The Biermann Athletic Center had turned into a pseudo-military hospital. People were scattered on cots all around the building, there were curtains covering the windows. At least, that’s the story that was going around earlier this week.
As it turns out, it wasn’t true.
In the last week, we have been receiving COVID-19 updates nearly every other day — more students are in quarantine, more students have tested positive, another event is canceled. Students’ reactions have varied, from support of administrative decisions to complete opposition to them. Rumors fly from student to student — even to the point where some of us believed the college had an entire athletic complex packed with quarantined students.
Of course, there will be debate about how the administration should carry out pandemic policies. That’s the nature of a novel virus; no one is an expert. Every protocol is new.
There is, however, a simple phrase that we’ve been told since we’ve arrived at Hillsdale: College is a partnership. If this is true, then it is our responsibility to communicate our needs and concerns to the administration, our professors, and our campus leaders, rather than complain amongst ourselves about the various ways in which we think the college has failed.
Just like we call our congressmen if we want to see changes in policy, we should seek to have healthy conversations with our leaders who can actually make the changes we vent about on our way to class. Where there are no conversations, there is no growth. And there may be more to the story than you think.