What Will Campus Look Like?
Dylan’s college emailed its students: We need to know if you’re going to live on campus in the fall.
I understand why they need to know; their task is an impossible one. Still, this is an impossible choice. To what would we send Dylan back?
I wrote this letter in response:
My son is trying to decide how to answer the survey about fall residency. It makes sense that you need to know now, so that you can move on with plans for the fall, to figure out campus life in this impossible situation. I don’t envy your work!
But we, too, are stuck now. Between the protests and the beginnings of reopening, some of us are hunkered down awaiting the second wave of COVID-19. College football teams that decided to practice have had players test positive already, for example. You know all of this; I don’t need to preach to the choir.
In spite of the uncertainty, we need to make a decision now. We would LOVE to send my son back to college in the fall and have him live with his new roommates, eat at the cafeteria, play in his band, and play frisbee in the grass. He wanted to audition for an a cappella group, and he’d thought about being in a choir. But who knows if ANY of that will be safe?
And what will campus look like? What are we deciding, exactly? It’s unfair to ask us if we’re coming back when we have absolutely no idea to WHAT the students are coming back. Can you answer any of these questions, even in a vague way?
* Will students be required to stay in their dorm rooms when not in class?
* Will there be a mask requirement? (Where we live, you can’t leave the house without a mask; it is not that way in your city.)
* Will there be choirs and a cappella groups?
* Will bands be allowed to practice in the dorms?
* What measures will be put in place at the cafeteria?
* Will it be grab-and-go, or sit-and-eat?
* Will all classes be online or will students still be in the classrooms? And how will we know who will be doing what?
Perhaps most importantly for parents: can a student take a “gap year” until this blows over, or even a semester off, WITHOUT losing scholarships and financial aid?
My son desperately wants to go back and be with his friends. We ALL want a sense of normalcy again. But given that we have no idea when the second wave will be, OR what Belmont is planning to do to combat that second wave, this is an absolutely impossible decision to make without at least some idea of campus plans for the fall living situation.
Please, whatever you can tell us would be helpful.
My son said to me last night, “I’m not worried about me getting it; I think I’ll be fine. I’m worried about giving it to someone I love.” He’s got a father past retirement age, two grandparents who live very close, and a mother with an autoimmune disorder. What on earth do we tell him?
The provost wrote back immediately – which is astounding – and said that his own son goes to Belmont and lives on campus.
That was enough for me.