PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — When Jordan Schuster learned that Brown, like nearly all universities across the country contending with COVID-19, would transition to remote learning for the last two months of her senior year, texts from concerned friends began flooding in.

The messages didn’t ask how she felt about finishing her last semester of classes away from campus, or about the possibility that Commencement might be postponed. Instead, her friends worried that Schuster wouldn’t get to say a proper goodbye to Brown Salsa Club, the student-run dance group that she had been a part of since her first year on campus.  

“Everyone knew that’s what I would be thinking about,” said Schuster, an applied math concentrator and the club’s current co-president. “It was really heartbreaking.”

Schuster wasn’t the only one disappointed that the club’s annual spring celebration — an evening of dancing and music called SalsaFire that attracts hundreds of people to Brown’s College Green each year — and its weekly salsa lessons would be cancelled.

“Shock was my first reaction,” said Emily Wang, a sophomore economics concentrator and the club’s public relations officer. “I realized that this would be taking away a huge component of my life that I depended on — not just to keep in touch with my salsa family, but also to provide me with an outlet when things got stressful at school or when times got tough.”

But Schuster, Wang and their fellow club officers quickly mobilized, refusing to settle for a spring without Brown Salsa Club. 

“We immediately knew that we wanted to find a way somehow to continue the lessons, even if they happened virtually,” Wang said.

Their instructor, Mori Granot-Sanchez — the founder of the Rhode Island Latin Dance Team, who has been involved with Brown Salsa Club since it was founded in 2009 — quickly signed on and, after a few online test runs, their virtual salsa lessons were ready to go live.