Leaders in the Moscow-Pullman community explored their organizations’ navigation through the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine requirements and mask mandates were discussed throughout the panel.
Panelists included Moscow Mayor Bill Lambert, Gritman Medical Center CEO Kara Besst, Washington State University Director of Strategic Management Hailey Rupp and ASUI Director of Legislative Affairs Lydia McRoberts.
Initial COVID-19 challenges
“We really didn’t know what’s going to happen,” Mayor Lambert said. “None of us really knew what to expect, what happened, and I found myself immersed in studying about pandemics and the seriousness of them.”
Lambert said a key challenge was learning how to communicate with the people in the city and shareholders during the initial outbreak.
Gritman CEO Besst found the main problem for the hospital was managing all the information coming out during the initial outbreak.
“All of the information that was coming out back in March of last year,” Besst said. “Not realizing how the supply chain was going to interrupt every business, especially in the healthcare side as we’re trying to prepare for the possible rush of patients coming in.”
For WSU, Rupp said communicating throughout the university was one of the biggest challenges.
“Making the tough decision in the spring of 2020 to not come back after spring break and trying to pivot all our courses to online in a very short amount of time was certainly a challenge,” Rupp said.
ASUI’s McRoberts said she found ASUI balancing safety versus maintaining the student experience.
“How do we balance what students want to see from in response to COVID-19 and how that pairs up with the university administration’s response to what they expect from us?” McRoberts said. “There’s been a huge amount of students wanting to speak to student government about how they feel about the COVID pandemic.”
McRoberts said they have aimed to make sure that all students feel valued and heard at a time when they feel isolated has been a task for ASUI.
Repercussions from decision-making
Lambert expressed leaders in communities require courage to make tough decisions because of the pandemic. While the city received backlash from city-wide mask mandates, Lambert said the majority were supportive.
For Besst, making decisions for the hospital and backing them up was difficult. Communicating with the public as to why choices needed to be made and using information has been important for Gritman.
Following through with the decisions made at WSU and staying committed is what Rupp added to the conversation. She said it was important to remind herself and the people around her that they’re making the best choices possible.
While ASUI represents the UI student population, McRoberts explained that their role on campus is to vocalize support or contradict rules created by UI administration. One aspect of the fall that ASUI struggled with was the lack of COVID-19 surveillance testing.
“Balancing how we ask in an impactful way to bring back resources that may be left to us, but also recognizing that those decisions were made for a reason and maybe we just didn’t have all of that information, ” McRoberts said.
Sierra Pesnell can be reached at [email protected]