’21 Honoree Anne Crecelius

“There is beauty in multitasking and Zoom meetings. In the middle of March, I was the interim department chair for Health and Sport Science and we were having a sort of emergency leadership team meeting with the other department chairs and the Dean’s office about what was going on, and I remember that moment very clearly because it was during that Zoom call that I also got a phone call from my oncologist. The breast cancer that I had been diagnosed with in 2014 had returned and had progressed to stage IV metastatic disease, and he said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow to talk about next steps.’ Then, I sat back down and joined the Zoom call again.”

“I had to go in for the testing, and I literally ran a Zoom meeting for my department from my cell phone in the parking lot of the doctor’s office, because the meeting was running up right until the time of my appointment. And, I could be in an Executive Committee of the Academic Senate meeting from the waiting room before a bone scan. Even now, I have Friday treatments, and I will be sitting in the chemo chair, with my iPad out listening in on meetings."

"Last March, I changed treatments: tried something for three months, didn't work; tried something else for three months, still no progress; fortunately, the infusion chemo that I’ve been on for the past three months actually did show some progress, I just found out. So as much as the pandemic defined the past year for so many of us, for me it’s also been a personal health challenge. The idea of resilience, for me, has definitely been multifactorial in the past few months, trying to manage how to be a strong leader and have an impact, and yet also prioritize myself, because I need to. I think there are a lot of parallels to my current metastatic disease and the pandemic in that so much is unknown and so much is ‘we'll see how it goes.’ We can’t make plans more than three months out because ‘we have to see what the data looks like,’ and as for my health right now, that’s sort of how I have to live my life."

"I’m a scientist and I love data and I like supporting things with facts, and in the past year there has been overwhelming amounts of information. Trying to sort through all of that and make decisions, I think, has been the challenge and to recognize that none of those decisions are made lightly or easily; that we trust that those we work with are taking into consideration various perspectives. Yes, I'm doing my own research on the back end, but at some point you have to trust the people who we’ve hired to do the jobs, to do them right. I can Google all I want, but at the end of the day, I still rely on my medical team to help me make decisions about my care. I still rely on the University administration to keep the doors open."

"Sometimes life hits you with big messy complex stuff that really doesn’t have a good answer. You can wallow and complain or you can adapt and modify your life to become accustomed to it. That’s what we’ve all had to do the past year, and what I think I’ve tried to help others do. I talk a lot with students, trying to help them understand the challenges of when things are coming at you, that what we’re doing in the grand scheme of things is actually what’s important. I think that the pandemic has forced people to maybe acknowledge, or to say out loud, a lot of things that we hadn't been saying before. Maybe it’s because we’re only communicating virtually, and so we have to actually articulate things because the ability to actually connect physically has been taken away."

"Anytime you’re going through a significant health crisis, there’s that sense of ‘there's no time to waste,’ and ‘I need to make sure that I say what I want to say.’ That mentality of trying to address the present moment, I think the past year we’ve all realized, is much easier said than done. But when you strip away the things that you can do outside of the house or the things that you can do at work, you kind of purge down to what’s most meaningful and what’s most important.”

“Seeing the humanity in people has been so important this past year. Quite frankly, probably one of the bigger things is the idea of grace and humility, and what you’re capable of doing and not capable of doing. I’m not one that likes to admit that I’m not capable of doing something, and I am one that generally hesitates to accept and ask for help. But I think having dealt with the health issues, I have learned to accept help and to allow others to help, and to admit when things are overwhelming or I’m overcome by something, and I think that’s been really important this past year as well. So, while I don’t have any family members here, I definitely would say that I have my UD family that I rely on and that has been critical in helping me get through both the pandemic and different types of health challenges. I’m an alum, and I hope that I live out the ‘Learn, Lead and Serve’ motto of UD in what I do. It’s a great community and I feel lucky that I have good relationships with the people who’ve been honored with this award in the past and on the list this year. I feel fortunate that I know many of them quite well.”