A Union In Transition
On Friday, March 20, 2020, the Arkansas Union team had an emergency staff meeting in the Verizon Ballroom. The only agenda item: classes were going remote, events were cancelled, and the campus was shutting down. There was quite a bit of news swirling around, and the team was understandably on-edge. But it only took three minutes for someone to raise their hand and ask: “But we’re staying open, right?” And right they 
were.
Cut to a few days later, and the Union was prepped for COVID operations. If you weren’t here before then, you might not have immediately spotted the difference. Furniture was spread out, and we had deep-cleaned every office, every hallway, every doorknob and handrail in the building. We decided to open only the Living Room and International Connections Lounge – with no food service or events or open offices, it seemed like providing spaces to study and read and get out of your house would be enough. There wasn’t yet a formal mask mandate for campus, but we started encouraging that behavior early-on. It took some work, but the Union was open for students. And we’ve remained open, throughout the pandemic, for students to utilize us as a study space and campus resource.
An Unaverage Day
Typically, our early-arrival staff are here by 6 a.m. to inspect the building and open by 7. We used to be open 24 hours a day, but now we use the overnight hours to run our heavy sanitizing machines. Mornings are obviously different now – most of our visitors are headed to Chick-fil-a and Hill Coffee Co., as they’re the only ones open for breakfast these days. Our daytimes are filled with keeping the ballroom and theatre spaces safe for classes to run at social-distancing capacity – a far cry from our usual slate of workshops and seminars and conferences pre-COVID. We’re focused on a new mission now: keeping the lounge spaces clean and masked-up as much as possible. With the library spaces under renovation, the Union’s public lounges have become the new studying hot spot on campus during the day. As we roll into the afternoon and evening, a few student events start to emerge: a student government meeting, Panhellenic Exec Board, a study room or two. We’re delighted they’re here, because it’s the only sense of “normalcy” we get. Despite the protocols, despite the masks and catering rules and distancing, we love seeing students in here. And at the end of the night, we shut the doors (another new experience for us), deep-clean everything, and get ready to do it all again the next day.
Cleanliness is Next to…
Cleaning, and the idea of keeping the building and staff safe, have been the most interesting part of this journey. Examining our chemicals for viral efficacy, changing staff locations and routines to give folks space, double-checking the UV lights in our air handlers, learning the procedures for isolation and testing with exposure… just like you never know what a day at the Union will bring, we never know what we’ll have to become experts in over a given year. A few offices around the building have moved and switched spots to help staff spread out. It’s nice to see a facility where people understand the mission, and know that to get back to something normal, we have to be abnormal for the time being. If you’d like some advice: teach your team to practice awkward conversations. When our staff re-convened in early July to return the building to larger operational capacity, we paired up and practiced asking students to keep their masks on. It’s why we still ask students do to it. Keeping the staff of this building safe is the only way to keep the building open for you.
Uneventful, As It Were
We’ve probably missed the events most of all. There’s been a bit of a comeback here recently, and we’re grateful for those groups opting to return their meetings safely to the Union. But we miss the endless series of logistical challenges that accompany a day’s worth of events in the Union. We miss quick flips, furniture shuffling, adjusting your microphone for the third time because it’s just not quite what you want. Sure, we’ve been happy to host classes in our larger spaces this year, but it’s just not the same. We miss the rush and feel of ten thousand annual reservations crammed into a building designed for a much smaller campus population. We miss banquets and step shows and workshops and trying to convince the catering department that they don’t need as many tables as they think. Most of all though, we miss working with the near-endless stream of students who come through our office doors, looking to put on the best event possible.
Dr. Rob Stagni
Staying Open, Defining Normalcy
We don’t know when all of this will end, or when things will return to normal. At this point, we haven’t even decided what “normal” means. We’ve actually enjoyed working some spaces a little differently – like the International Connections Lounge – and at some point, we’ll have to figure out what happens when the building starts to fill back up. We’ve learned more efficient ways to clean and sanitize, and we’ve proven that some of our staff can do some of their jobs remotely. We know that we’re lucky to be in an early phase of the vaccines, and many of us have been fortunate enough to get our appointments. But, the thing that feels the most “normal,” even after all this? We’re open. We’re the United States Post Office of campus – neither rain, nor snow, nor pandemic can keep us shut. We’ll continue to be here, for whatever needs you can think of, for whatever services we can provide. The highest calling for a college union is to the benefit of its campus community. And it’s much easier to do that when your doors are open.