Cabrini pushed back the return date for students. Originally we were supposed to come back on Jan. 25 but the school decided to push it back until Feb. 15, all while keeping students online for three weeks.
In later emails, we found out that students would have to get mandatory COVID-19 testing to be allowed back on campus. That was the reason that returning to campus was pushed back. Cabrini is providing testing on campus one week before Feb. 15, with sign-ups being under the “My Housing” section of the Cabrini portal. You could also do testing elsewhere but you needed to provide documents saying that you tested negative. Cabrini decided to allow students living on campus to return to residence halls on Feb. 13 and 14.
“Va. National Guard personnel collect samples for COVID-19 testing” by Virginia Guard Public Affairs is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
I am glad that I’m able to return to campus this spring semester because being online when the pandemic first hit, and after Thanksgiving break in the fall, was super hard for me. I know I am not the only student who feels this way.
Something that upset me about the announcement that we will be starting the first three weeks of the semester online was how late they decided to announce it.
President Donald Taylor sent out the email on Jan. 6, two weeks before the semester was supposed to start. Cabrini students and faculty were on break for almost a month at that point. I feel as though the administration should have already sent out some type of heads up to both students and faculty at Cabrini even before we left campus in the fall semester.
Announcing it while on break, two weeks before the semester started, was very inconvenient for both students and faculty. I found it inconvenient because this semester I am taking a math class and while packing for fall break my calculator wasn’t something I grabbed because I thought I would be back on campus. Luckily, my teacher told us that we don’t need it for the first couple of weeks but I know some students who had similar problems weren’t as lucky as me. Also, some professors on campus probably had to rewrite their syllabus to accommodate being online for three weeks.
I honestly think that the administration made a last minute decision in sending us back three weeks late and making us get COVID-19 tested.
The administration had months to decide whether or not to make it mandatory for students to get COVID-19 tested to come back to campus. They could have even decided this when planning the school year out. Weeks before we even went on fall break, Dr.Fauci warned about a surge of virus cases because we were going to the winter season. So even then, the administration could have told us that in order to come back to campus, you have to get tested.
They could have even used the same protocols for coming back to campus but instead, we had our campus return pushed back by three weeks.
I completely understand why students who are returning to campus are required to be tested for COVID-19. There is no way to know if students came in contact with the virus before returning back to campus and if they were following CDC guidelines prior to coming back to campus.
“White House Coronavirus Update Briefing” by The White House is licensed under CC PDM 1.0
Something important to point out is that when students moved back to campus in the fall, the administration didn’t make students get mandatory COVID-19 tests beforehand. We also didn’t have testing on campus unless you came in contact with you or you had symptoms of the virus.
At the end of the day, I am glad we can come back to campus but I have so many questions about why we were told last minute and why certain things weren’t thought of beforehand.
