In the gloom of over a year into the global COVID-19 pandemic, I had a small pick-me-up moment when I saw this photo, being used as a background image promoting my university’s April research conference:

It was taken two years ago (2019) at the poster session of the Scholars Forum. Students in my Research Design and Analysis in Public Health (PUBH 306) class collectively worked on the project on social risk factors for opioid misuse in the U.S. They executed (nearly) all the tasks: selected the health outcomes and the social risk factors; conducted a literature review; interpreted the statistical findings; wrote all the narrative sections on poster; and answered lots of questions about their research during the full duration of the poster session, which lasted all morning until early afternoon.

Although it was a tiny project, it was their first start-to-finish research study, complete from conception to presentation. As a research team, they experienced firsthand the collaborative approach common to public health, and they drew on each other’s strengths (whether organizing, writing, interpreting, or fielding questions). I served as their “numbers cruncher,” but they made sense of the findings and reflected on their importance.

These were IUP’s first students to graduate earning their Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health (across three concentrations: Behavioral & Mental Health; Environmental & Occupational Health; and Global & Rural Communities). Now all are either practicing in different niches in the field or pursuing graduate studies. Well done!

For me, this is bittersweet. Of course, like others slogging through intensive mitigation to slow the spread of the highly contagious—and mutating—SARS-CoV-2 virus, I miss being in-person with friends, coworkers, and students. On top of that, I worry that the university’s reorganization and seismic down-sizing will translate into fewer opportunities for students to shine.