Students eat their meals on Skinner Green, where a tent has been pitched for that purpose. Photo by Rosemary Geib ‘23.
By Rebecca Gagnon ‘23
Features Editor
Whether you’re a first year stepping onto campus for the first time or a senior experiencing waves of nostalgia while walking around the Mount Holyoke campus, there are new experiences to discover as the College welcomes back the full capacity of students for the new academic year. Although a majority of students seem glad to be back, some feel anxious about returning. Opinions vary widely on how the school is handling the COVID-19 pandemic and the protocols that should keep our community safe.
“I’m really happy to be back, and I’m very excited for kicking off some of these classes,” Lucy Manlick ’22 said. “I’m definitely glad that we’re back and starting things up again.”
Jen Matos, assistant professor of psychology and education, stated that they feel some of the same relief that students do about being back. “I think being back on campus lets us take a kind of a deep, although a masked, breath. A deeper breath about feeling like we’re back at home, you know,” Matos said. “We call it MoHome for a reason.”
Returning to campus has allowed students to participate in activities they missed during the time away, even though there are some limitations.
Avni Wadhwani ’23 described how she missed simply running into people on campus. “Just being able to walk into somebody’s room or … see somebody around instead of having to … make a conscious effort to schedule time,” she said.
Manlick echoed that she missed hanging out with people, and although she has only been here for about two weeks, Molly Brown ’25 stated that she loves everything about being on campus so far, especially the people.
“I love being here,” Molly Brown ’25 said with a laugh. “I love the people … [and] everything, everything, everything.”
“Everyone’s so friendly,” Brown emphasized. “I feel like I’m able to walk up to anyone and have a good conversation. Even if you know we don’t have to become best friends.”
Although there is a general feeling of excitement about being back, it is not the same MoHome we left a year and a half ago. Among the many changes are the new rules put into place to keep our community safe. Some of these new guidelines include wearing masks indoors, getting tested twice a week, limited indoor dining, having a limited number of people in your room, needing to swipe to enter buildings and participating in contact tracing. Some of these rules are only here for two weeks as everyone settles back onto campus, but others are here indefinitely. For example, students should get used to swiping to enter buildings, having a limited number of people in their rooms, and participating in contact tracing, all which will be enforced for the foreseeable future.
“I feel as though the College has very clear plans in place related to COVID-19 safety,” Claire Williamson ’23, an RA at Prospect Hall, said. “I think the College is well prepared from a health and safety standpoint.” Williamson added that she thinks the College is still figuring out how to have a large number of students in one place at once while continuing to maintain COVID-19 protocols, which is evident during the lunch and dinner rush in the Dining Commons. However, Williamson also said that she does feel safe on campus. “I also feel a greater sense of security knowing that at least 95 percent of residential students are fully vaccinated,” Williamson finished.
Manlick, Brown and Wadhwani also expressed that they feel the College was prepared to welcome its students back onto campus and have done well enforcing the guidelines so far.
However, this feeling that the College is prepared and feeling safe on campus is not shared by all who have returned.
“I have personally been incredibly disappointed,” Lucy James-Olson ’22 stated. Although they were exposed to COVID-19, James-Olson said they never received an email about contact tracing. Instead, they had to learn about what to do in that situation from their friends, not from the College itself. “It feels like MHC has abandoned us with the bare minimum information and expects us to take on full responsibility for the safety of the entire community,” James-Olson continued. “Even [the] faculty seems to be uninformed about COVID-19 protocols. If I wasn’t as close as I am to graduating, I would not stay at this institution.”
James-Olson isn’t alone in their frustration. The campus seems to be filled with mixed emotions about returning and differing opinions on the College’s conduct regarding containing the spread of COVID-19.
Matos acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the campus, in light of the particularly infectious delta variant and the possibilities of other variants as well. “I think that there’s still this awareness [that] things could change,” Matos said, “and that language is everywhere.” They continued to state how, on Mount Holyoke’s website and professors’ syllabi, everything is “subject to change.”
Even some students who are mostly excited to be back are also experiencing anxiety as they adjust to living on campus and attending in-person classes. Activities such as being in a room full of people or eating near others can be nerve-racking.
“Sometimes I’m in a crowd of people and I’m just like, this is maybe not the right number of people that we should have in one place at one time,” Manlick described. She continued to say that having many people in one place makes her worried about spreading the delta variant, even to people who are fully vaccinated.
Other worries present have to do with the College’s protocols for having students take their health into their own hands.
“My biggest concern is that the administration is using the community compact to abdicate all responsibility for student safety and force students to be solely responsible for our own health,” James-Olson said. “The combination of their very limited guidance regarding COVID-19 safety guidelines, and their requirement for students to sign the community compact makes it nearly impossible for students to take meaningful action and demand clarity and responsibility from the administration.”
Although Williamson believes the College has been prepared to welcome students back onto campus, she added that she feels her job as an RA is more difficult this year than it would have been in previous years.
“I feel that I’m put in a difficult situation of having to enforce rules related to health and safety when [first] these rules are not my own and [second] I am not an expert in health and safety,” Williamson said. She also stated that some students take the rules very seriously while others are more laid back, and she can see both sides. She doesn’t want to stop people from having fun, but it is also her job to enforce the rules and make sure everyone is safe.
With a change as significant as returning to campus at full capacity, a wide range of emotions and responses have engulfed the Mount Holyoke community. For now, student sentiment remains uncertain as we move forward in this unusual set of circumstances.