Campus life during a pandemic: New guidelines and changes entering fall 2021
Clubs meetings to remain virtual, hybrid programming for All American Welcome
JACOB FISHMAN/THE EAGLE
By Kate Corliss | August 30, 2021
At a community forum last Wednesday, Vice President of Campus Life and Inclusive Excellence Fanta Aw outlined American University’s plan for student life for the first four weeks following the return to campus, including protocol for on-campus events and meetings.
Aw shared that business meetings among faculty and staff members will be conducted virtually, with in-person space being designated for student-focused events. While the University intends to organize most events outside as much as possible, indoor events will be permitted at this point with mandatory masking and social distancing measures in place.
Clubs and organizations to continue virtually
In a presentation for student leaders hosted at the end of last month, Center for Student Involvement (CSI) Organization Advisor Jordan Harris announced that the office would be taking a “slow and measured approach” to in-person programming.
At this presentation, Harris outlined four criteria that would qualify an in-person event as “complex,” including those that require contracted or external services such as guest speakers or third-party vendors, those that have food, those held off-campus and those that may be considered “controversial” by intending to raise awareness for a given matter or advocate for collective action regarding a “polarizing social issue.”
“You’re going to be working a little bit more closely with your governance board and/or your CSI advisor for complex event meetings,” Harris said in the meeting. “Advisors are going to be reviewing your event, reviewing your proposed event plans and then you’re going to be following up with next steps based on what you’re trying to do with your programming.”
All in-person programming for the fall 2021 semester will be considered complex. All complex event planning will follow a five-week timeline, meaning that no student organization-led events can take place on campus until Oct. 1.
In order for student clubs and organizations to meet in-person, they must be officially recognized by the CSI. According to Aw, this recognition is required to help the administration “make sure that our events are planned in ways that are taking into account the health and safety guidelines and measures.”
The University will be largely discouraging externally hosted events, with the exception of those related to admissions, development and athletics.
“Even for all of those, we have health and safety guidelines that have been put in place to ensure that those events … are being planned with health and safety in mind as well,” Aw said during the forum.
All-American Welcome brings hybrid programming events for two classes
The University has held some in-person events as part of All-American Welcome, the series of celebrations planned for the weeks spanning student move-in to early September.
The All-American Welcome 2021 webpage notes that this year’s calendar of back-to-campus welcome activities will be “supersized,” with events planned for sophomore students whose freshman year was fully remote.
To kick off this programming, a welcome procession for the Class of 2024 was held on Tuesday in Bender Arena. Sophomores were invited to pick up their official class t-shirts, bump elbows with administrators and rub the Eagle statue’s talon for good luck.
Opening convocation for the Class of 2025 and incoming transfer students was held on Saturday in Bender Arena. Students were also able to claim their class t-shirts and rub the Eagle statue’s talon at this event.
Both events were live-streamed for families and community members in order to limit the number of spectators in the facility. In accordance with the University’s face-covering policy, masks were required for attendees.
CSI also organized a number of hybrid social events for students to participate in during each night of Welcome Week. Some of these events, including a terrarium-building workshop on Tuesday and a D.C. map painting activity on Thursday, were conducted in a “grab and go” fashion, with students picking up materials from the Mary Graydon Center and following along with instructions remotely over Zoom. Others offered students a choice between virtual participation via Zoom or in-person attendance on the quad.
This event programming will culminate with a hybrid student involvement fair on Thursday. A virtual fair will be conducted on the Engage club platform; individual clubs will organize Zoom rooms that prospective members can enter. The in-person element will take place on the quad, with governance boards set up in their own tents to interact with students and direct them to the Engage event.
The student involvement fair will start off a new CSI initiative known as Involvement Month, which the office will be celebrating throughout September. This program will feature a month-long student club showcase, with a small number of organizations being able to run tables on the quad to promote their missions and recruit new members.
Students react to new club guidelines
With the reinstatement of classroom learning and full residence hall capacity, the restrictions on in-person club meetings have led to mixed feelings among student organization leaders as the community strives for a sense of normalcy. Junior Noah Burke, President of the AU College Republicans, expressed the group’s opposition to some of CSI’s new regulations.
“I think we’re just asking that CSI kind of give more clubs leeway in how they organize and have their activities take place. Part of this is we’re fully ready to cooperate with CSI. Masking indoors, if that’s what the CDC recommends, that’s what we should be doing. If we need to take place in contact tracing with our memberships and taking lists of who attends meetings, we’re happy to participate in that,” Burke said. “We just think that CSI should give student organizations a little more credit.’”
Clubs are also struggling with the disruption of certain traditions. According to Burke, the AU College Republicans typically attend a baseball game together every year. He uses this example to illustrate some of the group’s concerns regarding increased CSI oversight.
“This year, we’ll be unable to because CSI has said we can’t even have off-campus in-person events which, to me, doesn’t make sense because if Major League Baseball is saying that it’s okay to attend games in person, why does CSI get to say … it’s not safe for you to do that as a student?” Burke said.
Junior Tomas Moser, president of AU’s Cheese Club, notes that his organization is in a “unique position” because their programming is centered around sharing food and social interaction —- two activities that are more challenging to achieve in a virtual setting.
On a personal level, Moser feels differently about the stricter regulations, believing that the new guidelines — while more restrictive — are ultimately promoting health among students.
“I get why people are upset and I’m a little upset too, but it’s a small price to pay for the greater safety of the community as a whole,” Moser said.
While the hybrid format has posed complications, organizations are still finding ways to interact within the constraints of the University’s rules. Moser shared that Cheese Club will be hosting a picnic on the quad this Friday, inviting members to bring their own food and socialize. Other plans are also in the works.
“We’re thinking of doing [events] where we have a little presentation — someone cooks something, everyone goes back to their own respective areas, we do a little video call, and everybody cooks the thing,” Moser said. “We’re doing a little workshopping now to see what we can do, and it should be fun nonetheless.”
Burke noted that, with the incoming Class of 2025, he believes there will be opportunities to engage with new students while still staying on top of his club’s political goals.
“We think with an incoming class of freshmen, they’ll be super excited to get involved,” Burke said. “We’ll definitely be doing campaigning with Virginia and New Jersey since they both have state elections this year, so we’re really excited for what’s to come.”