I keep seeing reports about covid inevitably spreading on campuses that lay the blame entirely on the students. I get it, we’re seeing kids partying and hanging out without masks and it’s infuriating, just like it’s maddening to see a bunch of old white bikers doing the same thing. Those bikers should know better, and arguably so should college students, but is it fair to place the blame on the students? Why did the Sturgis motorcycle rally happen and why are college campuses open again during a pandemic? Do you remember what it was like to be 18 to 21? College students socialize, it’s somewhat inevitable. In response many colleges are suspending, shaming and blaming students for partying or just gathering without masks. There’s an editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education that questions why the blame is being placed on young people when administrators are the ones creating a perfect storm. My favorite quote from this piece is from Dr. Julia L. Marcus, an epidemiologist at Harvard. She talks about the American tendency to blame people instead of policies. She doesn’t say this but the Republicans almost always do this so they don’t have to take responsibility. Here’s a small section from that piece, which you can read at the source:
At the same time that blame and responsibility were piling on, critics were questioning whether it was fair to fault college students for doing what students naturally do, especially when they’ve been cooped up with their parents for months, away from their friends and eager for a “real” college experience.
And should college administrators shoulder much of the blame for bringing students back in the midst of a pandemic and expecting radical changes in their behavior?
Julia L. Marcus, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, believes they should. “What’s happening on college campuses is a microcosm of what’s happening in this country, which is a deflection of responsibility from the top down to the individual,” she said in an interview.
“It’s unconscionable for these administrators to be shaming and blaming and punishing their students for what we all knew would happen. For any of us who take a minute to put ourselves back in our 18-year-old selves, asking students to essentially lock themselves in their rooms for a semester isn’t going to be an effective public-health approach.”
Marcus said she isn’t absolving students of all responsibility for failure to wear masks and maintain social distance. But colleges, she said, haven’t provided enough safe alternatives to socialize.
Of course social distancing and mask-wearing should be standard for college students, and they’re old enough to learn how to do that. Surely the majority are trying to be responsible, and of course colleges are working to make things safe for everyone, but it’s unrealistic to expect all student to comply at all times. As we know it just takes a few people to spread this virus. I agree with Dr. Marcus that this should be on the decision-makers. If lockdown was more restrictive and mass testing was available months ago it might be safe to open up colleges again. The US has more cases than anywhere else and things are not going to change here for months, especially with an unhinged cult leader in power.
It seems to me every college and university in America has taken the position that they will be the miraculous exception to the general rule that undergraduates are not going to socially distance if they're on campus no matter what the public health situation in the United States
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 22, 2020
Purdue University has suspended 36 students who attended a party on Wednesday night and violated the school's COVID safety regulations
Syracuse University also announced it has suspended 23 students for attending a large gathering on the “quad” on campushttps://t.co/lkdk01tIbO
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) August 21, 2020
Another one: pic.twitter.com/kQa9oVvShl
— Chris Hippensteel (@chrishipp15_) August 20, 2020
What *some* colleges are doing isn't so far from a bait-and-switch. Lay out implausible conditions under which college could commence w/o COVID spread. Get tuition on premise of an in-person experience. Blame students when the conditions are inevitably violated. Then go online. https://t.co/4z3zXJZXBp
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 22, 2020
Here’s a video from Purdue emphasizing social distancing and mask-wearing.
Classes should be online. Dorms should not be open. Fees for having in person classes are paramount. But…this is a pandemic, do your part! Throwing caution to the wind and heading to the first party back is plain stupid and risky. Why do it? Why run the risk? Yes, it’s a part of college culture, but that doesn’t mean students have to do it. A 100 person party with alcohol and no social distancing is foolish and for that, the students do need to be blamed. But…they wouldn’t be on campus if it wasn’t for school administrators. We’re never getting ahead of this with the majority of people running around living their lives without any personal responsibility or empathy for others.
We’ve all gone online in Canada. I just received the update it will stay that way until probably at least fall 2021. Why is this an issue? It’s entirely manageable and we are far less at risk. This difference says so much.
There was no reason to ever plan for on campus classes.
Ps online school has been a dream as exams have gone open book. Let’s celebrate the small silver linings.
Hey I would have loved to have done my entire degree on-line. Man I remember those cold Canadian winters…parking my car blocks from campus because it was free on the side streets. Those long ass walks to class at 8am ! The gas money you would save, and being able to eat warm meals at home instead of a sandwich I would bring with me. Not to mention open book exams ! What’s not to love ?!
Part of the issue is that in the US we’ve commodified education so that students and parents value the college experience over the actual education. So when an all online education is brought up, students don’t want to participate/pay because they’ve been sold the idea that campus life is more important than learning.
College also costs way too much (partly because of the above), but that’s a much more convoluted mess.
Jesus. I’m an A+ student and couldn’t care less about the college lifestyle. The goal is to be a doctor, not perfect my keg stands. We will go back to class eventually so the ‘experience’ will be complete, but for just one year….. go online.
The 99.5% I received in a neurology course didn’t hurt – thanks open book. The American vision of things is so skewed. (No offence to the many of you who aren’t living in that world).
For the most part, I agree that on-line is the way to go for this year. The biggest problem is the infrastructure support needed to maintain virtual learning at home – internet service for some students is the wifi available in a nearby parking lot. I went to college with kids from rural areas where even that much access would have been a fantasy. Those students get left behind and many will never catch up. That doesn’t even begin to address the issues for students without stable home lives (as the parent of an LGBTQ+ kid, I’ve heard more horror stories than I want to think about).
Additionally, what happens to lab sciences? I’ve gotten a lot of “there’s an app for that”, but really – two of my sister’s in law are lab-based scientists – one is a biochemist, the other is an epidemiologist. Being able to do the hands-on work in a properly outfitted lab is critical for their jobs. My high schooler can do most of their basic chemistry experiments in my kitchen, but that’s just high school – not university level.
For almost everything else, remote/virtual learning is an acceptable substitute, at least in the short term. And, no, I don’t know what the answer is.
I don’t think I agree that people value the college experience *over* the education, but people definitely place a lot of value in it, which is right in normal times. The experience isn’t about ‘keg stands’ as someone mentioned, but for many college students, especially those that go away to school, it’s the first time being in charge of their own lives on a day-to-day basis. Basically learning to “adult,” but with a net.
However, these are not normal times, and health and safety should be the priority.
There are also many services that students do not get when they take online courses (access to the school libraries, fitness centers, the student health center, work-study jobs, etc), so the refusal to lower or reduce extra fees for online classes is a valid criticism.
absolutely 💯 students are to blame for their own choices. It’s their choice to attend school. their choice to party unsafely. they’re adults I’m not gonna treat them like children…
To an extent, yes. However, 6 or 8 people sharing a bathroom creates an environment that allows the spread of illness. That means you have students who are doing what they are supposed to, but who are forced into living with others who may not. What are they supposed to do? Not use the bathroom?
Sort of? You become a more responsible person primarily through knowledge (that’s taught to you) and experience. So to say that someone with 17 or 18 years of knowledge and experience is able to make the same kinds of reasoned choices as someone with 40 or 50 years of knowledge and experience isn’t accurate. College (or the time after high school) is typically when people are learning how to become responsible members of an adult community — they don’t just get that immediately when they turn 18. The administrators in charge of decisions for the college community as a whole are far better positioned to make choices that keep everyone safe.
I don’t want to out myself too much, but I have a stepchild at Purdue and one at Notre Dame. (We’re a Big10 family. Yes, I know ND is Big10 in hockey only.) Apparently what the students are doing is trying to get COVID so that they can get it over with and “be immune” and get back to their partying. One of them was posting pics all over Instagram at The Backer, a dirty little bar two blocks from campus. Since it’s off campus, there isn’t anything ND can do about it. Also, Notre Dame may have virtual learning, but they still have their athletes practicing everyday and it’s kind of hard to tackle someone while staying six feet apart. Purdue’s dorms are so old and tiny that it would be impossible to keep any sort of social distancing. My dorm in undergrad was 8’x10’ for two people.
The Backer is a cesspool to begin with, let alone in a pandemic.
I live in a college town, and the university here is limiting one person per dorm room. They’ve even leased rooms in a local hotel to provide enough space. Not that they’re doing a great job. Because they’re not. I drove thru town the other day and there were tons of students in groups wandering around town… so I guess my days of ordering takeout from local businesses are over.
But how can professors and admin expect students to follow guidelines when they themselves are not?? I know for a fact that admin staff at the university here were NOT wearing masks while at work, even though a mask policy was in place. Their excuse was students hadn’t returned to campus at that time. But what about other staff??
I live near a very large college campus (now shuttered due to the virus but some of the kids are here staying in the dorms and around the school which doesn’t make sense to me because if the school is online you can learn from anywhere). Many of them don’t wear masks (this city is very blue and it isn’t trump country so I don’t think it’s politically motivated). I figure that they are of the opinion that only elderly and people with a compromised immune system can get it. Which isn’t at all true anymore. Also their age, at 18-22 you feel invincible. I graduated from this particular college last year and I remember stories from the other students about how small the dorms are. I don’t know how these kids are getting by being trapped three to four to a dorm for most of the day learning. Why not just stay home and attend virtually?
You are assuming that they have homes to go to, and that those homes would be suitable for them to study in. A nice house in the suburbs with your own bedroom is better than a tiny dorm room. Sharing a bedroom with several siblings / sleeping on the couch in an apartment may not be. Trying to couch surf during Covid because other than the dorm you are either homeless or that home is unsafe definitely isn’t better than the dorm.
If had been in their position when I was at university, I would have gone home and my middle class white collar parents would have facilitated my studies. Not everyone is that privileged.
I’m sorry but I’m not going to be made to feel guilty because I didn’t consider the home life of every single college student returning to school this fall. Most of the kids I knew lived at home because they couldn’t afford the 7k cost a semester to live in the dorms. This is a Cal State which is miles cheaper than a UC but was still out of reach for many.
College isn’t an escape and it should never be thought as one because once the four to five years comes to an end, you still have to find a job to move out of the house. At college abusers can still find victims to abuse, so it’s not exactly a safe space. My college had incidents of rape and people getting guns pulled on them during the two years I was there. My school got locked down a few times and once it went completely online during spring semester due to a terrorist threat. During my junior year someone took a photo of a handgun on a dashboard and posted it to social media. I was in lecture on that day, about 100 yards from where the picture was taken. Safe? As if. Girls that I knew carried small containers of mace on their keychains, safe? No.
After graduation, alot of kids are moving back in with their parents because they can’t afford rent, food and student loan payments. So after five years (not counting summers) of an escape, they are still often back in the same place where they started from.
Yes to the points made below about assuming that “Staying Home” is a better alternative. Cal State LA was the first campus to just say “all online for fall” and they still have dorms open for housing risk students.
Also, college apartments have to be paid for in like April for the next semester. If I had already put down a first and last’s on an apartment, I would definitely be moving in.
It’s all about money for these universities: they want their room and board fees and want to make sure that kids aren’t taking gap years or going to community colleges. So yes, let’s basically blame a bunch of people whose brains aren’t fully developed for acting exactly how they’re supposed to act: like teens who don’t understand consequences.
In North Carolina, it was the GOP controlled state legislature who demanded that universities open as if there was no pandemic.
It’s about money because otherwise they have to lay off and furlough a bunch of staff. I agree they shouldn’t be open at all, but the alternative sucks too.
Correct, Mich. It’s not all as cut and dry as everybody thinks. UNC Chapel Hill is the largest school within a system of schools. They had to follow the guidelines set forth by their governing bodies, and they are a state school.
I’m not saying anybody is handling any of this well right now but let’s not be mad at a few colleges when the President and Governors could have controlled this situation a lot better and provided actual guidelines for reopening.
This. It is all about money. My group of mom friends, several of whom have college freshman, all seem to agree that they want our kids in dorms for money reasons. Once the kids have moved in and are committed to the semester, the universities will move to on line.
It’s not ENTIRELY about the money. Trump said that if a college will be online only, he will revoke foreign students’ visas. Many colleges are trying to protect their students’ education, especially if the students are close to graduating. The Trump administration doesn’t care about health or students, they are using “deport students” as a way to blackmail colleges into maintaining in-person courses (to tie into Trump’s lies that Covid will miraculously disappear).
I live near Greek row for a large public University. Parties were in full swing over the weekend. I’m not hopeful.
Last Friday I saw three or four large vehicles in a caravan packed shoulder-to-shoulder with frat boys heading out to some kind of gathering. The thing that pissed me off the most was that there was a mom and dad clearly driving one vehicle and heading up that covid-adventure. My college town was doing REALLY well, now, we’re screwed since the kids came back
As I was a science major, I can’t imagine college without a lab and being 100% home based. The high school lab didn’t structure you the way a university one does. And taking 1-2 years without a lab will be so hard to make up for students now. Virtual is safer, but they lose a lot of education, socialization and independence as well. I feel bad for them.
Yes, of course they can’t wear masks 24/7. The communal living alone is horrible for spread Floor bathrooms for example, should you wear masks in the shower? If you have a fever but home is across the country, do you have to stay with your roommates and/or communal bathroom environment?
I live in Chapel Hill and was completely ticked off by the students coming back. We all knew what was going to happen.
Not all students have been irresponsible. In fact, not even the majority. But this virus requires only one and the state legislature should never have forced this situation.
My niece is at ND and says fellow students are blatantly ignoring the guidelines-not wearing masks, not social distancing.
She’s got her eyes on the prize b/c she’s finishing a 5 year architecture degree, but she says there’s lots of peer pressure to go to parties.
Ive been waiting for this student blaming to begin. Blaming individuals action is so much easier than addressing institutional problems. That’s the Republican strategy for basically everything- provide no foundation/infrastructure/support and then point the finger at personal responsibility and individual moral failings as the problem. It’s like they took a page out of the police manual. I would bet $$ that if we had a different national administration, we’d all be in much better shape by now. I understand how irresponsible kids can be, especially Republican entitled brats, but they should be penalized and/or sent home for being public health risks.
I feel the need to mention some colleges and universities kept a dorm and very basic food service open for those students that had no where to go, international students for example, no in-person classes but a few offered online for summer. Safety precautions were enforced but not a problem since the students were so grateful to have a place to live.
THIS! Every word! This.
At my school, there are some students who will have permission to stay even if we end up fully online. This includes international students, and those that do not have a stable home life. For some, being away from family is safer. This is not a place with students who have “entitlement issues”. (I have worked at places like that; one place someone threatened to remove a donation if their nephew did not get an A in physics.)
It really shocked me how many students had no place to go or couldn’t go home for safety reasons. This is fkn America, how can that be? I mean it wasn’t a ton but more than you’d expect. Those students tend to be so hardworking and successful in academia. University staff went out of their way to be sure they all had what they needed, so heartwarming.
That’s who the dorms and such should be reserved for. I feel for those students, this is a really tough situation to be in.
I feel for these kids. I would be lying if I said that the 18 year old me would have stayed home. Campus life saved me from the loneliness and anxiety I felt when I moved to Ann Arbor and away from my family back in the day. Study groups and late night library sessions helped me succeed.
I work for a Big 10 school, and on campus move in started last week. I’ve been working on site a couple days a week since June and there were some aspects of having the students around I missed, but one of those was not their tendency to jaywalk and ignore most traffic signals.
The prevailing view among staff is that campus is only doing on campus classes because of financial concerns. Most of the messaging from the chancellor’s office has been about the financial cost of the pandemic, not how people on campus have stepped up to continue providing services and helping to create solutions. That really does a disservice to those who have continued to provide services and keep campus running. It also doesn’t highlight how many creative and innovative people we have who have applied their knowledge to creating tools to help fight this pandemic, and how flexible we can be, especially our labs which have taken the lead state wide in helping ramping up Covid testing. I’m an alumna of another Big 10 school, and they were not shy about promoting their Covid saliva test last week, including how affordable it is and how it can be used to test large numbers of people with quick turnaround time.
I think you and I are alums of the same Big 10 school, which seems to be the only one that has an actual, extensive plan for testing that might actually work.
Illinois almna here. From what I’ve heard, their plan actually sounds well thought out and may work, at least enough to get through in person instruction through Thanksgiving. I also know from classmates who work there that most staff are staying remote unless they absolutely need to come onto campus to provide services needed to support researchers and students. So far, they’ve avoided furloughs, which is refreshing. Just in order to access campus buildings, they have to get tested at a campus testing site and show the results in an app.
I don’t have a great deal of confidence in the institution I work and their plan. On campus testing just started on one site on the west side of campus August 1, and plans to expand testing to other sites are TBD. All we have to do before reporting on site is to fill out a form that we don’t have any Covid symptoms. HR is pretty much approving anyone who feels they have to work on site for work, even when some can do most of their work remotely.
In theory, on site work is supposed to be work that supports researchers and students, but in reality it’s becoming more of a chance to get caught up on projects that had fallen lower on the priority scale before the pandemic. My boss, who could be mostly work from home, is insisting on coming in to “work” with my coworker and myself on projects. It was really frustrating for me this afternoon when I’m trying to get some work done and she decided to go through the nooks and crannies of my office where she had stashed a couple years worth of projects. Even I didn’t remember when those projects were started, which really says a lot about how they are not a priority. She then gives a donor permission to drop off donations, when there’s no way that they will get added to our collection until next spring at the earliest, due to limited staffing in other areas needed to complete them. Thank god it’s only for one day a week and a couple hours at that. Even with a mask on, my frustration was beginning to show. I had not missed her rather hovering management style.
Michigan? If so, they are taking it very seriously. For some reason my law school email was never deactivated some 10+ years later and there must be five emails a day from the law school about COVID testing.
I work on a university campus. The students are pretty good at following the rules on campus, but off-campus it’s different story. I won’t be surprised if we go 100% online in a few weeks- this weekend there were a lot of unmasked parties on Main Street. TBH most classes are online anyway.
Well, what do you expect young white people to do when one of the world’s largest media organizations is facilitating the spread of lies and misinformation about this disease? How do you expect white university administrators to behave?
Fox Corp is convincing white people that they are immune to COVID19 or if they do get infected they asymptomatic. Fox Corp is convincing white people that there is a vast number of therapeutics to treat COVID19 when really is still a crapshoot. Fox Corp has SUCCESSFULLY convinced the majority of white Americans that hey should not wear masks to protect themselves and each other from a deadly airborne respiratory illness.
If these white administrators cared about their students and employees, we would see pushback from the lies and misinformation. We would have seen these universities public health education campaigns aimed at their students, employees, and their campus’ local public. Reports of university presidents lobbying their state and U.S. senators for clearer, consistent activity guidelines. Press releases from universities refusing to open their campus despite what their state government may have required. Instead, they prepared for in-person instruction anyway and encouraged students to board on or near their campuses.
Disgusting. The parents. The students. The administrators. Fox Corp.
My sister works at the University of Kentucky and they’re worried about how long they can stay in. I get that kids wants to socialize together off campus, but if universities have to go all-virtual and give tuition money back, for kids who decide to defer for the semester or who don’t pay for dorms they aren’t use, a lot of university workers are going to get furloughed or laid off. I get that kids don’t care about that, but university employees sure do.
And at the University of Kentucky, move in was a mess! The school had a great plan for staggered move ins and specific hours. But then the parents just all flooded the other campus buildings and hung out when their Move in Window was over.
Also a lot of schools have mandatory quarantines. So parents are dropping them off and then going to run the “campus errands” like getting books/ID etc for the student since the student has to quarnatine….completely missing the point.
Nobody, not the colleges or the students, are able to manage what the entire country could not.
These universities knew what they were doing. They just wanted to collect the tuition check and then blame students for spreading COVID when college buildings are packed anyways.
Sacrifice everything for the dollar. It makes sense that the economy is in shambles when educational institutions that are being bankrolled somehow cannot go 1 year without charging full tuition including room & board. They undoubtedly have the means for distance learning.
I live by Kansas University which has recently opened back up for the fall semester, its a major university and our population essentially doubles when the students come back every year. Our COVID numbers have been on the rise but they opened the dorms and fraternities and sororities anyway.
While the students can’t solely take the blame for what has been a national failure in regards to the pandemic, they can take a little bit of responsibility for their own actions. If you drive down Tennessee Street here, where all the fraternity and sorority houses are guaranteed there will be 30-40 people in front, maskless, playing beer pong. Locally we have about 4 or 5 five videos circling social media showing this reckless behavior and demanding action from the Chancellor.
To say that this is not any of their fault is not true. While we should be doing better and not opening up AT ALL – since we did and they paid and chose to go back to school they can be held accountable for their actions.
This is a very important conversation to have regardless of covid: from a public health perspective, we have to acknowledge human beings will always engage in certain behaviors, and certain risks come with that. For example, since the dawn of humanity people have sought altered states (drug use), intimacy/gratification (sexual activity), communal acceptance (socialization). When we seek to deny people will naturally engage in these activities and try to police them based on arbitrary morality nothing good comes of it. Again, maybe it’s just the public health researcher in me, but far more good comes of incorporating intersectional harm reduction and accepting people will engage in risky behaviors, give them the most important and realistic information, figure out what people are willing to do and realistically can do, and go from there.
Ok but the ‘harm reduction’ steps here are socialize while wearing masks, distanced, and / or outside. None of those three things are happening with the bar, house party, etc. scene. These students are propagating the pandemic.
I mean, the schools shouldn’t reopen, so that’s not the students fault.
But them not being socially aware enough to follow simple rules, is definitively their fault. They’re university students, so they’re adults who should know better.
I won’t absolve them from the guilt of spreading covid.
Exactly. The students do hold a lot of the blame. They know better ! Many of them wear masks to class and masks to their part-time jobs. They know how this virus spreads, they just don’t care because social life rules !
This. Completely. There’s plenty of blame to go around here. Of course the universities shouldn’t be open for in-person classes, but that doesn’t mean the students shouldn’t act responsibly. If an 18 year old ran someone over with their car we wouldn’t excuse it with, “well, they’re young and dumb and feel like they’re invincible. What did we all expect when we gave them a drivers’ license?” As a society we treat 18 year olds as legal adults and ask that they be responsible for their behavior and how it affects others. This situation is no different.
I understand that socializing is seen as an integral part of the college experience, but I think socialization is an integral part of the elementary school experience, too, and my 9 year olds understand that they need to stay home more than usual and wear masks right now. If a nine year old can handle it, so can a 19 year old.
Amen. My younger kids who are in the foundational years of their education —that can’t easily be done online—are having another effed up school year because people like these adult college students can’t keep their shit together and are pouring gas on the fire of this pandemic.
I agree – I think it’s both. Shame on all the schools opening like nothing’s wrong and then wringing their hands when it all goes crazy, but these students have to try too. Especially when the efforts are pretty minimal – wear a mask and social distance. That’s it. No one is asking for some herculean effort here.
I work at a university and I have to disagree with you @lucy2. If you only knew the enormous efforts universities are putting forth to ensure safety – it’s so much more than just wear a mask and socially distance. People also either don’t realize or forget that there are HUGE portions of the student population that literally need the campuses to be “officially” open ( or even in a hybrid scenario) for them to even come to (or stay in) the U.S. and continue their higher education. Students like international students, DACA, and undocumented students rely on their universities to provide them with the support they need. Another thing – some universities (like mine) are research universities, which means that so much of people’s work – student research, faculty memebers’ lifelong work – is dependent on in-person, on-campus lab or adjacent work. And last but certainly not least, let’s not forget about the hundreds, thousands of university employees that can’t telework or work remotely. If the campuses close for another semester – effectively now, a year – they lose their livelihoods. How is that fair to them?
The point is that the decision to come back to campus – even partially – is so incredibly complicated. The simple fact of the matter is that the universities need to hold up their end of providing clear communication and safe measures and students – who are old enough to drive and vote and want to be considered grown – should have the sense to follow safety measures.
I’m frustrated by the way people respond to these stories sometimes. Young people are really bearing a lot of the social and economic costs of the pandemic (they got hit worse with the job losses, especially female workers and BIPOC). Older people are more likely to have families/spouses of their own and depend less on friend groups for socialization and as a support network. According to data from the CDC: “Mental health conditions are disproportionately affecting specific populations, especially young adults, Hispanic persons, Black persons, essential workers, unpaid caregivers for adults,” and people who already have psychiatric conditions. Young adults (18-24) had the sharpest uptick in suicidal ideation, with 1 in 4 reporting having considered suicide in the past 30 days. Initiating or escalating substance abuse, trauma/stressor related symptoms, and anxiety and depression were all most commonly reported in that age group, with the incidence decreasing as the age went up. I know it’s always trendy to blame young people for societal problems but it seems pretty obvious from the data that this population is feeling pretty overwhelmed right now. They share responsibility; I would not go so far as to say they share *blame*. They are, after all, like all of us, in a situation that is the fault of an incompetent administration. Young people didn’t create this problem, Trump did, and Fox News did.
I empathize with the other young people who are tired of being alone. I am 27 which is old but six months of almost total isolation from friends, and not being able to have a dating life, yeah, it’s been really challenging. Especially because I see other young people, my friends, on social media having a great time and going on vacations together and playing drinking games and I’m just sitting here with my cat and trying to find a job and crying. If I were even younger with poorer impulse control, it would be hard to tolerate continual isolation *especially* since the value proposition of college is just as much about socializing as it is the education. Humans are tribal animals. It is unnatural for us to be so isolated for so long.
I also believe it’s universities wanting to collect room and board money regardless of how unsafe it is in this context. As I think back to when I was in college it just makes me realize how even if you are a hermit who only leaves your dorm room to use the shower or the kitchen, it’s Germ City. We had a meningitis outbreak in one of the dorms one year, and I was sick with colds and flus pretty much the entire time I was enrolled.
Exactly this! People love to blame younger college-aged people for spreading the virus. But they don’t consider the psychological toll it’s taking on them. It’s tough being alone, younger people have less stability and depend on their friends. I’m tired of hearing boomers complain when they are the ones with nice houses, family they can depend on and more resources to get through this period.
I actually work at a university (staffer) and this notion that “schools should just be closed” is so lacking in a comprehensive understanding of the full scope of what a university is and who it’s students are.
The simple fact of the matter is that MANY universities have to be open, or at least in a hybrid scenario, because there are international students, DACA and undocumented students and more who literally rely on the colleges “officially” being open in order to even a) come or stay in the U.S. and b) continue their higher education. Somehow these student’s very dire situations get lost in this “blame the admin” game. People also don’t talk about the hundreds, thousands of employees that would be laid off who rely on physical campus work if campuses just stayed closed until the pandemic was over. How is that fair to those people?
At the end of the day, schools are really, really trying hard to implement a safe way for students AND staff, faculty and more to come back. It’s scary, of course it is, but when students blatantly ignore or go against guidelines and protocols put in place that took MONTHS of negotiating and coordinating, it is so selfish and disheartening. The general blame of this whole pandemic lies straight up at Trump’s feet, for sure, because he could’ve helped prevent where we are today. But students – who are young adults, who can drive and vote and WANT to be treated like adults – should hold a portion of the responsibility and blame for outbreaks on campus. Point blank period.
It’s tough right now in academia/education right now. Colleges are facing the same dilemma that all educational institutions across the country are now facing. However reopening college/schools is a losing battle, despite trying to institute “safe” protocols. It’s like trying an experiment you know is going to fail. Students may wear masks, but the majority won’t socially distance. Socializing is a huge part of being at college/school and if students can’t do that safely on campus, there is no point to them being on campus.
My alma mater (Dickinson College) didn’t even bother trying to reopen the campus and went immediately remote for the fall because they were smart. International students and students with not a stable home situation or reliable Internet are the only ones permitted back on campus, so they did make exceptions. Everyone else though is staying home and it is the right thing to do. They had every intention to reopen and then during the summer the college president sent an email outlining all the reasons why it was impossible or even a remotely feasible scenario to expect students to maintain 6 feet distance from each other at all times. Also it’s a small liberal arts school so it doesn’t have enough housing to quarantine students waiting for test results/having to isolate because they got a positive result. The logistics of managing that was too overwhelming. Every single college trying to reopen is going to have to go back to remote at some point, wasting their students’ times and also making them scramble to arrange transportation home. You also have to think of it from the students’ perspective, not just the university staff.
Hi @Emily,
Thanks for responding! I agree that thinking of the students is important – hence why I mentioned first the group of students facing very real, dire consequences if their campuses remain officially remote. I also think it’s important to note that universities aren’t actually expecting there not to be any people sick on campus, they’re just trying to limit the number of people getting sick to as low as possible – similar to the opening of essential businesses. And like an essential business, the reality is that there are a lot of people and issues tied up with universities and it’s simply not just about the students. It’s also about the people who work at universities who, as I mentioned before, are facing severe economic worries.
It’s great that your university was able to pivot fully online, but that’s not because they were smart, it’s because they were able to (being a small university like you mentioned). Even then, they still offered on-campus availability for those that needed it. And that’s it, isn’t it? Colleges still need to provide some type of on-campus support and to do that, they have to implement safety measures and students have to obey those. Period. My school, for instance, only has 20% in-person courses and 80% are still online. On top of that, my school did a survey of incoming and current students and a surprising number of students (almost 50%) wanted the option to be back on campus.
At the end of the day, this whole situation is messy and tricky, no denying that. And universities might have to pivot back to remote learning. But, it’s up to the universities to provide options and space – both physical and remote – to their diverse campus community. Simple saying that colleges = socializing completely diminishes a) the real focus and need for higher education institutions and b) is sort of insulting the emotional and mental intelligence of students, especially those that are trying to adhere to protocols for their and others safety.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but yes, some of that blame can reasonably be laid at the feet of students who choose to go to parties during a pandemic. This notion that you get to be treated as a kid all the way through your teens is very recent, and very class-specific.
I grew up working class, and look, working class kids do insanely stupid things too, but also we’re pretty much expected to be adults upon high school graduation. When I was 18 my major concern in life was getting enough hours at work to cover my rent. I don’t really understand the notion that 18-year-olds just can’t help themselves from going to parties.
My kids are or will be in apartments. Fortuitously enough, with friends that quarantined with us this summer. Most of their classes will be online, my boyspawn has a semester long project he is doing, so he only needs to be at school for the editing lab, which he reserves. Surprisingly, neither of the spawn is that into partying. They are not little paragons of virtue, but they are smart and tend to make better choices than expected. Maybe having a physician mother has drummed something into them. I can only hope and pray they continue to make good choices.