Two years ago North Lake was full of students rushing to class, hanging out with friends or attending one of the many events being held.

The offices were full of professors grading papers, or trying to catch a break before their next class.

North Lake may have been a community college, but it was a college not just a campus.

There were even little cliques if you stayed and watched everyone long enough.

The “jocks” had their gym, the anime club had the student life center and the cafe, the “nerds” had their science and math wing, the “drama” students had their own separate area and then there were the writers and their corner of the campus.

There were no mask mandates or staying 6-feet apart at all times. Then the world came to a sudden holt for two years.

We watched as the news broadcasted what seem to be the end of the world on live television every day.

We watched loved ones die from afar and attended events or hung out with friends on Zoom calls on our couches.

There were no blue skies in sight so to speak.

Then a new year came and slowly the world started to open up again. North Lake opened and everyone was excited to see familiar faces and get a sense of normalcy back in their lives.

Because how much can a campus really have changed since the pandemic?

However, it felt like another loss to all of us. You can sit in the office and feel like you are the only person in the entire school on any day of the week.

There are only one or two in person events and no one knows about them because they aren’t advertised like they use to be.

Anyone who is on campus can only be reached by Teams now and students can’t join certain groups on Teams because it is staff and faculty only.

So, the only way to know if something is happening on campus is to walk around at the right time and catch it.

Each campus, Brookhaven, Cedar Valley, Eastfield, El Centro, Mountain View, North Lake and Richland have created their own type of identity or soul and then we were all expected to combine ourselves to help save students and make is easier to transfer credits.

In theory this sounds like an amazing idea. However, I don’t think any of us had a clue of what combining would do to us.

Entire departments are gone or barely surviving such as the theatre department. If you ever walked down the Performance Hall hallway you could always hear students practicing their skits, building sets or see them
running from room to room trying to prepare for that semesters big show.

Now the doors are closed and that hallway is like its own little ghost town.

For the first time in North Lake history, there will not be a show, but instead a stage reading.

Picture it, North Lake 2022, a program that once hosted full house plays and was renowned for its craftsmanship of its set and overall creativity now sits
dark, cold and empty.

However the technician and his assistant can occasionally be found in the Performance Hall when they’re not scrambling to other campuses because they are also spread too thin.

The plays were a huge hit and taught students how to create their own stage, fix lighting, costumes, makeup and acting.

These values can be taken anywhere in any job that these students end up in.

Right before the theatre, there is the Gallery and North Lake took so much pride in it’s art exhibits.

The art department would host an art reception for the artists to speak to attendees
about their work.

There were refreshments and music while everyone walked around and soaked in the art.

There is currently a fantastic exhibit hanging up and for the longest time no one had any idea who the artist was because there was not a plaque hanging up in its usual spot.

Turns out the artists now have to hang all their art themselves and that includes bringing the plaque.

We were told it is because faculty is stretched thin with having to work at multiple campuses now instead of just one.

There are situations where being one is creating more issues than solving and it will take time for everything to work itself out, but where is the line drawn?

We believe things are this way because of the changes when all the schools merged,
not on any one staff or faculty member of the campus itself.

The only upside to any of this is now you can find parking, any time of the day.

Instead of having to plan to arrive at school an hour early just so you don’t have to walk a mile to the front door.

This is a difficult transition for all of us and we hope it will get easier with time.

But there is a ghost wondering these halls where life once walked the halls and joy filled the air there is now just empty space.

The pandemic took so much from us and changed how we live our lives on a daily basis.

To come back to something that was suppose to feel so familiar and it be yet another loss is a tough blow to take.

So then the question becomes is this another pandemic death or a one college merge
mistake?