Mount Holyoke College returned to a fully residential experience in Fall 2021 for the first time since the campus began remote learning in March 2020. In an email to students from March 2021, former College president Sonya Stephens addressed the Mount Holyoke community about plans for Fall 2021 and beyond. Stephens stated, “Faculty and students will be engaged in our campus learning environment together, and we will make any adjustments needed to continue to protect health and safety.”
Content warning: this article discusses ableism and mass death.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the lives of every human being for over two years. People are tired of restrictions, tired of fear and tired of putting their lives on hold for a virus that keeps spreading and mutating, especially as stubborn holdouts refuse to get vaccinated. This sentiment is entirely justified; I am annoyed and frustrated by how much my college experience and my early 20s have been negatively impacted by the virus. What is not justified, however, is the idea that we should normalize living with the virus and return to business as usual because it seems that people are now more likely to get it than not. Though this idea has recently taken hold in much of the United States, its roots lie in corporate greed. While the average vaccinated and boostered individual will likely avoid hospitalization and death if they contract the virus, as shown in a Jan. 7 study from the CDC, those who are immunocompromised and disabled may not. The fact that their concerns are being pushed to the side for the sake of returning to the status quo is horrifying to me, yet unfortunately, unsurprising.
In a world where the COVID-19 situation is constantly evolving, keeping up isn’t an easy task. It is essential to be on top of the facts and make way for conversations that address a simple yet crucial question: What’s next?
Mount Holyoke College President Sonya Stephens’ email in March 2021 was a breath of fresh air for many, bearing the news that Mount Holyoke would open its doors for all students in the fall semester. While many rejoiced at this decision, there were still questions and concerns littering students’ minds about masks, testing and overall safety about in-person school. Before the fall semester started, these initial questions regarding COVID-19 were answered.
At the beginning of September, Mount Holyoke students re-introduced themselves to campus. Freshmen and sophomores got their first taste of in-person learning, while juniors and seniors found themselves adjusting to being on campus for the first time in a year and a half. Those who went home as first years in 2020 returned as juniors while 2020’s sophomores are now completing their final year. The leap forward has left some Mount Holyoke upperclassmen unsure of where they stand. I spoke with several students who talked about feeling like they’d lost part of the “Mount Holyoke experience.”
In just two weeks, from July 8-22, the number of new U.S. COVID-19 cases jumped from roughly 23,000 to over 63,000, in a trend mirroring July 2020. (These numbers go up when we consider infections among populations in prisons are unreported in many states). Yet, just by looking at the measures taken by state governments, you would think COVID-19 has been all but eradicated.
For many, myself included, religion is deeply personal. What makes this type of faith so intimate is its promise for inclusivity and a sense of community. The history of religious faith can be traced back to the sacred texts we read today and the rituals and festivals we celebrate. Yet, this very faith has seemed to challenge its promise of longevity. The rapid decline in religious affiliation that started at the beginning of the last decade has sparked a conversation that addresses a simple question: What changed?
While around 250 million college students consider the four walls of the classroom their second home, the pandemic has resulted in a displacement of the regular learning process. The establishment of online schooling comes with a new set of rules and features, many of which consist of learning strategies for navigating remote learning. However, a number of students around the world, including myself, have found themselves questioning the efficacy and relevance of a lot of the in-person features being replicated online.
The ability of social media to alter our appearance to be more aesthetically pleasing reveals a dangerous trend. The pandemic has provided people, such as myself, an opportunity to renegotiate previous beauty and body standards. However, social media’s overarching presence has prevented this change from taking place for many of us.
This month marks one year since I, along with most members of the Mount Holyoke community, packed up my dorm and left campus due to COVID-19. Like most people, I have experienced grief, frustration, anger and instability since then. There have been countless days where I wake up with an acute, dull ache in my chest for no obvious reason until I remember, “Oh, right. Your life has been turned upside down because of a pandemic.”
In January 2021, the global community completed one full year with COVID-19. After months of harsh lockdowns in India and New Zealand and days of rising cases in the United Kingdom and the United States, 2021 is, hopefully, the light at the end of the tunnel. With 11 vaccines having been authorized across several countries and a record of 205 million of these vaccines being administered globally, the pandemic is slowly becoming history.
When winter break ended this year, many students were excited to come back to campus for the first time since it closed last spring. The campus had reopened, though students had to agree to some restrictions for the sake of the community’s health, such as staying within a 10-mile radius of campus, biweekly COVID-19 testing, mask-wearing, social distancing and certain dining hall restrictions. MHC announced most of these restrictions early and clarified them in messages sent to students and families. But one thing that was never advertised were the changes to the meal plan.
By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23
Staff Writer
As November comes around annually, I prepare myself for a time of celebration and festivity. In the time of this pandemic, Diwali is a light of hope, an opportunity to get out of the drudgery of online classes and celebrate. However, as I partake in this celebration, there is a lingering thought in the corner of my mind asking me if I am celebrating with awareness. As the holiday season engulfs us, we must rethink the ways in which we celebrate and ensure that we are doing so with a sense of sustainability and responsibility to health and the environment.
Traditionally, Diwali is celebrated by lighting “diyas” or oil lamps. However, since around the 1940s, the rampant usage of fireworks to mark the occasion has made its way into the festival.
While growing up, my grandfather would buy sacks of fireworks, called firecrackers or just "crackers" in India, for all of us to celebrate, and Diwali would be filled with the noise and smoke of firecrackers burning all over the city. However, today, caught amid the climate change crisis, we must pause to reconsider these crackers’ place in Diwali celebrations. Crackers are pollutants, harmful to both our health and the environment, and to purchase them is to bolster an industry of fireworks factories that employ child labor.
Diwali fireworks have led to a 30-40 percent increase in recorded breathing problems. The fireworks’ chemicals contain “a mixture of sulfur-coal compounds, traces of heavy metals, and other toxic chemicals or gases.” All of these lead to breathing problems, and bursting the crackers in such a rampant manner puts many people, especially the elderly and vulnerable, at risk.
Additionally, amid a pandemic, we must realize how bursting crackers demonstrates our privilege and negligence toward those who are more at risk for health issues. Along with harmful smoke, the crackers also produce noise pollution, detrimental to both people and animals. This pollution leads to a sense of anxiety, sleep disturbance and, according to The Indian Express, “asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, allergic rhinitis, lower respiratory tract infections, and lung cancers.”
In light of the pandemic, some state governments in India passed a ban on the usage of crackers for Diwali. However, while the government called for the ban, it was not entirely carried out. According to The Hindu, “bursting of firecrackers could be heard across Delhi and its neighbouring areas on Diwali night even though a ban was imposed on its sale and use in the national capital region in view of rising air pollution and COVID-19 pandemic.” Hindu groups, including many Bharatiya Janata Party members, argued that the bursting of firecrackers was an essential part of the festival and should not be banned.
However, caught in the middle of a pandemic and facing global warming, we must rethink how we can do justice to both festivities as well as environmental consciousness. We must work to celebrate festivals like Diwali with these dangers in mind. Given that fireworks are only a recent addition, perhaps we can return to lighting diyas as the main attraction. We can draw rangolis, make sweets and, in a safe manner, come together with friends and family, preserving the essence of the festival. After all, Diwali is the celebration of good over evil, and we must not forget that even in the excitement of the celebration.
Additionally, while evaluating if the Diwali celebration is staying true to its intent, we must be aware of the horrors of the firecracker industry bolstered on this day. The firecracker industry in India carries a history of child labor. Young children were used for rolling fireworks and stuffing explosives into them because they had tiny hands and fingers that would ensure precision. Working in unsafe conditions, the children’s jobs expose them to harsh chemicals, injuries and lifelong health issues. While there has been a decline in child labor in the industry, we cannot neglect its presence and history. When we burst these crackers in celebration, we are also bolstering these young children’s trauma and suffering. This act of celebration is definitely not in line with the intent to celebrate Diwali and honor the triumph of good over evil.
Right now, we have an opportunity to reevaluate the ways we celebrate Diwali and other festivals, keeping in mind an awareness of the times we are in and the changes that we and the environment are going through. It is an opportunity for us to review some of our practices while staying true to the festivals and their intent.
We are international students who cannot fly to the U.S. for our first year at Mount Holyoke College due to COVID-19 and the shutting down of all U.S. consulates around the world. Most of us are first-generation students or low-income students who have made every mental and monetary effort to attend this college.
