COVID Memory Project

What is the SDSU COVID-19 Memory Project?

The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant moment in our individual lives as well as our university's history. Special Collections and University Archives is collecting materials that document the SDSU community’s experiences and responses to this unprecedented event. This includes students, faculty, staff, administration and alumni at the San Diego and Imperial Valley campuses. Your story matters. We are SDSU!

What can I contribute?

We are looking for digital or handwritten accounts/diaries, artwork, photographs, zines, poetry, video, and audio files documenting the COVID-19 experience. Contributing is easy! Just click the button below to begin. When the library reopens, we will be able to accept physical donations that you're not able to send us digitally. For further information or questions, contact us at: [email protected]

CONTRIBUTE

Please review our Terms and Conditions.

I want to participate but I don't know where to start! Do you have some tips?

Here are some suggested prompts to get you thinking about your personal narrative, no matter what form it takes:

Students:

• What challenges have you faced learning in an all-online environment?
• Have you experienced food, housing, or job insecurities?
• Are you juggling family and caretaking responsibilities with school?
• How would you rate SDSU’s response to the pandemic?
• What do you miss about campus life?
• Were you forced to leave the dorms? What did you do?
• Are you one of the students remaining on campus? What has that been like?
• Are you an Imperial Valley student? Have you felt supported? How has this impacted your community?
• If you’re an international student, how did this impact your studies? Were you able to return to your home country/family?
• Were you in a study abroad program? How did the pandemic unfold in the country where you were studying? Did you have a hard time getting home?
• What are your thoughts on Netflix’s Tiger King?

Faculty, staff and administrators:

• If working remotely, what has working at home been like?
• If working on campus, what has that been like?
• Are you at the Imperial Valley campus? How has the pandemic affected your work? Your community?
• Are you juggling family and caretaking responsibilities with work?
• How are you communicating with colleagues and students?
• What changes have you had to make to your teaching?
• What challenges have you faced in this online environment?
• Have you had to adjust your teaching philosophy?

Alumni:

• How would you rate SDSU’s response to the pandemic?
• Have you felt disconnected from the campus community? What have you missed the most?
• How might this compare or contrast to your own college experience?

Everyone:

• How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you, your family or your community?
• What challenges have you encountered?
• How are you coping with social distancing?
• How has your daily life changed?
• How is your community responding to the crisis?
• Have you experienced any major milestones or life events since the start of the pandemic (birthdays, weddings, funerals, graduations, etc)?

Support

The pandemic has impacted our community mentally, physically, socially, and financially. Support is available. Students seeking mental health services should contact Counseling and Psychological Services. Students experiencing food and housing insecurities can contact the Economic Crisis Response Team. Faculty and staff can seek emotional support through the Employee Assistance Program.

45 CFR 46.102(l)(1) deems activities such as these as not being research and thus not applicable to IRB approval. "For purposes of this part, the following activities are deemed not to be research: (1) Scholarly and journalistic activities (e.g., oral history, journalism, biography, literary criticism, legal research, and historical scholarship), including the collection and use of information, that focus directly on the specific individuals about whom the information is collected."