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America needs us on the front lines
Letter from the Editor Dear Reader,
Of the 100 top memories of my college experience, I would say roughly zero involve academics.
Except maybe finishing the footnotes in my final senior paper so I could join the guys for a pickup football game in the quad the last day of my senior year.
And that is why I watch with a sense of concern as colleges and universities across Michigan try different approaches to launching the school year with some sense of normalcy against the backdrop of COVID.
Some, like the University of Michigan, brought students back to campus with a mix of in-person and virtual learning. Some, like Michigan State University, invited students back to campus and then, after seeing outbreaks of the virus at other major universities, sent most of them home and switched to online-only classes.
These bastions of learning are themselves learning something this fall.
First, the coronavirus spreads when people are in close quarters, especially indoors, and it will happily jump into a new host when given the opportunity. And, that humans are unpredictable … especially 18- to 22-year-olds, who by nature are impulsive creatures seeking social stimulation and new experiences.
We’ve already seen how that can trump the best-laid plans by a college for sanitization, enhanced distancing and choreographed classroom arrangements.
“When we’re talking about how one toga party can throw off the entire COVID-19 response at a university … personal responsibility is going to be a huge part of what keeps students on campus or that forces them off campus,” said Riley Murdock, an MLive reporter for The Saginaw News who has been covering a bumpy reopening to the school year for Central Michigan University.
CMU opened its school year with fanfare, including social media depictions of President Bob Davies playing cornhole with students during welcome weekend. Within a week, CMU had become a COVID hotspot, and Davies apologized for the impressions left by socializing with students. Confirmed cases related to the return of students to CMU have topped 210.
How this fall and winter play out on campuses “really depends on whether or not students are willing to step up and actually do things the way that will keep each other safe,” Murdock said.
After high-profile outbreaks at colleges across the country, perhaps the students are getting the message. Steve Marowski, an MLive reporter for The Ann Arbor News, has covered the reopening of the University of Michigan, including spending time roaming campus last Friday night to see how students were acting.
“I saw that almost everybody walking around on campus and at those houses was wearing masks. It doesn’t mean those large parties didn’t happen, but it wasn’t something we saw,” Marowski said. “It was encouraging, and a little bit different than what a normal Friday night at U of M might be.”
Still, it’s going to be an ongoing battle for self-restraint among students and vigilance by colleges as the fall turns to winter. That was illustrated by what Marowski had to report on when he returned to work on Monday: Adrian College, my alma mater, reported that 6 percent of its students and staff have tested positive for COVID.
This came about 10 days after Adrian reopened with in-person learning, and a pledge by the college to play all fall sports. The school said it is modifying approaches for the next two weeks to control the outbreaks, but intends to resume normal operations as soon as possible.
The problem is, the coronavirus has upended “normal,” and humans remain the X factor. Murdock noted that students gathering, despite what they know about the virus and what is at stake, may dictate what colleges and universities can and can’t do more than any administrative protocols.
“That reaction is kind of a microcosm of how we, at least in America, have been treating the pandemic,” he said. “We do what we’re supposed to be doing in terms of precautions, and then we just kind of get sick of it. And then who knows what we do from there.”
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John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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