“I was concerned that we weren’t going to make it through the semester,” Grundmeier said.
In December 2019, Grundmeier and his wife University of Massachusetts professor Anne Fitzpatrick welcomed their second child, Peter. Their five-year-old daughter, Catherine, was attending pre-kindergarten.
On March 8, 2020, Grundmeier and Fitzpatrick pulled their daughter out of school due to increasing concern surrounding Covid-19. Just two days later, on March 10, Harvard announced that all classes would transition online for the remainder of the semester.
In the days that followed, Harvard operations transitioned online. While faculty adapted in-person instruction ranging from lab work to roundtable seminars to Zoom, the pandemic also forced them to adapt their personal lives to accommodate an increased load of work and home responsibilities.