This week, we want to highlight the voices of staff members in our community.

As our contributor points out, the staff experience is anything but monolithic. While we often exclusively refer to staff members as essential workers and heroes, these terms unintentionally dismiss the effects and consequences of COVID-19 on their lives. 

UT’s decision to reopen this fall raised new challenges and anxieties for the UT community. Students are back on campus as usual, but the circumstances are anything but “normal.”

When students were sent home in the spring, many staff members were forced to risk their lives and continue working throughout the summer and into the fall.

We rely on our staff community to keep our campus running. We rely on them to fix our internet, make our meals and — in the midst of a global pandemic — to disinfect our campus and test us for  COVID-19, among other things.

Their experiences and perspectives are diverse and layered and should not be discounted. 

In this forum, UT staff council chair Rainbow Di Benedetto sheds light on the difficult unforeseen challenges staff members are facing. 

As always, if you have any thoughts on this topic or any other, please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].