On some level, this seems like a perverse exercise: who wants to look back on 2020?

A Pandora’s Box of a trip around the sun that brought plague, recession, unrest, and the quadrennial national screaming match of a presidential election, this is not a year that many of us will remember fondly. If we never hear the word “unprecedented” again, it will be too soon.

Here at UConn, we certainly weren’t spared the effects of 2020’s worst features: most consequentially, UConn Health’s frontline workers endured almost unbearable amounts of stress and grief as they confronted firsthand the terrible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Long after the blue hearts hung in windows have faded and the 7 p.m. salutes with pots and pans are a memory, their sacrifice and perseverance will remain as a testament to their commitment as medical providers, and to the University whose highest values of public service they embody.

While the pandemic was most inescapable at UConn Health, its consequences certainly weren’t absent elsewhere in the University. On Wednesday, March 11, the decision was made to switch to remote instruction beginning the Monday following Spring Break. Residence halls emptied out, faculty members scrambled to move their courses online mid-semester, and we wondered if it would really be as long as two weeks before things got back to normal. Some people were saying it could be as long as a month – that couldn’t be right, could it?

The year started without much indication it would be massively different than any other: President Thomas Katsouleas and students from UConn and UConn Health testified before the Appropriations Committee of the General Assembly, an important but familiar annual undertaking. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

On Feb. 23, HuskyTHON raised more than $1.5 million for Connecticut Children's Medical Center, a new record - and brought the kind of crowd to the Greer Field House that in just a few weeks would become impossible. (Kayla Simon/UConn Photo)

After Friday, March 13, everything changed: classes were moved online, residence halls emptied out, and the COVID-19 pandemic changed UConn forever. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

No part of the University was more affected by the pandemic than UConn Health, where frontline medical providers performed heroically in the face of a kind of public health crisis that hadn't been seen in a century. (Tina Encarnacion/UConn Health photo)

Elsewhere in the University, as faculty and students improvised and adapted to remote instruction, a testing regimen was developed for members of the UConn community. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

On May 9, the pandemic forced another historic first: a virtual Commencement, streamed live from the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Ironically, although few were physically present, more than 46,000 watched from home, making it the largest single commencement in University history. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

Even in the midst of the pandemic, though, University life continued on: UConn welcomed Carl Lejuez as its new provost in June. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

As the pandemic stretched on into summer, the renewed sense of gratitude so many felt toward health care workers led to parades held by UConn's Division of Public Safety in Farmington, here, and in Storrs Center, thanking medical providers for their near-superhuman resilience. (Tina Encarnacion/UConn Health photo)

With the arrival of summer came an ambitious plan to resume operations that would be close to normal in the fall. Among other things, that meant installing hand sanitizer stations in residence halls, sterilizing furniture and bedding, and printing thousands of signs to mark social distancing spaces. (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

Along with residence halls, classroom spaces - like this one at McHugh Hall - had to be rearranged to take the pandemic into account; here, student workers measure six feet on the floor, to properly space desks in the room. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

One key element of UConn's reopening strategy was mass testing for students, faculty, and staff. In August, University leaders including President Thomas Katsouleas agreed to be the initial test subjects, getting swabbed at a tent erected on the Depot Campus. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

On Aug. 14, a UConn move-in unlike any other began, as students arrived on campus in masks, got tested for the virus, and prepared to wait two weeks in University housing for the start of classes. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

Two weeks after move-in, a socially-distant convocation welcomed the Class of 2024 to UConn. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

And so began a semester of small classes in large rooms ... (Peter Morenus/UConn photo)

... and classes that blended in-person instruction with remote instruction. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

But if there's one piece of visual shorthand that's likely to represent the whole of Fall 2020, it has to be the hottest fashion statement on campus: the mask. (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

... masks in the Student Union ... (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

There were masks in the lab ... (Bri Diaz/UConn Photo)

... masks in residence halls ... (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

... masks on the Student Union Mall ... (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

... masks while studying ... (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

... masks while building innovations ... (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

... masks while working out ... (UConn Photo/Sean Flynn)

... even masks while building a snowman, after an unseasonal winter storm a few days before Halloween. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

But as different as the semester was in many ways, the main features of UConn life - teaching, research, student life - continued, as did the enduring beauty of campus. (UConn photo/Sean Flynn)

As 2020 ended, UConn geared up for a spring semester that will likely resemble the fall, with mass virus testing, reduced capacity in residence halls and classrooms, and the ever-present masks everywhere you look. (Peter Morenus/UConn photo)

But December also brought a hopeful note, as the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Connecticut, with UConn Health workers among the first to receive them. (Tina Encarnacion/UConn Health Photo)

If one lesson can be derived from this year, it's the resilience and commitment of the entire UConn community, qualities that will serve us well in the days and weeks ahead. Here's to 2021. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

Two months later, UConn held its first-ever remote Commencement, streamed live from the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Ironically, given that only a handful of people were physically present, it was the most-viewed single commencement ceremony in the University’s history, with more than 46,000 people watching from home. By then, of course, we knew things weren’t getting back to normal in two weeks, or a month, or six months. All we could do now was adapt, and wait.

In the summer, classrooms, labs, and residence halls were reconfigured, sanitized, sterilized, and marked with stickers and signs denoting lengths of six feet for proper social distancing. Students arrived for move-in on Aug. 14, a normal enough day in the life of the University, except for the ubiquitous masks, and the requirement to complete a COVID-19 test before getting keys to the room. Summer turned to fall, and by mid-October, despite the predictions of many, it seemed like we were going to pull this off after all – a semester as close to “normal” as possible under the circumstances.

December brought with it hopeful photos of UConn Health workers receiving doses of the first available COVID-19 vaccine, and the knowledge that the spring semester will be a challenge, but now – having gone through this once – at least it would not be “unprecedented” (sorry).

One of the hard lessons of life is that difficulty teaches you who you are. And this is who we were in 2020: a community determined to face up to the worst, and overcome it. And so, as we come to the end of this unforgettable year that many of us would like to forget, let’s look over these images captured by UConn and UConn Health photographers, and remind ourselves: We made it, Huskies. Now let’s climb the next hill together.