NDSU welcomes students back in the midst of a pandemic

Everyone is ready to be back to ‘normal,’ or whatever the new version of post-pandemic normal could even be. The idea of a familiar fall on campus with students returning to the residence halls, professors sending syllabi, and Welcome Week activities all sound picturesque when compared to the months of nothing many people have endured. And returning to campus would be great if it weren’t for the reasoning behind those months of nothing. 

Despite whatever normalcy members of the NDSU community have been promised, it doesn’t change the fact that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic, residing in the nation with the world’s highest number of cases. Even with masks and social distancing measures in place, am I the only one who keeps asking myself: What the hell are we doing returning to campus?

Listen, everyone wants to be back to school, myself included. Anyone who spends a few months stuck in their high school bedroom when half the nation is shut down is going to be a little stir crazy for action, even if that action is a fifty minute lecture on soil science. 

On top of that, students who were here this past spring know that online schooling really doesn’t stack up to the real thing; technological lags, communication issues, and frustration lead to online burnout pretty quickly. Not to mention that coming back to Fargo means students now have easier access to the social outlets necessary to managing college stresses. It’s just not the same when your entire friend group is spread across city and state lines.

Still, even with the restlessness from quarantine, the burnout from online schooling and the anxiety caused from not seeing friends, returning to in-person schooling will inevitably have one major and unignorable consequence: people are going to die. 

It would sound like a complete overreaction under any other circumstance but the reality is that some people will likely die as a result of NDSU’s choice to keep campus open. As thousands of students reconverge on Fargo, with positive test results already being reported, the cases in the area are going to spike. 

While this doesn’t seem like a huge concern to students, it should be. Students aren’t likely to be the ones who physically take the brunt of the virus, but when their parents, grandparents, professors or neighbors pass away from interaction with an asymptomatic student, they will not be spared from the emotional brunt. 

We can rationalize all we want about the necessity of having college kids back on campus (and don’t worry we’ll get to why that doesn’t really work as an argument either), but first everyone should take a hard look at the effect of our remaining open. Are you willing to have a stranger or even a loved one lose their life so you can hang out with your friends?

Classes transitioned to online and campus was emptied out when the national number of new cases everyday was around 2,000. According to Worldometer, that number is now at around 33,000 and here we are back on campus. We were sent home to protect the NDSU community and the local health care systems from the virus and we have been invited back for what? The answer to that question is really as simple as the university needs our money.

I don’t think anyone, including NDSU, is pretending like the reason students are back is for any other reason besides finances (at least not convincingly). If they did it would seem pretty dubious: “We would like the students and faculty back on campus for their own health and wellbeing, even if, you know, they could lose that well-being by contracting coronavirus…” 

If NDSU didn’t offer in-person classes, students would rightfully demand lower tuition prices. When campus closed in the spring, students questioned why they were paying for printer fees, library fees, for a membership at the wellness center and any other number of services that would only be useful to students with access to campus.

So instead, NDSU will invite students back just long enough to pass the date to drop credits, get everyone’s full tuition and send everyone home when there’s an outbreak. Those infected with the virus will struggle, as will those around them, freshman will make connections worthy of the time they’ve been here (two weeks, a month; honestly someone should be taking bets), all classes will once again fully transition to online, but hey, at least NDSU will be flush with our cash. 

To the university’s credit, there’s more to money than just lining pockets. Keeping campus open and charging students their full tuition means keeping professors employed, allowing students an opportunity to on-campus jobs and keeping the university open in the first place so students can finish their degrees.

My argument is simply that we should be more transparent with ourselves about why we’re back so that when people inevitably die from the virus we can honestly ask ourselves whether having students come back for a few weeks in order to get the most amount of money possible was worth those lost. For humanity’s sake, I hope most people won’t think that it was (so again: why are we here?).

Coming back to campus only works on the condition that everyone does as much as they can to slow the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, I don’t know if you’ve ever encountered someone like this at NDSU, but there are quite a few people who wouldn’t do what was required of them even if you threatened to take away their darties for the year.

Passing by campus the week before classes had even begun, there had been a constant stream of 40 to 50 freshmen students playing volleyball and basketball outside of the Reed-Johnson residence halls without masks on and with zero social distancing. This was Darwin’s shelf people and in this case, natural selection will not only eliminate the stupid, but also the selfish. 

However, to give the kids some credit, being a freshman in a pandemic would have to be hard. Most of these kids probably didn’t get to finish their senior year in person. Many of them are socially starved and even I, as pro-mask and immunocompromised as possible, would have struggled as a freshmen to be as ardent with protocols when social pressures came into play. Everyone isn’t wearing a mask and going to parties? I don’t know a single person here? Yeah, that would be difficult.

Now students who are back on campus have no excuse. Watching students on the first day of classes was a prime example of why mask protocols just won’t work. Hundreds of students walk past each other outside on the way to their classes, mask in their hands and not on their face and only put their mask on when they’re about to enter a building. At that point, masks should be no more of a comfort to us than a seatbelt in a car that’s sinking in water.

Also, I can’t believe this is even real, there’s already been numerous parties happening around NDSU. Are you really so selfish that you can’t even limit the number of people you drink your Busch Light around? No one’s even requesting that you quell your alcoholism, merely that you limit it slightly, and that’s still too much? Dwight Schrute said it best when remarking, “We need a new plague.” Well we have one and you cretins still won’t stop. 

Even if, by some miracle, every student followed procedures perfectly, it would still be so hard not to have the virus spread. Students will, and have, come to campus with the virus. These students are sharing bathrooms, bedrooms and living spaces with many others. 

So, it’s easy to blame freshmen and people who chose to do the bare minimum around campus (and believe me, I still do), but the real blame should be in the hands of the people who ultimately knew students probably wouldn’t do their part, are aware people will die and still chose to invite everyone back anyway. 

Will NDSU likely switch to online school soon? Yes, with very little doubt. If students all converge in one space and don’t follow protocols there will be an outbreak. To avoid numerous lawsuits (that they will lose), NDSU will likely have no choice but to send people home. 

And even if, by some miracle, school doesn’t get cancelled, what have we proved as a community that we were willing to sacrifice the lives of students, faculty and their loved ones for money and comfort? It will never be worth it. 

Every student at NDSU, especially freshmen, deserves their college experience. We all want to be back to visiting friends, finishing our education and enjoying our limited time here. However, no one will be receiving that full college experience without being unsafe, and if a few are unsafe then there’s no college experience period.

I know why we’re back in-person, I think we all do, I just will never know how we will be able to justify it to ourselves while watching the “In Memoriam” that will be sent at the end of the (online) semester.