Somehow, it would seem that college students are still partying, even though their schools politely asked them not to.
Pandemic precaution-thwarting parties have been playing out on (and off) campuses across the country since colleges began welcoming students back in recent weeks, the New York Post reported. This, despite what the outlet calls the “extreme measures” schools have undertaken to prevent just such behavior.
Attempts to curb college pandemic parties seem to have included such drastic lengths as: asking the students not to party, asking the students to promise not to party, and even asking them to agree to a “behavioral compact” instructing them not to party.
Clearly, schools have tried everything. And yet, somehow, the parties continue.
Recent COVID-19 outbreaks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Notre Dame have been linked to off-campus parties, while last weekend, at least 20 Holy Cross students reportedly partied into the early hours of the morning, even though they were asked to “pledge” not to.
How can this be?
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As some students at these very institutions have pointed out, however, it’s possible this shocking turn of events might not have been entirely unforeseeable.
“University leadership should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless,” wrote student journalists at UNC’s campus newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel. “Reports of parties throughout the weekend come as no surprise.”
Taking the hint, other colleges have begun preparing for the inevitable. At Cornell, students will simply be allowed to party, as long as they use a sign-in system the school has reportedly developed for contact tracing. The school has also asked students to agree to what the Post calls a “behavioral compact” urging them to take precautions against spreading the virus, which sounds totally different from the “pledges” Holy Cross students willfully ignored last weekend.
Meanwhile, other schools are trying to fight the spread of coronavirus on campus using the power of technology. According to Newsweek, students at Albion College in Michigan have been asked to download an app that tracks their location and health data and will alert the school if a student leaves campus, which doesn’t sound at all like a terrifying violation of privacy.
Anyway, no need to worry. Clearly our country’s impeccable system of higher education has everything under control.
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