This week, our Editorial Board reflected on how Covid-19 continues to affect campus life. Trust us, we are just as tired of editorializing on this issue over three and a half years since the start of the pandemic as you are of hearing about it. Unfortunately, however, a recent surge in student cases indicates that the virus is still very much present on campus and retains the power to substantially impact our lives. We call for the administration to share with the student body any information they have on Covid-19 cases, make test kits and masks more accessible and establish clearer guidelines to how professors and students should deal with the virus.
To be clear, no one wants to see a return to the stringent Covid-19 rules of 2020 and 2021. We instead want to ease student concerns about the potential ramifications of testing positive and openly communicate about what the best practices should be around testing, isolation and other prevention methods. We believe the administration has unfairly skirted its responsibility to students, faculty and staff to build consensus on these issues when it chooses to “emphasize personal responsibility” in Covid-19 while promising to continue “core health and safety measures to minimize the potential of its impact.”
We raise these issues because over the past four weeks, Board members have witnessed inconsistent approaches among students to addressing (or not addressing) Covid-19 symptoms. Some sick students choose not to take a Covid-19 test for fear of a positive result, perhaps in order to continue attending classes and social events rather than risk more lengthy isolation periods. Others have tested positive and quarantined for five days per CDC and college guidelines. Even other students have chosen to quarantine for five days and wear a mask in public spaces for five more days following the quarantine. A lack of communication from the college has left students to shoulder the burden of determining how to act in these situations; we know that this type of decision-making can be challenging for students, especially when it comes to choosing between a party and sitting alone in your dorm room. We always encourage students to give each other grace and respect others’ personal health decisions, even if they are stricter than your own.
The college’s over-enrollment has also influenced Covid-19 policies, as the lack of isolation housing has led to students with roommates feeling unsure about how to proceed in the case that their roommate becomes sick with Covid-19. In these situations, roommates of students with Covid-19 must juggle difficult moral questions regarding whether or not to test, attend class or continue with their lives as normal. One Board member contracted the virus, and her roommate had no option but to continue to share a living space while sick, later contracting the virus herself.
Middlebury’s current Covid-19 policy is in line with CDC guidelines and indicates that anyone who receives a positive test result should quarantine for a minimum of five days and wear a mask around other people. Test kits are currently available for free at Parton Health Center and for purchase at Midd Xpress, BiHall and the College Store. When Parton is closed, however, students who cannot afford or do not want to pay for a test are left without any way of following CDC guidelines. This inaccessibility of testing once again shows how Middlebury cannot cry personal responsibility while creating hurdles for students who wish to test. This is not possible without the college creating more opportunities for students to acquire Covid-19 tests, such as offering them at the entrances to dining halls, as has been done in previous years.
The lack of communication, guidance and resources from the college leaves students in limbo and fails to help our community. The last email we received regarding Covid-19 was the “Prearrival Health Update” on Aug. 30 which — as the subject line indicates — was before the majority of students settled on campus and before large numbers of students actually began to feel sick.
In addition to free test kits around campus at easily accessible locations, we demand communication from the college acknowledging the increase in cases and guidelines for how the community should respond — with a strong emphasis on guidelines, as we by no means suggest a return to the stringent regulations of 2020. How can we make well-informed, rational decisions if the only Covid-19 information around campus comes from word of mouth and rumors? Especially in light of Middlebury's motto — “Scientia et Virtus,” meaning knowledge and virtue — its policies of purposeful ignorance and deference to personal responsibility seem especially incongruous.
Administrative guidance is especially critical for professors at Middlebury, who have largely been left to their own devices to determine a Covid-19 policy for their class. As a result of this lack of guidance, The Campus reported professors responding to students having Covid-19 in vastly different ways, with some far more lenient than others. While some professors choose to zoom students in directly, others require students to zoom through a friend and still others tell students not to attend class at all, and just focus on healing. For some classes, missing a class is not a viable option — one of our Board members is taking a class that has weekly quizzes, and if a student is not physically present in class, they cannot take the quiz. We ask that professors reconsider these harsh policies on missing class and making up work that disincentivize Covid-19 testing and encourage sick students to overwork themselves. Likewise, we request reassurance from the college that a student will not face consequences if they miss class because they have Covid-19 or Covid-19-like symptoms.
Deans, too should help in the process of students and professors negotiating how to catch up with work and not be penalized for a positive test result. Students sick with Covid-19 must coordinate with four professors who may all have different expectations and varying levels of sympathy, leading to more confusion in an already difficult situation. When necessary, the college should be acting as a mediator between students and faculty, ensuring that those who are sick can recover without additional stress, and reassuring faculty that sick students will not feel incentivized to attend class anyways.
Whether we like it or not, Covid-19 still exists on campus. It continues to pose challenges to our academic and social lives, and the drastic range of approaches from professors and students alike are only adding to these challenges. We are doing the best we can, but as an academic community, we need more communication and resources from the administration on how to manage the virus this semester. Professors are expected to develop Covid-19 policy for students on top of teaching their regular course load, while students are tasked with the personal responsibility to monitor the community’s health and keeping up with schoolwork and other obligations.
While The Campus reports on recent surges in Covid-19 cases and the accompanying problems, the college has gone over a month without saying a single word of communication on the subject. The only sound we’re hearing these days is coughing and sniffling from students too sick to learn but too scared to stay home.
