Not All Heroes Wear Capes: Story of A Resident Advisor During the COVID Pandemic.
What would you define an essential worker to be? Some would say somebody who puts their life on the line to help others. Others may say a person who works long unstructured hours outside of the regular 9–5. You may even think it is somebody whose job is about helping others. Quincy Mensah does all of those things during the biggest pandemic of the 21st century. Even though Quincy puts his life on the line everyday he does his job, not everybody would agree Quincy to be an essential worker.
Quincy works as a Resident Advisor for Morehouse College, one of four in Purdue Hall. Quincy along with his team of RAs assist in helping over 100 black male students ranging from the ages of 17–22 with any issue they may face in their new home for the next 90 days. As an RA Quincy’s job is not only about maintaining a safe environment for his residents, but he also has the task of being a mentor for each and every student that lives there.
As an Atlanta native Quincy is also a 1st generation American, and son of Nigerian immigrants. Quincy decided to go to Morehouse College, because of the influence a mentor of his had on him. Now as a Morehouse student Quincy is repeating the favor by mentoring other black young men.
“Morehouse is family, and me being a RA I see myself as a big brother,” Quincy said.
As a big brother, Quincy faces a lot of responsibility. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic physical interaction with other students is strongly discouraged. Making it that students are forced to spend their entire day within the compounds of their dorm room. Meaning no in person classes, no cafeteria chats over lunch, and no promenade parties. This has put a lot of stress on each of the student’s mental health.
Quincy is aware of this problem, and does whatever it takes for each student to get to experience as much of a normal environment in an abnormal situation. He does this by hosting 2k tournaments and other fun games that allow the students within the dorm to interact with one another.
While Quincy’s job as an RA is not always fun and games. Quincy has meetings twice a week with the other RAs discussing the cases of COVID-19 on campus. With at one point his building having 66 positive cases of COVID-19 the most ever at any point in time at Morehouse College. The protocol was to get every student that tested positive sent to a quarantine building titled Otis Moss Suites East for them to remain until they can produce a negative test result.
Quincy feared for his own safety as he was in contact with several of those students days prior to them getting their positive test results. He anxiously went to receive another COVID-19 test, and when he saw the negative results he was soon filled with huge relief. His relief didn’t last long as he worried about his residents that did contact COVID-19 and their health.
Quincy discussed the only reason he felt comfortable coming on campus was, because of the weekly COVID-19 test.
“It was nice having that level of comfort,” Quincy said.
Even though a large majority of the students did not participate in the weekly COVID-19 testing. I spoke to Ms. Lane, one of the administrators for resident hall activities as she spoke about the low numbers of students that receive the COVID-19 test.
“The amount of students that got tested were extremely low,” Ms. Lane said. “Some students even after receiving several warnings were kicked off campus for not get a single test”.
Even with that reality Quincy has yet to contract COVID-19. He discusses how this experience was once in a lifetime, With the things he learned as an RA for Perdue Hall has taught him how to become a better leader, and listener to others. This is Quincy‘s second year as an RA, and it will not be his last.
Quincy explains how his life as an RA has changed so much in only a year, and talks about what he was doing a year ago when the COVID-19 pandemic was first introduced.
“Back in 2020 I was coming back from a spring break trip I had taken to Sweden to visit family members,” Quincy said. “Coming back, Morehouse had already announced that all students had to be off campus, and the freshmen were nervous, stressed, and scared. I didn’t know what to do, they didn’t train us for that”.
Quincy said the last part jokingly, but this was no joking matter. Quincy was an RA for a freshman only building. He had to focus on moving himself out. While also helping the resident hall full of first year college students that haven’t even been away from home for a year yet figure out what to do. Quincy managed to get it done, and when the call came to come back the next year as an RA he jumped at the opportunity to do it all over again. When he could have stayed home at no cost to him.
Quincy’s story is powerful, because a lot of it can get overlooked. Most people wouldn’t think twice about a story of a Resident Advisor myself included. Quincy’s story is purely about the love of helping and encouraging others as somebody once did for him. Quincy lives 40 mins from the college, and all his classes were completely virtual. He did not need to do it for the free room and board, but still decided to do so. Quincy is currently a history major and plans to attend law school after graduation. One day he hopes to help many more people outside of the walls of Morehouse College in the courtroom instead of the resident hall.
