‘It just takes one person’: KU student tension grows as parties continue amid COVID-19
Some University of Kansas students are taking bets on how many more weeks they’ll be on campus.
Junior Derek Dunn said he doubts in-person classes will make it past mid-October.
But Dunn, chair of Student Rights and Responsibilities at KU, said he thinks even this is optimistic.
As of Sept. 1, 546 members of the campus community had tested positive for COVID-19. The majority are students, with 332 cases coming from Greek life alone. In a video update last week, KU Chancellor Douglas Girod said the Greek community was testing positive at a rate of about 10%.
“I think you’re in large part relying on some people who have just graduated high school to make choices that adults across the country haven’t been able to successfully make,” said Trey Duran, a second year law student from El Dorado, Kansas.
Other students, Dunn said, cite the recent scenes at bars and vibrant Greek community as the reason they doubt they’ll still be on campus in a couple weeks.
The university campus is expected to remain open for in-person classes through Nov. 24, at which point students will finish the semester remotely. Girod has said it is “unlikely” campus will close before Thanksgiving, though he didn’t indicate that switching to online classes only was out of the question.
Duran, the law student, said considering the current infection numbers, he also doesn’t believe it’s ethical to continue on-campus classes until Thanksgiving.
As the third week of the new semester is underway and new cases continue to be reported, multiple KU students told The Star that while safety protocols are being followed in classrooms, they often lack once students step foot off campus.
And they want more testing.
“It just takes one person to not follow the rules correctly and can put a lot of other people in jeopardy,” said Dunn, who is studying political science and global and international studies.
University of Kansas testing plan
The university previously announced plans to conduct about 525 tests each week moving forward in partnership with Watkins Health Services.
About 350 of those tests will be administered to random members of the KU community to determine the prevalence of the virus on campus. Individuals chosen for that testing will receive emails and be encouraged to obtain a test from the university.
Other tests will be given to individuals who have symptoms of the coronavirus or who came in close contact with confirmed cases. Close contact means a person has been within six feet of a person who tested positive for 10 minutes or more.
If an individual is believed to have come in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, health authorities will contact the person who was potentially exposed, University spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said Wednesday. This is part of the university’s plan for contact tracing in partnership with the county and state health departments.
“I don’t think anything students do can convince the administration to change course at this point,” Duran said. “I now believe that the level of infection deemed acceptable by the administration is higher than I’d anticipated and many others anticipated.”
Jayhawker Liberation Front, a student-run club, led a strike calling on students to stay home from their classes on Labor Day to demand that the campus move to remote learning. As of Wednesday, more than 700 people, including Duran, had also signed a petition calling on the same thing.
Parties continue off-campus
Neill Kennedy, a PhD candidate in American Studies and the president of the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition, wasn’t thrilled with the party scene over the weekend.
Kennedy, who lives off-campus near Greek housing, saw what she estimated to be hundreds of young adults, presumably college students, walking in groups up and down the sidewalk throughout the holiday weekend. Some carried cases of White Claw hard seltzer and Natural Light beer.
Many weren’t wearing masks.
“And you know, I don’t really blame them because the KU administration marketed the campus experience in the reason why we needed to reopen campus,” Kennedy said.
KU Interfraternity Council President Joe Davidson previously announced on Twitter that they were issuing a temporary moratorium on all social events, as they are “not considered in the best interest of the community.”
On Aug. 23, Chancellor Girod issued a cease and desist order for two fraternities, Kappa Sigma and Phi Kappa Psi, citing violations of health guidelines the weekend before classes began. A 14-day public health ban was also issued for members of each fraternity.
“Students, let us again be perfectly frank about our situation. We need each of you to rise to this occasion. We expect it of you, and we cannot settle for less,” Girod wrote. “Though this pandemic is impossibly complicated, the expectations of you are not.”
Students, including Kennedy, told The Star that despite this order, members of Greek life are still finding ways to gather. From what she’s seen, there’s virtually no enforcement of social distancing rules.
“If you just drive around the outskirts of campus for five minutes on a Friday or Saturday night, then you can tell that students are not abiding by the social distancing protocols,” Kennedy said.
She said she doesn’t believe it’s for lack of education, but rather a lack of uniform policies across the country.
It’s impossible to avoid the countless signs and messages around campus urging students to social distance and wear masks, she said.
“At this point it’s a willful disregard for that education,” Kennedy said.
“In some regards the damage has already been done and we will probably lose lives because of it.”
De-stigmatizing quarantine
Tuesday was Apramay Mishra’s 14th day of quarantine.
The KU student body president and a senior in economics and political science has been hunkered down since he came in contact with a friend who tested positive for the coronavirus.
He said he hopes more students are willing to do the same, if needed.
“I don’t want to stigmatize being in quarantine,” he said. “When you quarantine, you’re effectively putting the safety of others at the forefront of your mind.”
This is part of the evolving conversation about how to keep students safe and on campus now that they’re here, he said.
Pavika Saripalli, a doctor with Watkins Health Services appeared on a video update with KU’s chancellor and provost last week to advise students on when to get tested and when to quarantine.
If a student comes in contact with someone who tested positive, they should immediately quarantine for 14 days, she said, regardless of whether or not they test negative. If a student is symptomatic, they should go into isolation for about two weeks, or until they test negative.
‘Unintended consequences’
There are mental and physical stresses on students now related to the virus, in addition to the regular college stresses, Mishra said. Students need to feel they have support on campus if needed, and while moving online may be the answer in the future, it will come with additional complications.
“Moving online for the semester is a very drastic action which has pretty unintended consequences as well,” Mishra said.
He said he is worried many students would be homeless and not know where their next meal is coming from. That they would lose scholarships and campus jobs. There would be new hardships for international students as well.
Such a decision could leave many students in difficult situations searching for WiFi, stable housing, jobs and even food.
“My hope is that the university is considering these students first in their criteria when they’re deciding whether or not to stay open.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2020 at 12:50 PM.
