Cornell’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic in March foreshadowed the social distancing measures that have reshaped all of our lives in the past months. Along with all Cornell students, our PRYDE scholars had to quickly plan to move back home (if possible) and prepare for virtual instruction. For our senior Scholars, this meant missing out on moving to the next phase of their PRYDE project, which was to work directly with 4-H youth to pilot the creative participatory research lessons that they’ve spent all year creating. For our junior Scholars, the independent research projects that they’ve been designing no longer have a clear application--when will we be able to conduct in-person research projects again? And, of course, the end of in-person instruction meant a lot more--no more opportunities to grab coffee together on the way to class, no more end of year celebration party to anticipate, no more time to connect informally with their Scholar peers. Our students have weathered these disappointments with resilience and a concern for others that I find inspiring.

As PRYDE has transitioned to virtual instruction, we’ve asked ourselves: in the absence of in-person work with 4-H youth or each other, what would constitute a successfully completed semester? In answering this question, what’s come through is how much our Scholars value their connection to each other and our community partners. Although we’ve lost easy access to informal mentoring and relationship building, our students have rallied around the need to preserve the accumulated knowledge possessed by our graduating senior cohort. In facing the unfortunate circumstances of this semester, our seniors have been inspired to reflect on what they know and can share with practitioners and future PRYDE students.

What has emerged are new audio and visual documents to preserve this knowledge. First, our junior students have conducted an exciting set of interviews with our seniors. These interviews detail the decision-making process behind the senior’s primary project: designing “Youth Investigators,” a youth participatory research program for PRYDE. These conversations signify a passing of the torch between students. These interviews will help future Scholars finish the work of creating this youth program in ways that stay true to the vision of the current students and benefit from their lessons learned. In addition, seniors Scholars are creating a video documenting the Youth Investigators process and products so far. This video project vividly conveys the inspiration behind the program, linking it to the broader mission of PRYDE and outlining how this work relates to 4-H’s mission of promoting positive youth development.

I’m thankful for the efforts of our students to lay the groundwork for PRYDE’s next steps of working with 4-H youth. Their response to the challenges of this spring semester is a testament to their strengths in working together, building bridges to other students, and maintaining an overarching focus on the needs of young people.