Daniel Clark, August 22nd, 2024
Title
Daniel Clark, August 22nd, 2024
Description
In this interview Daniel Clark shares the struggles of being a university teacher during the lockdown of Covid-19.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Date
August 22nd 2024
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Daniel Clark
Brief Biography
Daniel Clark is an Ann Arbor resident and has taught History at Oakland University since 1995.
Interviewer's Name
Kevin Hawthorne
Interview Length
24:38
Transcription
Kevin Hawthorne: Hello, this is Kevin Hawthorne.
Daniel Clark: I just wanted to double check on the release form. Do you need me to physically sign it and turn it back to you, or can I just sign it, with type, that by typing in my name and send it back to you that way.
KH: You can do it digitally.
DC: Okay. Sounds good. I'll send them.
KH: All right, all right. This is Kevin Hawthorne with the Detroit Historical Society for the oral history on Covid 19. And today I am joined with may you please introduce yourself.
DC: Oh, yeah. My name is, Daniel Clark. I teach history at Oakland University.
KH: Could you please spell your name for the record?
DC: Sure D a n i e l C l a r k.
KH: All right. And while you currently teach in Oakland University, where do you currently live?
DC: I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
KH: How long have you lived in that area?
DC: Oh, I moved to Ann Arbor in 1989. So quite a while.
KH: And have you.. How long have you taught Oakland University?
DC: I first started Oakland University in 1995, so going on 30 years.
KH: And through that experience, what is your experience been just going from Ann Arbor to, Oakland.
DC: It's that's the worst part of the job. Unfortunately, professors don't necessarily have to be on campus every day. Zoom has helped with, switching a lot of meetings, committee meetings to online, but, it, I think I've been through three different reconstructions of I-275 and the Ruther, and each one is now crazy huge adventures in trying to get to and from work.
KH: And with Covid 19. Do you remember where you first, heard about the disease and what your initial thoughts of it were? Because I feel like I've talked to a lot of people who, when they first heard about it, they were like, oh, it's like the swine flu. It's like ebola. It'll be two weeks and it'll be gone. Were you of a similar mindset or did you have more concerns?
DC: Yeah, I think that pretty much sums up my response. I was concerned I was reading, not deeply, but reading about this. And, you know, I think your, analogy of the swine flu is appropriate, but we've heard some of these things before or heard of them. Let's see... I was actually on sabbatical, during the winter 2020 semester. So, you know, I was, you know, actually, caring for my younger sister, who has various disabilities and our, our mother died in December, so I was focus a whole lot more on trying to get her settled than I was on these world events. And so, yeah, I guess I would fall into the category of someone who thought maybe there'd be a month of of, troubles, and then, you know, by April or so, we'd be okay. That wasn't true.
KH: When was the moment you realized that this was a lot more serious than you initially thought?
DC: It was in March. Let's see, we went out to celebrate, my wife's birthday, which was March 7th, 2020. And we really had the feeling that maybe we shouldn't have done that even at that point. You know, it was right on the cusp of things shutting down. Also, I am the site coordinator for, Community Garden in Ann Arbor, is part of a group of gardens, under the, heading up Project Grow. And we were trying to put up a fence to keep woodchucks out. This is the mundane stuff, right? You know, and, you know, we had all these plans to run the fence, and we weren't sure if we should do it because, we weren't quite sure if we were risking each other's health and, and safety. Fortunately, that was outdoors, but, you know, throughout, early to mid-March, I got the sense that we really had to, to be a lot more careful and that this was pretty serious.
KH: And so did you go right from sabbatical into lockdown?
DC: Well, yeah, most of my colleagues, anyone who was teaching in the winter 20, 20 semester had to, if they weren't teaching online to begin with and not that many were, had to make that transition from teaching in person to teaching online. We didn't have zoom access at the time right away that came a little later. So that was an enormous transition, was very difficult, for an awful lot of people. Most of us had shied away from any kind of online teaching and weren't really familiar with any of the programs that Oakland had available for us, weren't ready to duplicate what we tried to do in a classroom in an online setting. And I missed that transition. So I was really fortunate, I had the summer of 2020 to try to, well, boost my skills, I guess, to be able to, to try and figure things out in the fall. So, you know, my lockdown wasn't much different from what I was living at the time because I was working on a book project, if I could, caring for my sister, that was the more dangerous part, but mostly just hanging out at home and, running and stuff like that. So I wasn't in contact with a lot of people, when things really hit the fan.
KH: And so when you return to teaching that fall, do you, how was the adjustment of going from, you know, I took your classes back then. You were a very active teacher and it's just hard to get that on zoom. Were you primarily doing only zoom, or are you trying to do some in-person stuff at that time?
DC: Well, in the 2021, academic year, there was no in-person teaching. Maybe a lab or two somewhere along the way. But everything went online. We, started out with, Google Meet, I think, and then eventually had access to zoom and so, you know, there was a learning curve trying to figure out each, you know, each program and its pluses and minuses. But, you're right the biggest, issue for me is that I try to run interactive classrooms and so, while really much of my career has been based on picking up on body language cues, people who are getting it, people who aren't getting it, people who might have things to say but aren't willing to to get involved. Although we encouraged students to turn on their cameras very few did, and that was fine. I didn't feel like invading their home space and, you know, kind of felt like Ford Motor Company, sociological Department member from the 19 teens investigating people's homes, have you, you know, you think about that way, but, but we lost that. And so, teaching into the void, was something I had to, to work on. The chat feature, especially with zoom, helped pick up some of that slack there. An awful lot of people were willing to type out ideas that maybe would not have ventured ideas in class, but it was a completely different experience. In my, experience, student work was still really solid was was pretty good, but, I did my, whole synchronous online classes. So we were meeting together, even if we couldn't necessarily see each other and, and so, you know, it was, a complete revamping of the, the skill set that I had to, to deploy. But it was trying to accomplish the same ends.
KH: Is... with the difficulty of you seeing with the interaction. Is there anything you thought you gained through the online classes?
DC: Well. I think, there were probably a number of people who came to Friday classes online who would not have in person, and it probably made a difference in terms of their ability to succeed in classes. The last class I taught, I think, was for my post 1945, U.S. history class, an upper level class. And it occurred to me, at the end of that class, that no student had spoken out loud throughout the whole class, which, in the entirety of my teaching career would have meant that it was a disastrous class. But it was such a rich class in zoom, that it was it was very successful. So I guess I gave that and I still wonder sometimes when I'm teaching in person, what we're missing because we don't have that feature and even if I try to replicate it by saying, is there anything you wanted to say that you haven't been wanting to say? It's not the same as having that, little bit of distance to, protect the shy. So, for me personally, I gained, a lot of time back because I didn't have to commute. I don't think that's a good pedagogical tradeoff for not teaching in person. But it, was really, a revelation to me not to spend that many hours on the road.
KH: And do you think that you and your colleagues will take off, like... does it feel like the way you have to teach has shifted post-Covid, even now that we've returned mainly to in-person classes?
DC: Well there's always the possibility in the winter, especially of taking a class to to zoom if weather is bad, even if Oakland is not officially closed. But if students start contact me contacting me to say that are subdivisions or wherever they live in the country, you know, snow impassable. You know, that's an option, whereas it never used to be before. But... you know, I think I've just kind of gone back to the status quo ante in terms of, how I teach, probably interact a little bit more online with students than I used to, but, you know, back to reading body language and trying to, generate in class discussion as much as possible.
KH: And with 2020, and like 2021, a lot of those students had probably already been in college for a few years. Now in 2024, we're seeing a big shift in paradigm of like, there's possibly students who spent the majority... like a good chunk of their formative high school years being taught online because of the pandemic. Have you noticed, a shift in those kind of students, like, is is there a noticeable difference or is it, you think it's still pretty much the same?
DC: You know, I hesitate to draw huge generalizations. Part of it goes back to what I experienced as an undergrad when, this is in the late 70s and early 80s, when we were told that we were the worst generation of college students that had ever set foot on a college campus. You know, least motivated, least intellectually curious, these sorts of things and seemed like whopping generalizations. And it turns out that those kinds of generalizations are levied every generation. And so, I've had some of my best classes, in the last several years, including intro classes. That doesn't mean everyone is.. it has been fantastic, and it doesn't mean that every student is motivated or unmotivated, but, I have not seen the, the, the deficits that I hear described so much by others. There might be social deficits to some extent. I don't know enough about that. So how students are relating with each other, but in terms of, class participation, in terms of written work, my classes have been on par in the last couple of years, as they were, with what they were before the pandemic.
KH: Yeah. And dealing with the the pandemic itself. You said you were caring for your younger sister who had, some issues. Were you worried about, during Covid of, like, accidentally passing it to her?
DC: Oh, absolutely. You know, because part of the care involved physically going to her, apartment and cleaning it because that's something she's not capable of doing and, you know, trying.. and we're talking about serious cleaning had to be done in person. You know, mask recommendations and requirements shifted quite a bit. She lives in a place where, most residents were skeptical about the existence of Covid, the survey and severity. And, we were worried not only about giving it to her because, you know, she has comorbidities that would make her, much more at risk of some more serious health problems. But we were worried about getting it from her as well. And that's actually what happened. She ended up, getting Covid in October 2020. That's before vaccines, she had a rough case of it, made it through that stage, but then she had, pulmonary embolisms, which seemed to be related to to Covid and she nearly died. Then my wife and I came down with Covid about, 4 or 5 days after, my sister tested positive so we were worried. We were really worried about my my sister. At one point, they didn't think she would make it through the night, but she did. But there wasn't anything you could do. You could visit her. You couldn't really, do the things that that a family tries to do in those kinds of emergencies. We were allowed in, of course, during that time or her rehab. But we were also concerned about our own health and safety as well, because, no one knew what the course would be at that point in time. There was a sense that maybe you were at greatest risk for a negative outcome after you started to feel better, that you would start to feel better and then, you know, for some reason, systems would collapse. And so, you know, that made it, you know, very concerning. And so, yeah, that, that, that was that was while but I still taught my classes even though I had Covid and I chaired committees and in hindsight, I don't think that was very wise. I don't think I was as clear as I thought I was but yes, we were very worried about, the severity of Covid. The percentages always suggested, if you do have comorbidities, that we're going to be okay. But, you know, I've, I've been on the wrong side of these percentages before, and so we were definitely worried.
KH: Yeah. What was your personal experience with having Covid, and have you had seen any long Covid symptoms?
DC: Yeah. My immediate symptoms, were really, fairly mild. You know, some fatigue, cold like symptoms. I would compare it to a mild case of the flu. But, you know, I'm getting older, and so it's a little hard to know exactly what's Covid related and what's more general aging and this and that, but, I definitely, I like to run. I like to ride my bike, road bike and stuff like that. And, I've noticed ever since then, you know, a decline in, you know, the ability to, you know, to really go as fast or as far as I used to. And that's really comparing, you know, September 2019 with everything after, after or actually excuse me., It's comparing, September 2020 with post October 2020. So it wasn't like a ten year nostalgia trip or something, but, I think there's something to long-covid, for sure. I had some joint issues, too, prone to, certain kinds of arthritis, and I had flare ups, during or at the time I had Covid, great swelling and shakiness. And that has a, return to pre-COVID levels either. So there are some lingering health effects, but on the whole, I'm doing fine. And, there are far worse problems than anything I have in the world.
KH: Yeah. And just, your general thoughts on how did you feel the, Covid rollouts, and, like, response, both on a local and national level. How did you feel it was handled?
DC: Wow.. My personal experience with the Covid reporting and testing system was a bit chaotic. You know, trying to, to get tested, to get the results, to try to track things. You know, I think in, in my view, our public health infrastructure at the local level, probably been neglected for generations. And, it was hard for them to ramp up, especially under the circumstances and do any kind of really effective tracking, which seemed to be an important component of trying to stop the spread. You know, I was, you know, I guess maybe given my academic training or something, I realized that the scientific method does not mean certainty from day one. And so, I think I was as frustrated as anyone with the kind of the twists and turns of mask policy and recommendations and all these things, but I understood that, originally supplies for would be reserved for health professionals. I knew people who, did work in, emergency rooms and Covid wards and saw dead bodies stacked to them on top of refrigerated units and all these sorts of things. So, I knew that, that they needed, the resources desperately if they were in short supply. So, you know in Ann Arbor there weren't too many people who thought things were a hoax, who thought that, you know, the government was out to mislead us and take away our freedoms. But I did come into contact with, plenty of people who thought that way, both in classes. About 20% of Oakland students, strongly opposed the mask mandate at Oakland. Return to in-person teaching. But also where my sister lives that's, you know, I don't think many people observed, mask recommendations there.
KH: So when you returned to classes, you were masking up?
DC: A whole year of teaching with masks. That was the mandate at Oakland. So that would have been the 21, 22 school yea Right? And then I think, Omicron hit and I think we went back to online teaching in January 2022. But then when happened, went online teaching back to in-person. The reverse of the process in 2020. So, yeah, we had to teach with masks on, and I didn't like it, but we had to do it. And there were a lot of students who.... who most of us complied, but there were a handful who didn't, and it was very awkward being a police officer in the classroom. Yeah....
KH: Obviously you don't have to name any names, but you did. You have a few students who pushed back especially hard?
DC: In that passive aggressive way. They didn't hold me responsible for instituting, you know, federal recommendations or university policy, but, you know, okay, there are plenty of people who, had masks near their bodies, but not doing what they were supposed to be doing. So, and, in in most of those cases, those were those were protests.
KH: Then just in general, like obviously this Covid has been called like, you know, kind of once in a century type thing, kind of like the, influenza of 1918. But, you know, I feel like this has shown us how little we truly know about how diseases like this work. Are you worried about something like this happening sooner than later in our lifetimes?
DC: Sure. You know, a part of me always assumes that the other shoe is going to drop. And, you know, I, I don't I don't live moment to moment in fear. But, on the other hand, I do, worry about, you know, what might happen the next time there is, something, even maybe, and at that scale, less more. Who knows? I don't know if we're so divided that, any kind of health guidance or expertise will be dismissed. By a lot of people and, you know, in the end, over a million people died, right? Of Covid, I believe that. And, you know, if they had all died, in one tragic accident, then we'd be taking notice much differently than if they died in isolation, 1 or 2 people at a time or something. So, yeah, I, I worry about our society's willingness to, understand, how these, diseases are spread, what we can do to try to mitigate. I'm worried about the underfunding and lack of attention, right, to public health, seeing us as some kind of community that, that has to somewhat try to be healthy together, not just as individuals. And so yeah, I mean, it concerns me, it seems like, the most outrageous response, which I'm sure you remember and you heard before, was everyone just, hoarding toilet paper? I guess people try to feel that they're doing something, for each other, but, well, they're kind of in it for myself mentality is really not what we need in those kinds of circumstances.
KH: Absolutely. And, is there anything else we haven't discussed on this topic that you would like to discuss now?
DC: I don't know I think you've hit the high points, low points if you will. Yeah I guess the one thing I would say is that it was an amazing sense of relief to finally get vaccinated. And there was harsh pushback against that, from a sizable percentage of Oakland students as well. Vaccine mandate for attending Oakland, was eventually it wasn't really, enforced. But, you know, I understood that I could still get Covid, but the chances of a really serious negative health outcome were greatly reduced. And, so that, big difference. I've had Covid once since then and, just didn't worry much about it. In fact, when wouldn't of even tested but my wife works at a hospital and if she has any kind of symptom, has to be tested. So, so that's a relief. But as you pointed out, we don't know what the future will bring in terms of a different kind of virus and, you know, hope that, whatever it is can be, counteracted by, you know, quick effort to develop some kind of vaccine by this time around.
KH: Hey, you mentioned you didn't like feeling like a police officer, like with masks again, especially, did they enforce, like, did you have to show vaccine cards at any point? Like, did you have to ask students, like, before you come into this class, I going to see your vaccine card or was it never that serious?
DC: I never had to do that. That would have put us in a really tough position. We're professors were not, you know, public safety officers, or health officials. But it did cause a lot of, concern. You know, there are a lot of faculty members who are.. who have preexisting conditions, who are, compromised in terms of, you know, their health and potential risks of, something that affects their, their lungs. And so it put them in a very difficult position for sure. But no, we were never asked, as I recall, at least to, to get to that level. I yeah, that that's the best I can recall.
KH: All right. Well, thank you so much for your time today.
DC: Okay. Kevin. Yeah. Good luck with this project I'll be interested to see what you come up with.
Daniel Clark: I just wanted to double check on the release form. Do you need me to physically sign it and turn it back to you, or can I just sign it, with type, that by typing in my name and send it back to you that way.
KH: You can do it digitally.
DC: Okay. Sounds good. I'll send them.
KH: All right, all right. This is Kevin Hawthorne with the Detroit Historical Society for the oral history on Covid 19. And today I am joined with may you please introduce yourself.
DC: Oh, yeah. My name is, Daniel Clark. I teach history at Oakland University.
KH: Could you please spell your name for the record?
DC: Sure D a n i e l C l a r k.
KH: All right. And while you currently teach in Oakland University, where do you currently live?
DC: I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
KH: How long have you lived in that area?
DC: Oh, I moved to Ann Arbor in 1989. So quite a while.
KH: And have you.. How long have you taught Oakland University?
DC: I first started Oakland University in 1995, so going on 30 years.
KH: And through that experience, what is your experience been just going from Ann Arbor to, Oakland.
DC: It's that's the worst part of the job. Unfortunately, professors don't necessarily have to be on campus every day. Zoom has helped with, switching a lot of meetings, committee meetings to online, but, it, I think I've been through three different reconstructions of I-275 and the Ruther, and each one is now crazy huge adventures in trying to get to and from work.
KH: And with Covid 19. Do you remember where you first, heard about the disease and what your initial thoughts of it were? Because I feel like I've talked to a lot of people who, when they first heard about it, they were like, oh, it's like the swine flu. It's like ebola. It'll be two weeks and it'll be gone. Were you of a similar mindset or did you have more concerns?
DC: Yeah, I think that pretty much sums up my response. I was concerned I was reading, not deeply, but reading about this. And, you know, I think your, analogy of the swine flu is appropriate, but we've heard some of these things before or heard of them. Let's see... I was actually on sabbatical, during the winter 2020 semester. So, you know, I was, you know, actually, caring for my younger sister, who has various disabilities and our, our mother died in December, so I was focus a whole lot more on trying to get her settled than I was on these world events. And so, yeah, I guess I would fall into the category of someone who thought maybe there'd be a month of of, troubles, and then, you know, by April or so, we'd be okay. That wasn't true.
KH: When was the moment you realized that this was a lot more serious than you initially thought?
DC: It was in March. Let's see, we went out to celebrate, my wife's birthday, which was March 7th, 2020. And we really had the feeling that maybe we shouldn't have done that even at that point. You know, it was right on the cusp of things shutting down. Also, I am the site coordinator for, Community Garden in Ann Arbor, is part of a group of gardens, under the, heading up Project Grow. And we were trying to put up a fence to keep woodchucks out. This is the mundane stuff, right? You know, and, you know, we had all these plans to run the fence, and we weren't sure if we should do it because, we weren't quite sure if we were risking each other's health and, and safety. Fortunately, that was outdoors, but, you know, throughout, early to mid-March, I got the sense that we really had to, to be a lot more careful and that this was pretty serious.
KH: And so did you go right from sabbatical into lockdown?
DC: Well, yeah, most of my colleagues, anyone who was teaching in the winter 20, 20 semester had to, if they weren't teaching online to begin with and not that many were, had to make that transition from teaching in person to teaching online. We didn't have zoom access at the time right away that came a little later. So that was an enormous transition, was very difficult, for an awful lot of people. Most of us had shied away from any kind of online teaching and weren't really familiar with any of the programs that Oakland had available for us, weren't ready to duplicate what we tried to do in a classroom in an online setting. And I missed that transition. So I was really fortunate, I had the summer of 2020 to try to, well, boost my skills, I guess, to be able to, to try and figure things out in the fall. So, you know, my lockdown wasn't much different from what I was living at the time because I was working on a book project, if I could, caring for my sister, that was the more dangerous part, but mostly just hanging out at home and, running and stuff like that. So I wasn't in contact with a lot of people, when things really hit the fan.
KH: And so when you return to teaching that fall, do you, how was the adjustment of going from, you know, I took your classes back then. You were a very active teacher and it's just hard to get that on zoom. Were you primarily doing only zoom, or are you trying to do some in-person stuff at that time?
DC: Well, in the 2021, academic year, there was no in-person teaching. Maybe a lab or two somewhere along the way. But everything went online. We, started out with, Google Meet, I think, and then eventually had access to zoom and so, you know, there was a learning curve trying to figure out each, you know, each program and its pluses and minuses. But, you're right the biggest, issue for me is that I try to run interactive classrooms and so, while really much of my career has been based on picking up on body language cues, people who are getting it, people who aren't getting it, people who might have things to say but aren't willing to to get involved. Although we encouraged students to turn on their cameras very few did, and that was fine. I didn't feel like invading their home space and, you know, kind of felt like Ford Motor Company, sociological Department member from the 19 teens investigating people's homes, have you, you know, you think about that way, but, but we lost that. And so, teaching into the void, was something I had to, to work on. The chat feature, especially with zoom, helped pick up some of that slack there. An awful lot of people were willing to type out ideas that maybe would not have ventured ideas in class, but it was a completely different experience. In my, experience, student work was still really solid was was pretty good, but, I did my, whole synchronous online classes. So we were meeting together, even if we couldn't necessarily see each other and, and so, you know, it was, a complete revamping of the, the skill set that I had to, to deploy. But it was trying to accomplish the same ends.
KH: Is... with the difficulty of you seeing with the interaction. Is there anything you thought you gained through the online classes?
DC: Well. I think, there were probably a number of people who came to Friday classes online who would not have in person, and it probably made a difference in terms of their ability to succeed in classes. The last class I taught, I think, was for my post 1945, U.S. history class, an upper level class. And it occurred to me, at the end of that class, that no student had spoken out loud throughout the whole class, which, in the entirety of my teaching career would have meant that it was a disastrous class. But it was such a rich class in zoom, that it was it was very successful. So I guess I gave that and I still wonder sometimes when I'm teaching in person, what we're missing because we don't have that feature and even if I try to replicate it by saying, is there anything you wanted to say that you haven't been wanting to say? It's not the same as having that, little bit of distance to, protect the shy. So, for me personally, I gained, a lot of time back because I didn't have to commute. I don't think that's a good pedagogical tradeoff for not teaching in person. But it, was really, a revelation to me not to spend that many hours on the road.
KH: And do you think that you and your colleagues will take off, like... does it feel like the way you have to teach has shifted post-Covid, even now that we've returned mainly to in-person classes?
DC: Well there's always the possibility in the winter, especially of taking a class to to zoom if weather is bad, even if Oakland is not officially closed. But if students start contact me contacting me to say that are subdivisions or wherever they live in the country, you know, snow impassable. You know, that's an option, whereas it never used to be before. But... you know, I think I've just kind of gone back to the status quo ante in terms of, how I teach, probably interact a little bit more online with students than I used to, but, you know, back to reading body language and trying to, generate in class discussion as much as possible.
KH: And with 2020, and like 2021, a lot of those students had probably already been in college for a few years. Now in 2024, we're seeing a big shift in paradigm of like, there's possibly students who spent the majority... like a good chunk of their formative high school years being taught online because of the pandemic. Have you noticed, a shift in those kind of students, like, is is there a noticeable difference or is it, you think it's still pretty much the same?
DC: You know, I hesitate to draw huge generalizations. Part of it goes back to what I experienced as an undergrad when, this is in the late 70s and early 80s, when we were told that we were the worst generation of college students that had ever set foot on a college campus. You know, least motivated, least intellectually curious, these sorts of things and seemed like whopping generalizations. And it turns out that those kinds of generalizations are levied every generation. And so, I've had some of my best classes, in the last several years, including intro classes. That doesn't mean everyone is.. it has been fantastic, and it doesn't mean that every student is motivated or unmotivated, but, I have not seen the, the, the deficits that I hear described so much by others. There might be social deficits to some extent. I don't know enough about that. So how students are relating with each other, but in terms of, class participation, in terms of written work, my classes have been on par in the last couple of years, as they were, with what they were before the pandemic.
KH: Yeah. And dealing with the the pandemic itself. You said you were caring for your younger sister who had, some issues. Were you worried about, during Covid of, like, accidentally passing it to her?
DC: Oh, absolutely. You know, because part of the care involved physically going to her, apartment and cleaning it because that's something she's not capable of doing and, you know, trying.. and we're talking about serious cleaning had to be done in person. You know, mask recommendations and requirements shifted quite a bit. She lives in a place where, most residents were skeptical about the existence of Covid, the survey and severity. And, we were worried not only about giving it to her because, you know, she has comorbidities that would make her, much more at risk of some more serious health problems. But we were worried about getting it from her as well. And that's actually what happened. She ended up, getting Covid in October 2020. That's before vaccines, she had a rough case of it, made it through that stage, but then she had, pulmonary embolisms, which seemed to be related to to Covid and she nearly died. Then my wife and I came down with Covid about, 4 or 5 days after, my sister tested positive so we were worried. We were really worried about my my sister. At one point, they didn't think she would make it through the night, but she did. But there wasn't anything you could do. You could visit her. You couldn't really, do the things that that a family tries to do in those kinds of emergencies. We were allowed in, of course, during that time or her rehab. But we were also concerned about our own health and safety as well, because, no one knew what the course would be at that point in time. There was a sense that maybe you were at greatest risk for a negative outcome after you started to feel better, that you would start to feel better and then, you know, for some reason, systems would collapse. And so, you know, that made it, you know, very concerning. And so, yeah, that, that, that was that was while but I still taught my classes even though I had Covid and I chaired committees and in hindsight, I don't think that was very wise. I don't think I was as clear as I thought I was but yes, we were very worried about, the severity of Covid. The percentages always suggested, if you do have comorbidities, that we're going to be okay. But, you know, I've, I've been on the wrong side of these percentages before, and so we were definitely worried.
KH: Yeah. What was your personal experience with having Covid, and have you had seen any long Covid symptoms?
DC: Yeah. My immediate symptoms, were really, fairly mild. You know, some fatigue, cold like symptoms. I would compare it to a mild case of the flu. But, you know, I'm getting older, and so it's a little hard to know exactly what's Covid related and what's more general aging and this and that, but, I definitely, I like to run. I like to ride my bike, road bike and stuff like that. And, I've noticed ever since then, you know, a decline in, you know, the ability to, you know, to really go as fast or as far as I used to. And that's really comparing, you know, September 2019 with everything after, after or actually excuse me., It's comparing, September 2020 with post October 2020. So it wasn't like a ten year nostalgia trip or something, but, I think there's something to long-covid, for sure. I had some joint issues, too, prone to, certain kinds of arthritis, and I had flare ups, during or at the time I had Covid, great swelling and shakiness. And that has a, return to pre-COVID levels either. So there are some lingering health effects, but on the whole, I'm doing fine. And, there are far worse problems than anything I have in the world.
KH: Yeah. And just, your general thoughts on how did you feel the, Covid rollouts, and, like, response, both on a local and national level. How did you feel it was handled?
DC: Wow.. My personal experience with the Covid reporting and testing system was a bit chaotic. You know, trying to, to get tested, to get the results, to try to track things. You know, I think in, in my view, our public health infrastructure at the local level, probably been neglected for generations. And, it was hard for them to ramp up, especially under the circumstances and do any kind of really effective tracking, which seemed to be an important component of trying to stop the spread. You know, I was, you know, I guess maybe given my academic training or something, I realized that the scientific method does not mean certainty from day one. And so, I think I was as frustrated as anyone with the kind of the twists and turns of mask policy and recommendations and all these things, but I understood that, originally supplies for would be reserved for health professionals. I knew people who, did work in, emergency rooms and Covid wards and saw dead bodies stacked to them on top of refrigerated units and all these sorts of things. So, I knew that, that they needed, the resources desperately if they were in short supply. So, you know in Ann Arbor there weren't too many people who thought things were a hoax, who thought that, you know, the government was out to mislead us and take away our freedoms. But I did come into contact with, plenty of people who thought that way, both in classes. About 20% of Oakland students, strongly opposed the mask mandate at Oakland. Return to in-person teaching. But also where my sister lives that's, you know, I don't think many people observed, mask recommendations there.
KH: So when you returned to classes, you were masking up?
DC: A whole year of teaching with masks. That was the mandate at Oakland. So that would have been the 21, 22 school yea Right? And then I think, Omicron hit and I think we went back to online teaching in January 2022. But then when happened, went online teaching back to in-person. The reverse of the process in 2020. So, yeah, we had to teach with masks on, and I didn't like it, but we had to do it. And there were a lot of students who.... who most of us complied, but there were a handful who didn't, and it was very awkward being a police officer in the classroom. Yeah....
KH: Obviously you don't have to name any names, but you did. You have a few students who pushed back especially hard?
DC: In that passive aggressive way. They didn't hold me responsible for instituting, you know, federal recommendations or university policy, but, you know, okay, there are plenty of people who, had masks near their bodies, but not doing what they were supposed to be doing. So, and, in in most of those cases, those were those were protests.
KH: Then just in general, like obviously this Covid has been called like, you know, kind of once in a century type thing, kind of like the, influenza of 1918. But, you know, I feel like this has shown us how little we truly know about how diseases like this work. Are you worried about something like this happening sooner than later in our lifetimes?
DC: Sure. You know, a part of me always assumes that the other shoe is going to drop. And, you know, I, I don't I don't live moment to moment in fear. But, on the other hand, I do, worry about, you know, what might happen the next time there is, something, even maybe, and at that scale, less more. Who knows? I don't know if we're so divided that, any kind of health guidance or expertise will be dismissed. By a lot of people and, you know, in the end, over a million people died, right? Of Covid, I believe that. And, you know, if they had all died, in one tragic accident, then we'd be taking notice much differently than if they died in isolation, 1 or 2 people at a time or something. So, yeah, I, I worry about our society's willingness to, understand, how these, diseases are spread, what we can do to try to mitigate. I'm worried about the underfunding and lack of attention, right, to public health, seeing us as some kind of community that, that has to somewhat try to be healthy together, not just as individuals. And so yeah, I mean, it concerns me, it seems like, the most outrageous response, which I'm sure you remember and you heard before, was everyone just, hoarding toilet paper? I guess people try to feel that they're doing something, for each other, but, well, they're kind of in it for myself mentality is really not what we need in those kinds of circumstances.
KH: Absolutely. And, is there anything else we haven't discussed on this topic that you would like to discuss now?
DC: I don't know I think you've hit the high points, low points if you will. Yeah I guess the one thing I would say is that it was an amazing sense of relief to finally get vaccinated. And there was harsh pushback against that, from a sizable percentage of Oakland students as well. Vaccine mandate for attending Oakland, was eventually it wasn't really, enforced. But, you know, I understood that I could still get Covid, but the chances of a really serious negative health outcome were greatly reduced. And, so that, big difference. I've had Covid once since then and, just didn't worry much about it. In fact, when wouldn't of even tested but my wife works at a hospital and if she has any kind of symptom, has to be tested. So, so that's a relief. But as you pointed out, we don't know what the future will bring in terms of a different kind of virus and, you know, hope that, whatever it is can be, counteracted by, you know, quick effort to develop some kind of vaccine by this time around.
KH: Hey, you mentioned you didn't like feeling like a police officer, like with masks again, especially, did they enforce, like, did you have to show vaccine cards at any point? Like, did you have to ask students, like, before you come into this class, I going to see your vaccine card or was it never that serious?
DC: I never had to do that. That would have put us in a really tough position. We're professors were not, you know, public safety officers, or health officials. But it did cause a lot of, concern. You know, there are a lot of faculty members who are.. who have preexisting conditions, who are, compromised in terms of, you know, their health and potential risks of, something that affects their, their lungs. And so it put them in a very difficult position for sure. But no, we were never asked, as I recall, at least to, to get to that level. I yeah, that that's the best I can recall.
KH: All right. Well, thank you so much for your time today.
DC: Okay. Kevin. Yeah. Good luck with this project I'll be interested to see what you come up with.
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“Daniel Clark, August 22nd, 2024,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed December 4, 2024, https://oralhistory.detroithistorical.org/items/show/1057.