Anonymous Contributor
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed significant and varied pressures on everyone over the past year and a half.
Governments, businesses, and schools had to make hard decisions about what to support and what to cut. People had to adapt to survive. These pressures even impacted our University’s administration.
UVA suffered financial hardship. Last fall, the COVID-19 testing tubes had openings that were spacious spit targets. Later, the University supplied smaller tubes, obviously to save money on plastic.
The University faced logistical struggles as well. For example, the Law School lost its fall break last year. According to the Internet Archive, as of April 24, 2020, fall break was scheduled for October 12-14. But by July 13, 2020, the fall break mysteriously went missing.
Students struggled too. Many students struggled with isolation. More accurately, many students struggled to stay in isolation. Luckily, the University provided a vehicle for vigilant, safety-concerned students to anonymously report these noncompliant embarrassments to the school.
The pandemic exacerbated the disproportionately-high rate of mental health issues among law students. I will not lie; I had my share of issues last year. I appreciated all of the University’s efforts to help ease these problems. Yet, nothing did more for my mental health last year than learning that on October 8, 2020, the University got us fresh apples for ABA Law Student Mental Health Day.
Last year, I heard rumors that the University was forced to choose between two initiatives for student mental health— either fall break or apples. Assuming these rumors are true, I can proudly say that the University made the right choice with the apples. It single-handedly fixed my mental health problems, and the general reception of the gesture was much like mine.
I implore the University administration, please do whatever you can to get more apples. Apples truly are the ultimate solution to the pressures of law school, generally, and pandemic law school specifically. I write anonymously because I am positive that I represent the entire student body on this issue.
If this year as well, a decision must be made between keeping fall break or getting apples, please do the right thing: cancel fall break and get those apples. You can always use the tried and true mantra “Because COVID;” we will understand and forgive you.
To summarize, the Law School did not have a fall break last year. We didn’t need it then, and we don’t need it now. If push comes to shove, we should once again trade fall break for apples as the perfect mental health solution.
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