As an apocalyptic two years of the COVID-19 pandemic comes to a close, Americans are bracing for a third year that is already off to a turbulent start. With some stuck in isolation and many international students facing flight delays, the first week of classes have felt disjointed and disorganized. Professors had to go back to utilizing Zoom on a regular basis, saying that “students were dropping like flies,” and the relatively fluid policies have left many confused.
The dizzying first few weeks of the semester were heavily impacted by the omicron variant, as demonstrated by the staggering number of cases. As of last Friday, John Brown University has 68 students and 21 employees in isolation and has reported over 200 cases in the past six weeks. While these are record numbers for JBU, administration has committed to three-feet social distancing and masks in classes and chapel, rules that seem rather lax considering the severity of the current issue. The president’s office has announced that they don’t intend to make weekly case updates like they did in previous semesters, despite the steady rise in cases.
For many students and faculty members, frustration abounds, as they find the flow of communication and policy information over the past year as muddled and confusing. Records on vaccinations are now outdated, given that boosters have begun, and a fourth shot could be on the way, adding to confusion and lessening the accuracy of data.
“The civic policies are completely arbitrary and a lot of professors aren’t even enforcing them in classes,” Lauren West, a senior political science major, said. “The masks being required in class and chapel but not at basketball games is ridiculous, considering students don’t even sit three feet apart at the games.”
She continued, saying, “As far as professors not enforcing it, I’ve seen some straight up say, ‘It’s stupid,’ or, ‘It doesn’t matter,’ and so students just don’t wear their masks. A lot of my professors just want the mask requirement to go away.”
Christopher Davis, a sophomore biology major, has had similar experiences. “The policies have been super inconsistent,” he said. “Some people with symptoms and exposure to COVID are being told to go to class, while people without symptoms are being forced to stay home. It doesn’t seem like they’re making much of an effort to follow the CDC’s guidelines. I don’t want to rag on them too much because I can’t fathom what it’s like to try to run a university during a pandemic, but at the same time I feel like they’ve been dropping the bar a bit regarding COVID policy.”
JBU isn’t the only university in Arkansas that is feeling the heat with COVID-19. Just last week, students at the University of Central Arkansas were calling on administrators to move to online classes for a minimum of three weeks in order to allow students proper quarantine time in the midst of a COVID-19 spike. The petition has received hundreds of signatures and has sparked conversations on other Arkansas campuses about how to handle the virus. KNWA reports that the University of Arkansas’ Interim Chancellor Charles Robinson told students at a panel discussion that “the university is taking every precaution to keep COVID-19 cases low and keep students on campus this semester. Students and staff will be the first to know if the circumstances change.”
Across the nation, the situation reflects the bleakness felt at Arkansas universities. The CDC reports that the U.S. is just mere weeks from reaching a total of 900,000 deaths, and hospitals are once again achieving full occupancy, with some days this month reaching well over 1 million cases.
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