirror, we have been writing about uncertainty and trying to find ways to handle it — or better still, learn to thrive off of it. Before these big decisions hit, however, it is worthwhile to reiterate that despite the general confusion, we are faced with many choices.
In this issue, we turned toward history to disentangle the complicated picture we are part of and inform our future decisions. We compared the novel coronavirus outbreak to the 1918 flu pandemic, in terms of their impact and the College’s reaction. A hundred years after women’s suffrage became a reality in the United States, we investigated the issue of gender parity in Greek life. Through these articles we asked what lessons we have learned. Looking ahead to September, when students and professors will begin to repopulate campus, we gauged the mixed feelings of anxiety and excitement in the Upper Valley. We also heard from students hitting the brakes for a minute — or a gap year — to reflect on the tumultuous present before they continue their education. We hope these stories incite reflection before the flurry of fall term.
