“The on-campus, in-person semester will go from August through November, students will go home for Thanksgiving break, and stay home to finish the semester and finals remotely.”
“There are 0 positive cases!”
“Once again, there are 0 positive cases from our surveillance testing.”
“Sorry, I can’t come to tennis practice today. I may have been exposed to someone who had symptoms and was getting a Covid test.”
“We have identified six positive cases on campus and are beginning the process of contact tracing with the Vermont Department of Health. Classes will be remote for the next two days.”
“Classes will be remote for the upcoming week. In-person activities and athletics are postponed as of now.”
“Classes will be remote through the end of the semester. All in-person activities and athletics are suspended through the end of the fall semester. Students must receive a negative test result before leaving campus.”
The progression of this past fall semester has been interesting, upsetting, and frustrating, to say the least. Starting out strong, students on campus (including myself) grew hopeful at the idea of remaining COVID-free, walking to a class in Jeanmarie hall, going to practice, and maintaining gatherings of less than 10. It seems like once there were a few positive test results, there were immediately 50 of them.
While it’s important to be thankful for health, a supportive campus community, and the ability to take virtual college courses, these last few weeks were supposed to be some of the best! The last time you got to actually see your professor’s face, walk to Dunkin Donuts without feeling “guilty” about leaving campus, and the last time you would be surrounded by all your roommates and friends, even if you didn’t get to see them every day. Now, more and more people are leaving every day, the testing protocol is a mess, friends are trapped in Joyce Hall, schoolwork stress levels are at an all-time high, and we’re supposed to hear about the results of the presidential election? So, happy November I suppose. I’d argue that the Halloween “spooky season” has officially leaked into its following month.