VoWW Interview #1 - Denia Brielle Smith
Overview
"Voices of West Windsor" is a joint project between the Historical Society and SR Mosaic to fill in the gaps in our records of our town's history. We interview contemporary inhabitants of groups not typically found in our archives so that future residents can get a perspective decades later - much like how our perspectives of old West Windsor were obtained through interviews in the past.
Our first guest is Denia Brielle Smith - a political activist and human rights/social justice advocate. Still in high school at the time of the interview, she offers her perspective on the town's culture, educational system, and future.
"Voices of West Windsor" is a joint project between the Historical Society and SR Mosaic to fill in the gaps in our records of our town's history. We interview contemporary inhabitants of groups not typically found in our archives so that future residents can get a perspective decades later - much like how our perspectives of old West Windsor were obtained through interviews in the past.
Our first guest is Denia Brielle Smith - a political activist and human rights/social justice advocate. Still in high school at the time of the interview, she offers her perspective on the town's culture, educational system, and future.
Transcription:
Megha: Welcome to "Voices of West Windsor." This is our very first interview. Voices of West Windsor is an initiative started by S.R. Mosaic and the Historical Society of West Windsor in order to bring forward the more marginalized voices that nevertheless weave themselves into our town's fabric. The first person that we are going to be interviewing is Denia Brielle Smith. Denia, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Denia: Yes. I'm a junior attending West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South and I'm a local youth activist in West Windsor. I've been working in the realms of racial educational equity. I recently led a march under the Black Lives Matter movement in our community that had over a thousand people at it. And for those that watching that did attend protest, thank you so much for attending. And I've currently been working with the Board of Education of the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District to make changes in the realms of policy, education and programming so that students can come into West Windsor and feel as though that as students of color, that experience does matter and that we can teach cultural pedagogy in our curriculum.
Megha: What does West Windsor mean to you?
Denia: To me, West Windsor is truly my home. Although I've been in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School district my entire life, I moved to West Windsor 7 years ago in 2013. I moved to West Windsor after entering upper elementary school, and so a lot of my memories growing up have been with the West Windsor Community. This is where I’ve planted my roots, established ever-lasting friends, and wondrous memories. Throughout the years, I’ve resonated with growing up. I always remembered going to the fairs that would come every summer, volunteering at the flea market, attending local community events, and hanging out with friends at the 711, Aljohns, Thomas Sweets. Throughout the years, I’ve grown so many memories in the town that have resonated with me to this day.
Megha: In your opinion, what makes West Windsor unique?
Denia: Something that makes West Windsor unique is the people. They bring a taste of different cultures, arts, history, religions, clothing, food, and music. The main thing that makes West Windsor, West Windsor, is the people -- we are the life of the town. We all contribute different aspects of our own lives into the town, which ultimately becomes a magnificent melting pot that becomes our community. When members of the community share a piece of themselves with others, we are building relationships, unity, our identity as a town. And because of that, the people of this town are what makes us unique. While you’re able to go to another town and find similar demographics, the “spirit” or “soul” of this town is what differentiates it from the rest.
Megha: And would that be - would you cite that as one of the reasons that you believed that there would be a lot of people that backed you in this protest?
Denia: Definitely. Yeah, I feel that unity is something that is really special in this town, whether it's in school and sports, which I participate in a lot, or whether it's just in the community. I felt as though when leading the march, I felt that I would be supported because even though I'm not able to see it all the time, I know that there are people out there that agree with me and people out there that would support me and fight for this cause.
Megha: Where do you see yourself as a person in West Windsor?
Denia: I see myself in the community of West Windsor as a student and a youth activist working to pull the community together as one to combat racism and create a racially equitable society. I want to be able to advocate for racial and educationally equity and to inspire other students to become changemakers. Ultimately, I hope that when people see me, they can see that work is being done to help push our town forward and to enact positive change.
Megha: What's the word, a single word that comes to mind when you think of West Windsor?
Denia: A word that comes to mind when I think of West Windsor is that we are expanding. More people are moving into our community every day. The schools are expanding. Building more houses and apartments. Overall the town is changing. Not only physically but members of the community also expand their perspectives to learn more about other people. I think the moment that made me realize this is that I attended Village a few years ago and now it’s completely different from when I was last there because of the advancements to the building. It truly proves that time is of the essence and that our community is changing so rapidly to the point where we aren’t even noticing it. With the current social movement, members of our community are starting to learn more and change their mindsets. So not only are we growing bigger, we are starting to change our concepts and beliefs. I believe that this is truly a turning point in our town's history where we not only see physical advancement, but we see a change in our ideologies, and I’m excited to see how West Windsor expands for the better.
Megha: Where do you see West Windsor in 30 years? You said it was expanding. What else? Where do you hope to see? What is the future you hope to see for it?
Denia: I hope to see West Windsor in 30 years as more diverse, inclusive, and more racially equitable as the year’s progress. Currently, within the town, there is diversity amongst the various cultures; however, there is a small percentage of African Americans and Hispanic families living here. And so, something I do wish to see is that that population grows, along with the community making an improved effort to embrace its diversity. Something inherently special about our town is that we have so many different cultures, but it feels as though our diversity is only considered as a statistic and isn’t fully embraced and acknowledged.
Megha: How do you think West Windsor can improve to hopefully reach that in 30 years?
Denia: I believe that all towns have areas where they can improve, no towns are perfect. And as far as West Windsor, we need to embrace the various cultures and perspectives from its citizens and to function as a unit through community whereas remaining divided. If we were to take the time to educate ourselves on different cultures, religions, beliefs, and backgrounds and to come together to have these tough conversations, our community could be much stronger. I also believe that West Windsor needs to realize that the world is bigger than us. We need to recognize that there is a world outside of West Windsor and we need to start to explore this world and become globally aware citizens. Finally, I think we can improve by inspiring youth and adults to rise and make these changes. It’s not going to be easy, but if we all do our part to truly transform our town, it’ll be remarkable.
Megha: Is there someone in West Windsor who has inspired you?
Denia: Honestly my family, and more specifically my mom. Through everything that I've done, my parents - my mom and my dad - they both have been so supportive and so outgoing and are trying to help me in my efforts. Whether it was leading the march or honestly just reaching out to students to see who would be interested in and enacting this change with me... my parents have been there with me every step of the way. Seeing such strong role models and seeing how much they support me truly encouraged me to support myself and to move forward with this work.
Megha: You mentioned that you organized the Black Lives Matter protest at the West Windsor Community Park and over a thousand people attended. I want to talk to you a little bit about the process of you organizing the march and how you went about it. And what was your thought process behind it was. What inspired you to organize the protest?
Denia: One of the first things that inspired me to organize the march was witnessing a black man that could have easily been a family member or someone I knew, being murdered for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. And as soon as I saw the video, I knew that I had to do something, but I wasn’t sure of what yet. It was when I started to see other students going out of their way to lead protests in their communities that I realized that we all have the power to stand up and fight for what we believe in.
Something else that inspired me to organize the protest was recognizing the injustices being faced throughout the country and realizing that those very inequities can occur right in our backyard. When we look on the news and we see the inhumane killing of black and brown people, we tend to forget that racism has no barrier -- it can easily occur in our schools, our neighborhoods, and essentially everywhere. And so once I realized that racism isn’t something that's limited to one part of our nation, I wanted to share this information with others. I wanted our town to recognize that this is a very real problem that we must acknowledge now before it eats us alive. It shouldn’t take an incident of racial inequity to occur for us to begin to care about racial justice. And so, I organized the protest to make my voice heard, to acknowledge the problem, and to fight so that West Windsor can become a racially equitable town.
Megha: Did you ever think when you were starting it that it would grow to such a large scale as it ended up being?
Denia: To be completely honest, no. I attended protests in Plainsboro the following weekend and it was a good amount of people but it wasn't as much as it turned out to be at the one on that weekend. And so when I was planning mine, I was like, okay, maybe fifty or a hundred people show up. I didn't think it was going to be crazy because I had no idea how far it spread. With COVID and everything that is going on all of our communication has really digitized and we have no idea who that inspiration is going to. So when the march started and I saw all these people behind me [laughs] I was exhilarated like I was so excited and happy but I was so scared at the same time because I was like, wow, there's really all these people that actually care about this cause, and it really humbled me and made me realize that It's beautiful, you know, like our town cares, essentially.
Megha: How was organizing it? Were people helpful? How was the process of going about it?
Denia: Organizing the march, that day, honestly, it was a lot. It was chaotic but like organized madness. It had a lot to do with talking to people because I know a lot of people came up to me ask me for questions. Like "what can we do after this?" or “what do you believe about this?" So it's a lot of communication and people skills and In terms of organizing there was also a lot of students in organizations that came to help organize the march.
I know there was a group of alumni from High School North and High School South who brought snacks and food. There was an organization that came so that young woman could register to vote and honestly, I feel as though organizing the protests wasn't only- wasn't only my part. I led the protest but it was a community that made the protest... the protest. People came to contributed their own food and their petitions and everything that they had to do. And if it wasn't for the greater community of West Windsor the protest could have never been as big as it was.
In the time - like in the time that we're living with the coronavirus – and we are living in the middle of a global pandemic along with a million other things that are going on... ...how was the march that day? I feel like that with COVID-19, It wasn't really a big concern in terms of social distancing. I feel is don't people took it amongst themselves to make sure that they were wearing the mask as they succeed apart. We tried the best as we can to to have people from like students and people from other organizations, like at most points surrounding the march to make sure that people were following social distancing and were following the proper social distancing regulations But overall, I think it went pretty well in terms of organizing.
Megha: What do you hope to do in the future?
Denia: What I hope to accomplish in the future before I graduate is to promote youth advocacy and to inspire the next generation of students to stand up and make their voices heard. A movement isn’t progressed by only one person, its a collection of individuals working together towards change. And so, I hope that as time moves on more students will be inspired to become advocates. After I graduate, I plan to continue my advocacy through organizations in college and to pursue a career as a Civil Rights attorney.
Megha: Now, this is a question directed towards our town. In your opinion, do you think West Windsor is a diverse community?
Denia: Before considering whether or not West Windsor is diverse, I think it’s important to define diversity in regards to our town. Diversity is essentially showing a great deal of variety, which in connection to our town doesn’t only pertain to race. Diversity in West Windsor could be regarding race, sexual orientation, culture, religion, and various other factors. I believe that we have a large minority population in connection to race; however, I’m unsure of the diversity of our town regarding the other factors that contribute to diversity. I believe that West Windsor isn’t 100% diverse, rather we’re slightly diverse. This is still a lot more than our town has to do in the realms of diversity.
Megha: You mentioned that you're working with the school board to adjust our curriculum. In what ways do you think that we can grow and improve as a district? I think our school curriculum should change and adapt in regards to the changing climate by acknowledging this current social movement in the classroom and to not be afraid to have those tough discussions. Personally, whenever I've been in the class and we decide to talk about racism or social justice, they treat it as though it's a thing of the past instead of the present. And we have to recognize that these injustices are very real and that they manifest in our society today.
And while this is unpleasant and it is a jarring conversation to have, it's ultimately the truth. And until we acknowledge the truth, we can't work to change it. So I feel that starting acknowledge these inequities in our society is a big part of it, which comes through changes to social studies and language arts curriculum. And I feel as though we also should include cultural pedagogy in our school curriculum and to start to train our teachers on racial sensitivity, because I feel as though ultimately we can have the curriculum for the teachers to teach to the students. But until the teachers understand how they're supposed to do that, we're not going to have an effective line of communication in terms of our education.
So it all starts with the curriculum and then the teachers and then the students.
Megha: What specific things are you adding or thinking of removing in the curriculum?
Denia: I think our school’s curriculum should change to adapt to the changing climate by acknowledging the current social movement in the classroom and to not be afraid to have those tough discussions. Personally, whenever a class decides to talk about social justice or racial inequity, they treat it as a thing of the past instead of the future. We have to recognize that these injustices are real and that they are occurring tenfold in our society. While this is unpleasant and jarring, it’s ultimately and the truth and until we acknowledge the truth, we can’t work to change it. I also think that the school's curriculum can change by including cultural pedagogy and to train teachers on racial sensitivity.
Megha: Do you have something you want to tell (other students/residents) to help them become ringleaders of change such as yourself?
Denia: When thinking of advice for the youth of West Windsor, a lot of things come to my mind but I think that it’s all summed up in a quote by James Baldwin that says that:
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
With this, I believe that while there is always the possibility of failure, we can’t allow that to hinder us from the equal possibility of success. We have to be willing to make our voices heard and to fight for what we believe in.
Some advice that I would give to the youth of West Windsor who’s aspiring to be activist is:
I know it might seem like a challenge right now to put yourself out there and to take action due to Covid-19 but there is a lot that students can do. I feel as though this digital space helps us now more than ever.
Megha: Welcome to "Voices of West Windsor." This is our very first interview. Voices of West Windsor is an initiative started by S.R. Mosaic and the Historical Society of West Windsor in order to bring forward the more marginalized voices that nevertheless weave themselves into our town's fabric. The first person that we are going to be interviewing is Denia Brielle Smith. Denia, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Denia: Yes. I'm a junior attending West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South and I'm a local youth activist in West Windsor. I've been working in the realms of racial educational equity. I recently led a march under the Black Lives Matter movement in our community that had over a thousand people at it. And for those that watching that did attend protest, thank you so much for attending. And I've currently been working with the Board of Education of the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District to make changes in the realms of policy, education and programming so that students can come into West Windsor and feel as though that as students of color, that experience does matter and that we can teach cultural pedagogy in our curriculum.
Megha: What does West Windsor mean to you?
Denia: To me, West Windsor is truly my home. Although I've been in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School district my entire life, I moved to West Windsor 7 years ago in 2013. I moved to West Windsor after entering upper elementary school, and so a lot of my memories growing up have been with the West Windsor Community. This is where I’ve planted my roots, established ever-lasting friends, and wondrous memories. Throughout the years, I’ve resonated with growing up. I always remembered going to the fairs that would come every summer, volunteering at the flea market, attending local community events, and hanging out with friends at the 711, Aljohns, Thomas Sweets. Throughout the years, I’ve grown so many memories in the town that have resonated with me to this day.
Megha: In your opinion, what makes West Windsor unique?
Denia: Something that makes West Windsor unique is the people. They bring a taste of different cultures, arts, history, religions, clothing, food, and music. The main thing that makes West Windsor, West Windsor, is the people -- we are the life of the town. We all contribute different aspects of our own lives into the town, which ultimately becomes a magnificent melting pot that becomes our community. When members of the community share a piece of themselves with others, we are building relationships, unity, our identity as a town. And because of that, the people of this town are what makes us unique. While you’re able to go to another town and find similar demographics, the “spirit” or “soul” of this town is what differentiates it from the rest.
Megha: And would that be - would you cite that as one of the reasons that you believed that there would be a lot of people that backed you in this protest?
Denia: Definitely. Yeah, I feel that unity is something that is really special in this town, whether it's in school and sports, which I participate in a lot, or whether it's just in the community. I felt as though when leading the march, I felt that I would be supported because even though I'm not able to see it all the time, I know that there are people out there that agree with me and people out there that would support me and fight for this cause.
Megha: Where do you see yourself as a person in West Windsor?
Denia: I see myself in the community of West Windsor as a student and a youth activist working to pull the community together as one to combat racism and create a racially equitable society. I want to be able to advocate for racial and educationally equity and to inspire other students to become changemakers. Ultimately, I hope that when people see me, they can see that work is being done to help push our town forward and to enact positive change.
Megha: What's the word, a single word that comes to mind when you think of West Windsor?
Denia: A word that comes to mind when I think of West Windsor is that we are expanding. More people are moving into our community every day. The schools are expanding. Building more houses and apartments. Overall the town is changing. Not only physically but members of the community also expand their perspectives to learn more about other people. I think the moment that made me realize this is that I attended Village a few years ago and now it’s completely different from when I was last there because of the advancements to the building. It truly proves that time is of the essence and that our community is changing so rapidly to the point where we aren’t even noticing it. With the current social movement, members of our community are starting to learn more and change their mindsets. So not only are we growing bigger, we are starting to change our concepts and beliefs. I believe that this is truly a turning point in our town's history where we not only see physical advancement, but we see a change in our ideologies, and I’m excited to see how West Windsor expands for the better.
Megha: Where do you see West Windsor in 30 years? You said it was expanding. What else? Where do you hope to see? What is the future you hope to see for it?
Denia: I hope to see West Windsor in 30 years as more diverse, inclusive, and more racially equitable as the year’s progress. Currently, within the town, there is diversity amongst the various cultures; however, there is a small percentage of African Americans and Hispanic families living here. And so, something I do wish to see is that that population grows, along with the community making an improved effort to embrace its diversity. Something inherently special about our town is that we have so many different cultures, but it feels as though our diversity is only considered as a statistic and isn’t fully embraced and acknowledged.
Megha: How do you think West Windsor can improve to hopefully reach that in 30 years?
Denia: I believe that all towns have areas where they can improve, no towns are perfect. And as far as West Windsor, we need to embrace the various cultures and perspectives from its citizens and to function as a unit through community whereas remaining divided. If we were to take the time to educate ourselves on different cultures, religions, beliefs, and backgrounds and to come together to have these tough conversations, our community could be much stronger. I also believe that West Windsor needs to realize that the world is bigger than us. We need to recognize that there is a world outside of West Windsor and we need to start to explore this world and become globally aware citizens. Finally, I think we can improve by inspiring youth and adults to rise and make these changes. It’s not going to be easy, but if we all do our part to truly transform our town, it’ll be remarkable.
Megha: Is there someone in West Windsor who has inspired you?
Denia: Honestly my family, and more specifically my mom. Through everything that I've done, my parents - my mom and my dad - they both have been so supportive and so outgoing and are trying to help me in my efforts. Whether it was leading the march or honestly just reaching out to students to see who would be interested in and enacting this change with me... my parents have been there with me every step of the way. Seeing such strong role models and seeing how much they support me truly encouraged me to support myself and to move forward with this work.
Megha: You mentioned that you organized the Black Lives Matter protest at the West Windsor Community Park and over a thousand people attended. I want to talk to you a little bit about the process of you organizing the march and how you went about it. And what was your thought process behind it was. What inspired you to organize the protest?
Denia: One of the first things that inspired me to organize the march was witnessing a black man that could have easily been a family member or someone I knew, being murdered for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. And as soon as I saw the video, I knew that I had to do something, but I wasn’t sure of what yet. It was when I started to see other students going out of their way to lead protests in their communities that I realized that we all have the power to stand up and fight for what we believe in.
Something else that inspired me to organize the protest was recognizing the injustices being faced throughout the country and realizing that those very inequities can occur right in our backyard. When we look on the news and we see the inhumane killing of black and brown people, we tend to forget that racism has no barrier -- it can easily occur in our schools, our neighborhoods, and essentially everywhere. And so once I realized that racism isn’t something that's limited to one part of our nation, I wanted to share this information with others. I wanted our town to recognize that this is a very real problem that we must acknowledge now before it eats us alive. It shouldn’t take an incident of racial inequity to occur for us to begin to care about racial justice. And so, I organized the protest to make my voice heard, to acknowledge the problem, and to fight so that West Windsor can become a racially equitable town.
Megha: Did you ever think when you were starting it that it would grow to such a large scale as it ended up being?
Denia: To be completely honest, no. I attended protests in Plainsboro the following weekend and it was a good amount of people but it wasn't as much as it turned out to be at the one on that weekend. And so when I was planning mine, I was like, okay, maybe fifty or a hundred people show up. I didn't think it was going to be crazy because I had no idea how far it spread. With COVID and everything that is going on all of our communication has really digitized and we have no idea who that inspiration is going to. So when the march started and I saw all these people behind me [laughs] I was exhilarated like I was so excited and happy but I was so scared at the same time because I was like, wow, there's really all these people that actually care about this cause, and it really humbled me and made me realize that It's beautiful, you know, like our town cares, essentially.
Megha: How was organizing it? Were people helpful? How was the process of going about it?
Denia: Organizing the march, that day, honestly, it was a lot. It was chaotic but like organized madness. It had a lot to do with talking to people because I know a lot of people came up to me ask me for questions. Like "what can we do after this?" or “what do you believe about this?" So it's a lot of communication and people skills and In terms of organizing there was also a lot of students in organizations that came to help organize the march.
I know there was a group of alumni from High School North and High School South who brought snacks and food. There was an organization that came so that young woman could register to vote and honestly, I feel as though organizing the protests wasn't only- wasn't only my part. I led the protest but it was a community that made the protest... the protest. People came to contributed their own food and their petitions and everything that they had to do. And if it wasn't for the greater community of West Windsor the protest could have never been as big as it was.
In the time - like in the time that we're living with the coronavirus – and we are living in the middle of a global pandemic along with a million other things that are going on... ...how was the march that day? I feel like that with COVID-19, It wasn't really a big concern in terms of social distancing. I feel is don't people took it amongst themselves to make sure that they were wearing the mask as they succeed apart. We tried the best as we can to to have people from like students and people from other organizations, like at most points surrounding the march to make sure that people were following social distancing and were following the proper social distancing regulations But overall, I think it went pretty well in terms of organizing.
Megha: What do you hope to do in the future?
Denia: What I hope to accomplish in the future before I graduate is to promote youth advocacy and to inspire the next generation of students to stand up and make their voices heard. A movement isn’t progressed by only one person, its a collection of individuals working together towards change. And so, I hope that as time moves on more students will be inspired to become advocates. After I graduate, I plan to continue my advocacy through organizations in college and to pursue a career as a Civil Rights attorney.
Megha: Now, this is a question directed towards our town. In your opinion, do you think West Windsor is a diverse community?
Denia: Before considering whether or not West Windsor is diverse, I think it’s important to define diversity in regards to our town. Diversity is essentially showing a great deal of variety, which in connection to our town doesn’t only pertain to race. Diversity in West Windsor could be regarding race, sexual orientation, culture, religion, and various other factors. I believe that we have a large minority population in connection to race; however, I’m unsure of the diversity of our town regarding the other factors that contribute to diversity. I believe that West Windsor isn’t 100% diverse, rather we’re slightly diverse. This is still a lot more than our town has to do in the realms of diversity.
Megha: You mentioned that you're working with the school board to adjust our curriculum. In what ways do you think that we can grow and improve as a district? I think our school curriculum should change and adapt in regards to the changing climate by acknowledging this current social movement in the classroom and to not be afraid to have those tough discussions. Personally, whenever I've been in the class and we decide to talk about racism or social justice, they treat it as though it's a thing of the past instead of the present. And we have to recognize that these injustices are very real and that they manifest in our society today.
And while this is unpleasant and it is a jarring conversation to have, it's ultimately the truth. And until we acknowledge the truth, we can't work to change it. So I feel that starting acknowledge these inequities in our society is a big part of it, which comes through changes to social studies and language arts curriculum. And I feel as though we also should include cultural pedagogy in our school curriculum and to start to train our teachers on racial sensitivity, because I feel as though ultimately we can have the curriculum for the teachers to teach to the students. But until the teachers understand how they're supposed to do that, we're not going to have an effective line of communication in terms of our education.
So it all starts with the curriculum and then the teachers and then the students.
Megha: What specific things are you adding or thinking of removing in the curriculum?
Denia: I think our school’s curriculum should change to adapt to the changing climate by acknowledging the current social movement in the classroom and to not be afraid to have those tough discussions. Personally, whenever a class decides to talk about social justice or racial inequity, they treat it as a thing of the past instead of the future. We have to recognize that these injustices are real and that they are occurring tenfold in our society. While this is unpleasant and jarring, it’s ultimately and the truth and until we acknowledge the truth, we can’t work to change it. I also think that the school's curriculum can change by including cultural pedagogy and to train teachers on racial sensitivity.
Megha: Do you have something you want to tell (other students/residents) to help them become ringleaders of change such as yourself?
Denia: When thinking of advice for the youth of West Windsor, a lot of things come to my mind but I think that it’s all summed up in a quote by James Baldwin that says that:
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
With this, I believe that while there is always the possibility of failure, we can’t allow that to hinder us from the equal possibility of success. We have to be willing to make our voices heard and to fight for what we believe in.
Some advice that I would give to the youth of West Windsor who’s aspiring to be activist is:
- Don’t be afraid to reach out to other youth activists for help
- Don’t be afraid to fight for something that you believe in. Speak up. It only takes one person to make a difference.
- Research what you want to advocate for and discover your passion
- Utilize social media to your advantage to make your voice heard
I know it might seem like a challenge right now to put yourself out there and to take action due to Covid-19 but there is a lot that students can do. I feel as though this digital space helps us now more than ever.