Joanna Orban
Copy Editor
I’ve always been a big fan of campus events. Between sporting events, free movies and student activity board events I always felt like I had something to do on campus. Because I’m from out of town and I don’t have the opportunity to go home very often I came to rely upon on-campus events as something I could do to fill my time. During my first year at Idaho State, I attended a campus event at least once a week.
In the last six months that has changed. With COVID-19 affecting each and every part of my life, I’ve been much more cautious about attending campus events or even hanging out with my friends. I even struggled with whether or not I should come back to campus this semester. I honestly wondered if I’d be safer at home.
Last week during the second week of classes, there were multiple on-campus events such as an involvement fair, free icecream on the quad and a tie-dye blanket event. Normally I wouldn’t have even hesitated about attending one or all of these events but now it’s not just me that I have to think about. It’s my roommates, my friends and my family that are potentially at risk if I go to an event and get exposed to COVID-19.
Attending campus events is even scarier when you realize that it’s people of our age demographic that are raising the number of COVID-19 cases all over the country. Several schools like the University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have already had to close because of a spike in cases. These cases have been linked to several parties where students were not following CDC guidelines. Even more cases have been linked to sororities and fraternities. According to Amy Harmon, a writer for The New York Times, “Universities are struggling with how to prevent tightly packed sorority and fraternity houses from turning into coronavirus clusters.”
ISU doesn’t have a large greek life, but during the second week of classes, the university hosted several events.
All things considered, is it safe to attend university-sanctioned events if I follow CDC guidelines? Even as Idaho State requires masks, and Rendezvous has marked one-way hallways, I still ponder whether or not to attend campus events. I didn’t go and get the free ice cream because I figured the line would be long and crowded and I knew people would be taking off their masks to eat said ice cream. To me, that just didn’t seem safe. However, the strict guidelines have caused many people to crave social connection. According to Harmon, “Students are pining for the connections that college life is supposed to offer.”
The Idaho State University SAB has worked hard to make sure that events stay safe so students can get some semblance of a social connection. One way they’ve done this is to follow set university and CDC guidelines. This includes capping an event at 50 people, making sure social distance is maintained and making sure people wear masks.
According to Ben Storms, the Director of SAB, “We are making sure to take the precautions given to us by the university and the health department. We do have signs where students will enter and exit depending on the type of event. If we do have more than 50 people, we have to break into different chunks.”
With these policies in place, students are seemingly okay with the university hosting events. According to ISU sophomore Timmi Short, “I think they should still allow events as long as they can be reasonably socially distanced and people wear masks.”
Short isn’t worried about attending events amidst COVID-19.
“If I don’t have COVID and follow all the guidelines, I feel like I’m doing everything I can for people who are nervous.”
Ultimately, attending campus events is a personal choice. ISU and the SAB are doing everything they can to keep the events safe but if students, like me, don’t feel comfortable attending events that’s up to them. I think I speak for everyone when I say I want things to return to normal, however in the meantime, we need to do the best we can with our new normal
