“I remember last year, when the administration kept sending out all the emails of ‘we’re unsure, we’re unsure,’ I remember it being the middle of the night at home, getting the email, going into my parent’s rooms, and crying,” recalled then sophomore student Elise Truchan.

Vice-Chancellor Jeffrey Lehman notified the students of NYU Shanghai for the first time on January 26, 2020 about changes to the academic calendar due to Covid 19 and the postponement of the Spring semester.

This day marked the first of many changes to come due to the pandemic’s influence. From campus closures to travel bans, these updates from administration were the one string that had tied the community together since the start of the pandemic. Now many months later, the NYU student body still struggles to return to their appropriate campus.

During that January, one of the first attempts by NYU to retain some semblance of normalcy for international students was the opening of an Emergency Go Local option. This allowed students to study on a campus that did not require extra travel documents for the spring semester. For some, this allowed students to visit one of the global campuses they would not have seen otherwise.

“It is just magical and accelerates my university life. I cannot believe I have already stayed in Shanghai for one and a half semesters,” said NYU Go Local student Kaiwen Chen.

However, it was quickly taken away once the Covid-19 pandemic started to spread around the globe. On March 11, the NYU New York campus joined NYU Shanghai and other campus around the world in switching to remote instruction.

“At that point I was just like, ‘seriously, it’s happening all over again?’ I was glad for the experience that I had there, but I understood that things were getting really bad in New York,” Elise Truchan said.

While the Spring 2020 semester was one of constant change, NYU Shanghai students were quick to change with it.

“I guess the main thing to appreciate about the community in the last 15 months is how resilient everybody has been,” said Vice Chancellor Lehman. “It has been noticed by other schools and they would love to be able to figure out how to have NYU Shanghai’s resilience.”

Now, in the ensuing months since the start of these changes, students can see the light at the end of the tunnel. On April 27, 2021, the United States’ Biden Administration created new exceptions for the Chinese travel ban.

With this news, Chinese student can travel into the U.S. and obtain travel documents. It coincides with the reopening of the U.S. consulate in Shanghai. Previously, Chinese Go Local students’ only option was using third-country transits to obtain new documents.

“Some Chinese students will fly to Singapore to get visas and then fly to NYC,” said Shanghai portal student Kenneth Wang.

These transits include Singapore’s two-week quarantine period as well as a period to gain the visa. While this option is still available, it is expensive and costly. The few who have already done it are a credit to their determination to resume in-person classes for Fall 2021.

However as seen in the past with the pandemic, students must be open to quickly changing circumstances.

“The world is unpredictable in times of the pandemic,” admitted Lehman. “Our message to everybody is, when the borders open, if the window is there, jump through it as quickly as you can, because it might close.”

As the school prepares to ensure that every student can study on their chosen campus, contingency plans are still available in case of closing borders. On March 8, Lehman sent a notice to students about two possible plans for the upcoming semester. The mobility plan is for all students to return to campus, while the non-mobility plan, or Plan B, is in place in case borders stay closed.

In the case of Go Local students, plans to continue renting a WeWork building are still optionable.

“We don’t have the rights to rent both of them,” Lehman said. “Right now, its Shinmay and Fuhui, but we don’t have the right to rent Fuhui, only Shinmay.”

With only one building available, Dean Pe was assured that, “the market right now is still a renter’s market, there is still availability. If we need to extend our contract with WeWork to extend Go Local we could easily do that.”

For international students, their options are still more bleak in terms of returning to campus. With a spike of Covid causes in December 2020 and the Chinese New Year, Chinese Embassies and consulates in other countries stopped processing visas.

According to Dean Pe, only 340 of the almost 1000 international students were able to return. Two-hundred and seventy of them are students who came back through the special approval procured by the University from the Chinese government.

“I was devastated that I couldn’t return to Shanghai. I had a wonderful first semester away from home and then all of a sudden I’m back to my childhood room,” said sophomore Emily Wright. “I have been in the US for about a year and a half.”

This struggle to return is further aggravated by a continuing lack of affordable flights. On March 26, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced the “Five One” policy which limits each airline to one flight into China, per country, per week.

“I was going to return for the spring 2021 semester, but it was difficult to find testing locations near me,” said Wright. “Plus, the flights were ridiculously expensive.”

Despite this, university administration still believes all international students can return to campus for the fall 2021 semester, accommodation being available on a case-by-case basis.

”If any student at some point during the summer has any sort of realization that the return is going to be challenging for whatever reason, they’ll need to work with their advisor to make a plan for their degree progress,” Dean Pe said.

As the school continues to plan for students’ return, consideration for reviving the atmosphere of cross-cultural dialogue continues.

“Ultimately, rebuilding is really going to be an individual and collective effort together,” Dean Pe said.

However, as the class of 2025 come onto campus for the first time, they will be joined in this experience by the majority of the class of 2024. Both will be seeing each other together for the very first time. As a result, an orientation may be held for both classes this upcoming fall.

“There is definitely work in having some sort of extra few days for the class of 2024 students, because some of them have not been on campus before,” Dean Pe said.

After a year of worldwide separation for the NYU network, the end of spring 2020 brings a time for renewal and change. With the rollout of vaccines and opening borders, students and staff can find hope for a future to come.

A “new normal” will emerge as we come to terms with the impact Covid-19 has had on our lives. And as we look towards the future, we remember the struggles and hardships of those affected by this pandemic and the NYUSH student body who overcame them.