A first glimpse of home, the Department of Environmental Science

As the campus slowly opens up after two years into the pandemic, members of the Ateneo community are slowly beginning to adjust to a “new normal”; increasingly, this has begun to include on-site and face-to-face interactions.

Last 14 March 2022 – just four days shy of the two-year mark since the campus was first closed – undergraduate students of the Department of Environmental Science paid a visit to their home department, located at the Manila Observatory. Their visit, which followed University protocols, was coordinated with the Department, and the students were welcomed by Dr. Maria Aileen Leah G. Guzman, Chair of the Department of Environmental Science, and Ms. Rowena Argones, the department’s Administrative Assistant.

Dr. Guzman and Ms. Argones gave the students a tour of the department’s facilities, and of Manila Observatory. This was the first time that some of the students met Dr. Guzman and Ms. Argones in person, as they joined their respective programs during the initial lockdown two years ago.

As we slowly emerge from the pandemic and take tentative steps toward a new normal, we are reminded that while some things are slowly returning to their pre-pandemic conditions, we carry some inevitable changes that are here to stay for the longer-term. We are reminded that a “new normal” is a constantly changing term, one which asks us to cultivate spiritual resilience and concern for the needs of others.