For my first undergraduate summer research experience, we will be researching campus crisis communications and taking a closer look at the rhetoric used when informing the campus community regarding their COVID-19 response.

Over the past couple of months, amid our current crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been collecting data from different colleges’ response to the pandemic and their methods in informing their campuses of actions being taken. We plan to analyze and compare the rhetoric used through their communication to students, parents, and the community. By collecting and logging emails, social media posts, and interactive video streams, we are looking to understand the effectiveness of specific crisis communication methods towards the different communities based on their demographics.

Our experiences thus far have shed light on the difference in the rhetoric used during crisis communication from community colleges as well as four-year universities. It has also been interesting to see a lack of language resources made available to the communities even when demographic data shows a high percentage of Spanish speaking communities. Topics such as these, as well as the differences in ethos used by university and college executives and the overlap of gender, are discussion points we aim to address in our final analysis of this study.

We hope the information we collect will be beneficial towards future college campus crisis communications and strengthen the rhetoric used to be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Although for UROC at CSUMB my current research is on-campus crisis communications amid the current COVID-19 pandemic, I have the opportunity to assist the Watsonville Law Center (WLC) in a similar research project.

For Spring 2020, I interned at WLC through a legal-aid internship, unfortunately, due to the shelter-in-place orders, my internship was cut short. This was a missed opportunity to learn, network, and make a stronger impact on the community. Thankfully, I remained optimistic and believe that when one door closes, another one opens. Marina X. Garcia, my mentor from WLC, contacted me regarding a remote research opportunity that would help the Executive Director, Henry Martin, in researching the language access and COVID-19 resources made available throughout all of California’s 58 Counties. Although it is challenging to take on two research projects at once, I could not turn down an opportunity to help make an impact. 

Since mid-May, I have been collecting and organizing data on a spreadsheet with the help of two UC Santa Cruz students. By looking through each county website and collecting demographic information via the US Census, we can determine the effectiveness of the information provided to each community. It is interesting to find discrepancies and compare each county’s data. Something that stood out to me, after reviewing the data collected, is how although there is an equal percentage of English and Spanish speakers within some communities critical information is only provided through the English language. 

The information collected brings up conversations about equity. Collectly we hope to use the data to reach out to WLC partners and make a difference to the communities by addressing these inequalities.