Chet: Whaaat’s going on dudes?! And welcome to another episode of Me/Us/U. My name’s Chet, but right now, I’m sitting in for my favorite girls Kiara and DJ while they get their rally hats on while they prepare to take you on a journey through today’s episode, “Party Pooper” (haha, poop). Get ready weekend warriors, cause this episode is gonna be a wild ride. We’re gonna find out just how students here at SU are coping with limited interactions with each other due to this booty-ass pandemic. Like many other schools around the nation, this swaggy Susquehanna University has made a bunch of COVID-19 protocols in hopes of eliminating social gatherings so that my homies and I can stay here for the entire semester. So, without further ado, let’s crack open those White Claws [can opening], and get star— [door opens]
Kiara: …Chet what are you doing? How did you even get in here?
Chet: The uh… door was open, and I saw a script… and a microphone… so I just told myself uh… you know I am tryna be a rapper, Kiara, so this is good practice for me…
Kiara: You know what Chet, I have a podcast to record, and I’m pretty sure your boys down in Sigma Zeta Eta are looking for you down there so can you please just leave? [door closing] I’m sorry about that guys, I don’t know what Chet said… or did to my desk for that matter… why is it so sticky? Huh. Anyway [intro music fades in] welcome to another episode of Me/Us/U. My name’s Kiara, and my partner DJ will be joining us shortly. On today’s episode that we’ve titled “Party Pooper”, we’re here to discuss how our student body is doing socially with all these new COVID-19 rules being implemented due to the pandemic. Some of the topics that are gonna be discussed in today’s episode are seeing how our school’s been divided into two sides now over these COVID-19 rules, discussing how it’s turned into a scene from the Salem witch trials, and get insight from medical professionals and the guys in charge of the COVID-19 rules so that we can hear straight from the source why these rules were created. But, first, before we get into the more serious stuff, I wanna take you guys down a trip of memory lane, and reminisce about all the good times that we’ve had together at SU before the pandemic [party music fades in]. To do this, I sent out a message to the upperclassmen and asked them what was their favorite party, weekend, or just plain social memory here at SU. Here are some of the responses…
[Party music swells and fades]
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: It was—
Anonymous Upperclassman #2: Well say, about—
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: I don’t think it was livable at all.
Anonymous Upperclassman #2: We’ll say the story when the floor broke in.
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: Yeah. So some, like we would do our um… we would do our case races and stuff there—
Anonymous Upperclassman #2: Like Halloween and—
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: But like, but like when the school came, like when everyone came, there was like 200 people in there sometimes…
Kiara: Oh my god—
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: And there were people on the roof, and um… my, my boyfriend [bleep] actually this was years ago, before I met him. Like you’re looking at the ceiling and all of a sudden [bleep] falls through the floor—
Kiara: NOOO
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: From like the bottom up!
Anonymous Upperclassman #2: Yeah, I was- I don’t even know that, I didn’t even think that you were, I don’t know if you were together but I was there when that happened.
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: Yeah, and it fell through, it was like, and the owner of the house was like, “GET OUTTT, EVERYONE GET OUT!” And everyone’s like “Dude [laughing]… your house is a shitshow anyway, who cares?”
Anonymous Upperclassman #2: The floor literally broke in, I’m— I’m not even lying—
Anonymous Upperclassman #1: Yeah no, it was so much fun. But yeah that house was so much fun! I feel like some of my best times were there. It was kinda just like a place where it was like no rules kind of though. That house was wild…
[Party music changes and swells and fades]
Anonymous Upperclassman #3: Freshman year my uh… my roommate and the dude across the hall or whatever were all drinking or whatever, we all went out and had a normal night, sitting there at a, at a Sass house. And my one buddy and my other friend they put me around their uh arms and they carried my ass all the way back—
Kiara: No they didn’t!
Anonymous Upperclassman #3: They dropped me off on the floor of my room. I’m still like in jeans and like all that shit, I’m uncomfortable and I can’t move. All of a sudden I’m laying there and must’ve passed out. And I wake up to a crash! My friend [loud laughter] my friend ended up convincing my roommate that the mirror in our room was tryna fight him. And this [Bleep] shattered the mirror, so I’m in front of it on the ground. I ended up waking up with glass like covering my back and in my hair, a cut on my arm, and a pile of of Goldfish in front of my face in case I got hungry and woke up in the night.
[Party music swells and fades]
Anonymous Upperclassman #4: Um… we went to [bleep] and I guess I just don’t have a good tolerance and I [laughing] was sweating my ass off like… sweating so much that it looked like I just took a shower and I’m like, “What is going on, everyone’s wearing like sweatshirts and I’m like in a cropped top and jeans and I’m sweating so much.” So I was like I gotta, I gotta go like I didn’t know where I was and I leave 18th and [bleep] said, “Just go straight!” So I start going straight and I’m like I have no idea where I am and I see like the um… I don’t, what’s it called? The church, like the big pointy thing? So I see that and I’m like I have to go that way! So I start charging that way and then I realize it’s the church that’s like all the way across the street near 18th, it’s not near campus at all. So now I’m lost and then I see this bitch walk out of her um 18th Street suite. She looked— I don’t know why I thought this— like she looks like she’s going to campus right now, so I just start following her! And I’m like, like speed-walking and like I need to follow her I don’t know where I’m going. And she keeps like looking back [laughing] and she thinks I’m following her and is all creeped out. It was just, I don’t know I was on a mission and it was pretty funny.
[Party music swells and fades]
Anonymous Upperclassman #5: Like Sass was like a big party spot and there was actually a guy who went to the exotic animal store in Sunbury and got an alligator. And they put a pool and an alligator in that back room— you know what I’m talking about, in Sass, that back room? And they’re partying with this alligator and um [laughing] he eventually like got expelled for it or whatever but there was an alligator?
[Party music swells and fades]
Kiara: Now from the stories we just heard, I think that we can all agree that life before the corona here at SU was pretty freaking amazing! There were no rules that said 10 or more people couldn’t be in your house at a time, no rules mandating that you wear a mask everywhere you go, and no rules saying that you couldn’t have an alligator here on campus! Well… okay maybe there is a rule about that one, but! But I will say that you had a better chance of getting away with it back then than you would now. Many of the upperclassmen that I spoke to expressed to me that campus life is not nearly the same as before, describing the current experience as sad, boring, and even dead. Of course they feel this way, I mean shit even I do! I know in my heart that the university created these rules with the best intentions and are constantly prioritizing the health and safety of the community members, but seeing what is used to be versus what it is now can be a little disheartening. Then this got me thinking… if the upperclassmen are feeling this way, then how the HELL are the first years doing?! Around the country, this freshman class is THE first class that has never had a true, normal college experience. They have no idea what it’s like to walk into a humid Sass house and not be able to move, or what it’s like to take that tipsy walk to 18th Street and back. I wanted to know if this gloomy feeling about the social life here due to covid was spread unanimously across the entire student body, or if it’s just a nostalgic sadness encompassing the upperclassmen. So, I interviewed a couple of first years to see what their college experience has been like thus far!
Anonymous First Year #1: Uh I feel like it’s a lot different than how it used to be because we’re only allowed to have like, we’re only allowed to have one person per roommate like in our room at a time, and like for a really long time it was only like people in our building, so like we would have to like hide people in our room [laughing] and like, keep the door closed, like I feel like it’s normal to have your door open, people just stop by, but now it’s like our doors are closed and locked.
Anonymous First Year #2: I feel like it’s almost more, like, we’re scared. It’s been put on us on like a fear level now that we’re scared to get caught because of the restrictions and the um… punishments I guess that come with getting caught. So it’s almost like people are tip toeing around, trying to get away with having fun and not getting in trouble, which makes it a lot harder.
Kiara: Okay, so then, with tryna have fun and things like that, how is it been tryna meet friends, make friends, meet new people this year?
Anonymous First Year #1: I feel like it’s definitely harder because you really can’t be in like huge groups of people so it’s kind of like you like meet the people in your hall, and like meet people you run into through other people that you know in other buildings and stuff, but I feel like I would’ve met a lot more people if covid like wasn’t a thing.
Anonymous First Year #2: Yeah like I completely agree with that. Coming into college we were always told like other people’s stories of how they met people, like how they just went about things, and the parties that they went to and stuff like that, and the fact that coming in, we felt like that was the experience we were getting, and then it completely taking a different turn, it made all of that seem unbelievable. And it’s not like we couldn’t go out and meet new people it was just a lot harder to meet new people because we couldn’t be around a lot of people at one time.
Kiara: So now that you guys listened to one of the upperclassmen’s stories and listened to what their experience was like, can you imagine like a party like that happening here?
Anonymous First Year #2: Um like I do, but with everything that’s been going on, I feel like it almost will never be the same. I feel like we missed that because we didn’t get the first-year experience that a lot of people did.
Kiara: What has like your best experience been at Susquehanna been so far? Like weekend stories, anything like that that sticks out in your mind?
Anonymous First Year #2: So one night we were in our room and we had people in here, and we were just hanging out or whatever, and I guess it was just getting a little loud? And we heard a knock on our door, we all looked at each other, and then two seconds later, we turned around and no one was there!
Anonymous First Year #1: I literally opened the door and our RA was like, “It’s a little loud, like, how many people are in here?” And I was like, “Oh just like me, my roommate, and like one other person.” And I turn around and nobody’s sitting, she’s probably like what the hell?! We literally, before we had people in our room in a weekend we like make room under the beds, and like shove things around so like if something did happen like people just like run there!
Anonymous First Year #2: And we would tell them before they come like and we’d be like, “You’re going here, you’re going under there, you’re going in the closet!” like [laughing] we have it all planned out!
Kiara: So the current social life here now, how has that affected your mindset about SU? So like do you still wanna stay here, or do you wanna leave and maybe see if another school has more relaxed rules and is different? Like what do you think about being at SU?
Anonymous First Year #1: Umm I feel like it would be a lot different without playing a sport, because that’s kind of like keeping me here, but like it almost like makes me wanna stay because I’ve seen videos and people’s stories about how it was before, so I know when it gets back to normal like it’ll be more fun and enjoyable. It’s not like I would wanna go to a different school because like I know how it will be, hopefully sooner than later?
Kiara: Do you think that following these social distancing rules has like led you to have an enjoyable college experience?
Anonymous First Year #2: I would say yes and no. Like yes because like, we were able to meet a lot of people, and I feel like with the social distancing rules, it kind of made us closer to a smaller group because we were hanging out with the same people, so we were getting to know them on a much deeper level, whereas I feel like if it was normal, we would be meeting more people, sooo we wouldn’t be getting to know them on a more deeper level if that makes sense.
Kiara: After talking with these first-year students, I wasn’t shocked by how they answered many of the questions, as it’s no secret that the pandemic has made it 20x harder for them to get acclimated socially. It makes sense that you’re not gonna meet as many people if you can’t have social gatherings, and why they have an ever-looming fear that the normal college life we all watched in movies and dreamt about as kids might not ever be attainable. However, some of the things that they said did resonate with me. As an upperclassman, I feel it is our responsibility to pass on traditions and proper Susky culture to the younger generations. Their interview gave me hope that our legacy won’t be completely lost, as these first-year students aren’t eager to just up and transfer to a different school with more lax social policies. It shows that they value all the time, money, and critical thinking utilized in order to create and establish the rules that are currently in place. Although these rules kinda stink, they are optimistic to create even better Susquehanna party stories in the years ahead. Now, before I end this portion of our episode, there was one underlying theme that I heard in our interview that caught my attention, and that was how these first-years choose to adapt to the COVID-19 rules. In this next segment, DJ and I are going to investigate [party music fades in] the great divide that’s formed between our once unified community so that we can better understand the perspectives of why some students choose to do the things they do.
[Party music swells and fades out]
Kiara: Throughout the course of this pandemic, we’ve seen the social life here at Susquehanna go through a drastic change as protocols to ensure social distancing were implemented. Although these measures were created to help the SU community prosper during the pandemic, they unintentionally caused us to be divided into two sides: those who follow social distancing rules and adhere to all the university policies, and those that don’t. Both groups believe that the social aspect at Susquehanna is not what it used to be, however, they think that they are handling this change better than the latter. To begin, let’s hear a perspective of why they dislike and choose not to follow social distancing rules.
Kiara: How are you handling social distancing rules now? Are they easy, are they hard to maneuver…?
Anonymous Anti-Rules Debater: I’m not really doing that well. Um I personally don’t really wear a mask that often, I… it’s just not, what I like believe in so like that is definitely a problem because like people do get mad that you’re not wearing a mask, but like I feel like if I’m outside I shouldn’t have to because I— cause fresh air is obviously better than like you re breathing your air— inside, I wear a mask when my nose is showing so like again people get mad about that. With social distancing, like I still do have more than one other person in my dorm room a lot, so no one really said anything because at this point I think like the rules are getting a lot more lenient because people are doing that all the time now. The only good thing is I do like ordering Benny’s [laughing] like online on my phone and picking it up and leaving right away, instead of like waiting in a long line to check out and everything, so that is a plus.
Kiara: Do you feel that since these COVID-19 rules have been in place, more students are like beginning to police each other?
Anonymous Anti-Rules Debater: I definitely do, like I personally have gotten 12, um, like reports on my behalf of not wearing a mask or like I don’t know doing something wrong. An example that I think should not have been a report would be like I was in Walmart and you go to Walmart, no one wears a mask. Like the locals? They don’t wear a mask. So obviously I’m gonna go in not wearing a mask because I would much rather not wear a mask than wear a mask. And it’s not on campus! And someone like took a picture of me, sent it to Dean Kracker, and saying like, “[bleep] was in Walmart and not wearing a mask.” And I had to have a meeting with her about that and my thing is it’s like, if I’m not on school property, the school can’t tell me what I can and cannot do.
Kiara: Hey guys quick interjection here but that’s actually not true. Before being able to live on campus here this semester, every single student was required to sign a Community Health Agreement which laid out all the COVID-19 rules, along with consequences for those individuals that choose to violate them. Within that, the Agreement clearly outlines that those rules apply to students both on and off campus, as the University is trying to keep our community safe from others in the Selinsgrove community who choose not to wear masks. So to put it simply, whether you’re on campus or off, you gotta wear your mask. Now, let’s get back to our debater.
Anonymous Anti-Rules Debater: I think it’s really hard for both sides to see the other side’s perspective. Like for me when I, like I’m not, I don’t really care, like I got covid, I had it, I was totally fine after. So now like I see what it did to me, so I’m not like oh, obviously a lot of other people who got covid they had totally different, like, symptoms and illnesses and they were really sick. I just think it’s like, it’s really hard to put yourself in other people’s shoes and I think like vice versa, both parties need to do that. Like I definitely probably should be like, “Oh I’m making a person uncomfortable, I’m gonna wear a mask.” But at the same time I think that the other party should be like, “Okay they obviously aren’t that scared of covid, I can’t put my fears on somebody else.” I definitely do see divide because like people who wear two masks I feel like they’re kinda like searching to snitch on somebody else, or they’re like, “Oh I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be so that person has to be doing it too.” And it’s just like an awkward situation that happens, like if I don’t wear a mask outside or when I’m by myself, people are staring at me as they walk by and it’s just like you can feel that tension.
Kiara: Do you think this is something that can be mended?
Anonymous Anti-Rules Debater: I think it can with the school’s help, like I think if the school comes out and says, like, “Masks aren’t mandatory at this point” then it’s kind like of up to you, and then the people who do wear masks can’t say anything, people who don’t wear masks can’t like judge people who do wear two masks or one mask. So I think like if the school does a better job of like communication and communicating the rules because like, when I first got to Susquehanna, I didn’t know the rules. Like there wasn’t an explicit like oh you can’t do this, you can do this—
Kiara: Hi guys I’m back. I promise this is the last time but I just wanted to let you all know that’s not quite true. The student body is emailed daily on the COVID-19 dashboard about changes that are occurring along with links that detail very explicitly what’s allowed and what’s not. The COVID-19 plan is a living document that is subject to change as conditions do. So if cases go up, so do our restrictions. If cases start to fall, the school gets a little bit more lax. Okay that’s the last you’ll hear from me in this section, let’s get back!
Anonymous Anti-Rules Debater: —cause you’re like oh do I have to do this again or can I now do this?
Kiara: If you could change one thing about these COVID-19 rules, what would it be?
Anonymous Anti-Rules Debater: I would take away the app where you can send pictures and police people. I think that, like I said before, like conflict is super important and I think that learning how to be adults? Like we’re 19 to 22 years old, like we should be able to tell someone, like, you’re making me uncomfortable and this is why so I think, um, that app definitely needs to go because if there was no app, I really don’t think that anyone would say anything so then… cause if you cared that much, you would definitely say something to somebody’s face. But the fact that they don’t say it to my face, or anyone’s face, I feel like they don’t actually care that much. They just feel like, oh this is what I have to do, and the community needs to have like good communication-skills and relationships and I think that that’s how we will understand each other better, is if we communicate.
DJ: Next up, I’ll be talking to two students who are doing their best to follow the COVID-19 campus policies! Why should other Susquehanna students have the same mindset that you both have?
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #1: So the big thing for me that has been a struggle is A) dancing between making sure that people understand that I’m not saying this because of my political beliefs, but also like this is something that’s affecting the entire world right now. And this is something that is very unprecedented. Umm, if people are ever concerned or like, oh, it’s a hoax or anything like that, you can look at the excess deaths in a year that are those are, those are deaths that are calculated in the United States by non-natural causes, with natural causes being literally like old age. And you can see that 2020 had a huge and that’s really scary because that means that multiple hundreds of thousands of families have lost a loved one. I have lost two loved ones. And so seeing that and seeing the grief, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen your father cry. It’s really, really sad and honestly scary. And so when I see people who are saying a hoax or they don’t believe in it or they don’t want to follow this stuff, it’s really hard because I don’t think that they’re fully grasping what this is doing to families and that this isn’t just a wear a mask because Susquehanna said wear a mask. We’re trying to protect people here because not everybody is “built different”, and not everybody has a fantastic immune system. And even people that do have fantastic immune systems have gotten sick. So it’s really… it’s really hard to go about this.
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #2: I guess where I’m coming from, I have OCD. So partially a reason I follow the rules um is because of my OCD like um I have a bit of contamination OCD so I have a fear of um getting sick and getting other people sick so that’s part of the reason I follow a lot of the rules? In my brain it just provides me comfort for my illness, but also just as a person, I was abroad last year when covid started and when I came home and stuff, just talking to professors that were still abroad and understanding like a lot of the ways they explained why they were following the rules was for other people. And so that really kind of formulated my mindset. I think it’s just striking a balance between still enjoying your life, but also still being safe and working to make this end.
DJ: Which covid-19 policies that we have on campus do you feel are especially necessary for the health and safety of our students, staff, and faculty?
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #1: The ones that I definitely think are the most necessary, and are definitely the most controversial, are the masks. Because the way that the masks are working, and I’m going to go a bit scientific on this, is that if both people are breathing in and out of a mask, the likelihood that they’re going to transmit any bacteria or any covid virus or anything, shrinks drastically. If one person is wearing it and they’re the person with covid, the likelihood that they’re going to give the other person covid is also very low. But if the person with covid isn’t wearing it, the other person is, it gets a little bit higher. So I think the masks probably the most important. I can also safely say since the beginning of the pandemic, I have not been sick once from colds or flu! I used to get head colds all the time. I was in a first-year dorm last year and I caught the Susky plague again! Um that was really, really stressful and I was a little bit worried about it. But it’s really, really helpful.
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #2: I think, just the basics of like social distancing and wearing your mask, because I don’t know if it’s just for the sake of my comfort or whatever, but like, sometimes I’m in the caf or I’m online somewhere and someone, like, stands very close to me? I know they’re not going to give me covid if we’re both wearing our masks, but it’s just like, I think it can be a little bit of a spiral if you’re like, well, I’m going to stand really close to someone because I don’t really care. And then you’re having… on the flip side of that, like, interaction with a lot of people, I feel like that’s a good rule, just like not having a gathering, like over the capacity of your house or something.
DJ: Why do you choose to follow the social distancing policies when clearly there are people on campus who choose not to?
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #1: So like I said earlier, I follow the social distancing rules mostly because I recognize that right now my actions will be affecting everybody else. The fact that covid is spread so easily early on before you can even tell is really scary to me, and I am terrified of being the reason that somebody else takes it home to a grandparent and that grandparent dies.
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #2: I choose to follow social distancing rules for my safety and for the safety of my friends, like I said before, both because of like my OCD and my fear of contamination and illness, but also because I don’t want my friends to get sick or my family to get sick like just especially because, like, we don’t know a lot still about covid? And even if you are young and you get it, like some people have nothing and some people get really sick. So for me, that’s scary. I would not want one of my friends to, to get sick. So I especially just follow, like, social distancing because I want the people around me to be safe.
DJ: Why do you think the other side is wrong?
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #1: I do believe that this is A) giving you a lot of negative karma if you’re not following this stuff and B) is just showing your true personality and showing that you don’t care about other people. I do believe that following these rules shows that you are at least somewhat compassionate.
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #2: Yeah, I feel like I strayed a lot in the beginning from, like, saying, “Oh, you’re wrong!” but I feel like now ‘wrong’ is definitely like a word I would use only because I don’t know, I feel like if you’re going, if you’re not wearing your mask, it’s been proven by scientists and just like in general with other illnesses in the past, it’s just proven that you can prevent illness. So I don’t see, if you’re sitting for forty five minutes in a room, like, you can wear your mask. I don’t think that that’s hard. And the same thing with like partying, if you’re partying like we used to on campus, because that was something that I enjoyed like I’m not against it. I just feel like it goes along the same vein of like scientists have been telling us that these are the things you need to do to keep yourself safe, to keep others safe, and to stop the spread of this pandemic and of covid, and they’re just really simple things. So I think that’s why it just feels like they’re wrong in a sense, because it’s simple things that you can just not do. It’s simple things that you can give up for a year of your life. Um it just feels silly that if somebody who’s qualified like a scientist is telling me, like, this is what I need to do to be safe, why would I not do that?
DJ: In your opinion, what do you think about this divide that’s been created? And on top of that, how do you think it could be mended?
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #1: I don’t know if you actually can be mended. I think that in four years when we have an entirely new campus, it will be, at least on at least at Susquehanna. I don’t think that this is going to be fixed.
Anonymous Pro-Rules Debater #2: I don’t know. I think you could be extreme on both ends of it. And I feel like that’s why there is a divide on what people are doing. But I don’t know necessarily, like, I think it blends a lot too because, I mean, you do this in your regular adult life, like you pick and choose what you would like to follow and to what extent.
[Party music fades in]
DJ: While Kiara and I heard a lot of different perspectives here today, I think that the one thing we’ve learned from our conversations is that every side has a story and it’s important to listen to them with open ears and minds. Even though we can easily spot the differences between these two groups, I think that in the end, we’re all looking for the same thing as college students: a sense of normalcy during these unprecedented times. No matter the side, we all can have a little more empathy and the patience to have these important conversations. And when it comes down to it, that’s what’s going to mend the divide and end the debate. Coming up next, Kiara and I dive deeper into the paranoia that plagues our campus because of the pandemic. Stay tuned for “The Selinsgrove Witch Trials”.
[Party music swells and fades]
DJ: Salem, Massachusetts 1692. Dozens of terrified young women are shuffled into a primitive shack of a courthouse, their lives handed to the judge presiding over their cases. The charge? Witchcraft, a crime punishable by death. People, without the burden of proof, shout obscenities and false claims about the defendants: Or was this Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania in 2020? The crime and punishments are different, but the mentality is the same. Both the Puritans and the Riverhawks have taken on the responsibility of maintaining their communities and getting rid of people they view as undesirable. In this segment, Kiara and I will be discussing the politics of the pandemic on this campus from the perspective of the student body. Welcome to “The Selinsgrove Witch Trials.”
Kiara: Thank you DJ for that really great intro.
DJ: I want to preface this by saying that Kiara and I are by no means, like, advocating for people to break these policies. What we really want to point out today is that there is really, for lack of a better way to put it, a power struggle between people who at this point are just being stubborn versus the people who are overly policing their peers because they feel now that it’s their responsibility to single handedly save this semester.
Kiara: And I think we just really also want to shed light on some of the ways that people are going about doing things, and give advice on new options or ways that if they are upset by how others in the community are handling the situation, give them better options of ways they can handle that conflict than just anonymously reporting each other and things like that. Because I feel that a lot of the ways that we have now to accuse people of not following these guidelines is hurting our community rather than helping it, which is what these guidelines are set to do.
DJ: So to start off with probably the most controversial piece of legislation on this campus, the LiveSafe app. Kiara, how do you feel about this app? Because I know I have some words to say about it.
Kiara: You know, I’ve heard a lot of things about this app, and very few of them have been positive, but to be honest, I don’t even have the app downloaded myself—
DJ: Neither do I!
Kiara: —I don’t have it here, and as controversial as it seems, I feel like I got to get on this thing and like see why it’s putting people on our campus so up in arms and dividing us the way it is.
DJ: I agree. I was remote last semester and I know you were too, so I had never downloaded it just because I wasn’t on campus. And by the time I was back, I kind of forgot about it, besides the negative things I’ve been hearing, so I think it would be a good time to show our live reaction to this app!
Kiara: [Laughing] Let’s do it. So Live Safe. So I open this up and it says, “Welcome to Live Safe. You can still share info anonymously when you create a profile.” So it’s letting you know right off the bat basically it’s an anonymous profile.
DJ: Okay, I’m in. So I… have to select an organization. So obviously, Susquehanna University.
Kiara: Alright so so far on the app, I’m seeing a couple little different things you can scroll through. You can see the Student Daily Health Questionnaire, Report a COVID-19 concern or question, COVID-19 resources, Global 911 button, and then Safewalk. So a lot of different options in this app.
DJ: So I’m seeing a big plus button in the middle and it says, “Select non-emergency tip type and COVID-19 questions.”
Kiara: There we go!
DJ: Ohh wow, that’s really interesting. So I can attach a picture, a video, or audio to my question…
Kiara: Whaaat?? Like to wait a minute—
DJ: Wait, okay, now that I’m kind of understanding like what this is for, this is literally for reporting people. Like I can sit here and take a picture of you right now and like report you, say if you weren’t wearing a mask or you weren’t following the rules?
Kiara: I lowkey feel like that’s kind of an invasion of privacy. I don’t know if that’s just me or not.
DJ: Yeah…
Kiara: But I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d feel if someone just random was just like taking pictures of me on the street.
DJ: Yeah.
Kiara: Might feel a little famous, like it’s TMZ [laughing] or something, but other than that you’re gonna have to pay me if you want a picture of me.
DJ: I… out of curiosity, I would want to submit something just to see, like I don’t know what I would submit. Okay that’s weird. So I can send it from my personal account so they can see who sent it, but there is also an option to send it anonymously. So I think I’ll choose that one. Which why wouldn’t you like thinking about this app?
Kiara: Right, right. Honestly DJ, this is where, because most of the complaints I’ve heard about this app is the fact that you can send anonymous pictures. Now, at first I thought it was just pictures, but I’m too, there’s a video option and also microphone options. So it really does seem like an app where you can just record anybody and see what they’re doing without them even knowing. I feel like with this app, it’s giving people the power to say, “I can get anybody in trouble that I want, whether they’re breaking the rules or not. If I feel that you’re doing something wrong, I can get you in trouble for that, or somebody will at least come investigate.”
DJ: But aside from the reporting aspect on this app, I’m kind of digging into a little more and I see how it can be helpful.
Kiara: Okay!
DJ: Like, for example, it has a Student Daily Health Questionnaire. Um and from what I’m seeing, it’s really just gauging if you yourself are sick and you need to quickly report it, just in case. And also for contact tracing, I can see how that’s helpful, and I appreciate that service. Now, I guess having this app? There’s also covid-19 resources where the school has uploaded really helpful tips and articles directly from a CDC that we can see. I’m seeing a lot of cons, but also I’m seeing some pros with this app.
Kiara: I think one thing that maybe would have benefited the student body is maybe a short little training on the proper way to use this app, because I feel like this tool is a very powerful tool. And it’s like anything if you give that power to the wrong person, they can run wild with that—
DJ: I definitely agree.
Kiara: Maybe also thinking about taking away that anonymous option, that might be also another way to hold the student body accountable for what they’re saying. I think accountability is a big aspect in that.
DJ: And I really think it’s a great idea to make it not anonymous, um because I think it does hold a level of accountability that students aren’t really having right now because like we were talking about before, I know I’ve definitely heard about a lot of people using this app poorly, and I don’t know if this was actually a LiveSafe violation or a report from a LiveSafe app. But I know I’ve definitely gotten that email from Christie Kracker—
Kiara: Really?!
DJ: —about not following rules! Umm so to reflect on the time that I got in trouble for something that later, as I’ll explain, was waived because it was unfounded. I, one day, received an email that was really scary. The subject of the email was “Correspondence for Case” which obviously doesn’t look good, and like for someone who is a little anxious about most things was not the greatest way to deliver this message?
Kiara: [Laughing] Probably not the best subject line they could’ve used.
DJ: Yeah! And it literally says in the email, “THIS IS AN OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM STUDENT LIFE AT SUSQUEHANNA UNIVERSITY” in all caps, a really long two page letter um that’s explaining why I was reported. It said, “You were documented for noncompliance with student community behavior agreement.” It gives me a rundown of all the consequences that I could face, which includes loss of privilege, which means I would get kicked off campus.
Kiara: Wow…
DJ: But basically what happened, after looking at the date and realizing what the issue was, is that we’re both in the same sorority and because we’re roommates, we’re allowed to not have our masks on together. So we had an event at the house which we were allowed to have. It was safe, like everyone was wearing masks. There was only twenty five people there at a time, actually, probably less. And it was basically just to go and take pictures and to have like a little bit of normalcy in a world where a lot of things aren’t normal. So my roommate and I decided to take a picture without our masks. Someone who reported us was under the impression that we didn’t live together and we were just blatantly breaking the rules and posting about it. Clearly, we weren’t, because that is a rule that, like in your family unit, you’re allowed to not have your mask on together. But like, that was really scary for us, because considering around that time, a lot of people were getting kicked off campus for various different reasons, obviously for things more serious than this but it was definitely like a really hard couple of days, especially considering the fact that we technically didn’t do anything wrong. But we got the same treatment as people who did a lot more wrong things than we did.
Kiara: And honestly, that, that anxiety alone of like waiting to see if you’re going to get in trouble or not is enough to stress somebody out. That anonymity? Is that the right word?
DJ: Yeah.
Kiara: That anonymity. Like the whole talking to each other, having a conversation, resolving conflict the right way, I feel like it’s taken away. And that’s like a big struggle that I’m seeing, and a lot of other students are seeing too. The app is great for a lot of different reasons. Like you said, it shows you different things about the covid guidelines. Um, you CAN report things, so if you actually do see something, like, bad going on, covid-wise, I say report it. We are trying to save this semester, you know what I mean? But at the same time, if you’re just trying to get somebody in trouble because you’re mad at Suzy one day [laughing], that’s, that’s not the right thing that the app is used for and that’s why I say I think the power of it can get abused.
DJ: Yeah, and I think we can see that a lot this semester in general, where people feel like they have this sort of power within themselves to just be really aggressive about things. And while I do understand, like obviously we said before, like we are definitely people to follow the rules um and we want to be as safe as possible for ourselves and the people that we’re around. It definitely gets very frustrating to constantly be treated like disrespectfully because we do want to be on some same level of understanding so we all can be a safe campus, which I think we really have been doing a great job so far.
Kiara: Absolutely.
DJ: With anything, no one is always going to follow the rules. There’s always going to be at least one person who is going to be stubborn and not follow things and not realize the significance of why we have these rules.
Kiara: Wherever there’s a yin, there’s a yang.
DJ: Oh, yeah.
Kiara: There’s always going to be, always going to be the one bad apple in the bunch. But, you know, I think we should try and look at our community, especially at Susquehanna in general. I know whenever I have a recruits here or people are coming to give tours, the first thing I say is this campus is filled with some of the nicest people I’ve ever seen. I have friends that have sat there and lost their debit cards, school I.D., phone, wallet, everything they have. And they’ve gotten a call or an email within the hour saying that they have it at the desk in Deg. So this campus is full of genuinely nice people. I think we should assume that people are following the guidelines and that they are doing the right things until they prove that they don’t. Don’t just… use this app to say, “Oh, they’re not doing the right thing.” You know?
DJ: And like how we started off with the Witch Trials um back in those days, you’re guilty until proven innocent. But with our beautiful judicial system, which obviously I say with sarcasm, because as we know, it is quite flawed. But I do appreciate the fact that we are [technically] innocent until proven guilty. But I feel like that’s kind of been lost on this campus this year. I feel like our campus community and the way that we do interact with each other as a small campus like that forms so many connections and close friendships that we have with both ourselves and staff and faculty. I don’t want to see that being lost because of a temporary pandemic that eventually, hopefully, knock on wood, will go away one day!
Kiara: Exactly, we do have a special relationship here with people in our community that we really do get a chance to know everybody and that we are so close so I think that we should even use that to say like, all right, I know that John down the street, if I see he’s not doing something right. I know I can just say to him, “Hey, we’re trying to keep up with something great here. Can you please pull your mask up?” Whatever. Not just, “Oh, here he is. Let me take a video AND record him with the microphone AND take a picture of him. And I’ll maintain anonymity so he can never know who was doing that.”
DJ: I do see some merit to that anonymity that we have with this app because, you know, even as small a campus as we are like you’re not going to know everyone? And maybe someone who could be very intimidating um is clearly not following the rules, maybe is throwing a really big party at Apple Pie fraternity house. And like, you’re just not comfortable, like, walking up to them and saying, “Hey, like, we all need to do our part in saving the semester.” So I do see it there, but I think that some students have taken it to a level where it’s being used for petty reasons. It creates such a tense environment.
Kiara Our goal should be to make Susky a place where, like, you don’t have that tension anymore, where you really can just go up to anyone on the street and have a conversation without fear like that. So maybe that’s a goal for SU later on?
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DJ: While we’ve taken a lot of time today to discuss the student body’s perspective on the campus COVID-19 guidelines, it’s so important for us all to remember that there are two sides to every story. So many faculty and staff at SU have dedicated the majority of their time this year to ensure that we all can have a safe, happy, and healthy semester. And for the most part, they were so successful in keeping this institution running! In our next segment, “The Reason Why”, Kiara and I will be interviewing key members of the COVID-19 Campus Task Force to gain a better understanding of the pandemic policies, their behind the scenes operations, and why we all need to work together to comply to the rules. First up, I’d like to welcome Dr. David Richard, the head of the COVID-19 Task Force.
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Dr. Richard: Hello, my name is Dr. David Richard, I am a professor of biology, I’ve been at Susquehanna for close to 30 years now, and I am currently serving as the covid coordinator responding to the pandemic. And I’m also very closely involved in influencing the direction of decisions. So, you know, if you wished you could blame a number of the restrictions on the student body on me, I’ll happily accept that. I also, I believe, have a bit of a reputation as one who will quite comfortably speak truth to power. So if something needs to be said to President Green or somebody else, I’m not afraid to say it. And to his credit and to the credit of his senior leadership team, they have been very responsive.
DJ: Can you explain some of the rationale behind some of these COVID-19 guidelines and how they ensure campus safety?
Dr. Richards: I think the real key to getting through this pandemic was finding a way to largely isolate our internal community from the… the scale of infection and contagion and the outside world. With regard to Spring Break, you know, we had a spike of cases after the Winter Break because you know, a lot of students went home, they caught covid over the break and then they brought it back with them. Umm I mean, not a lot, but some. And one of the things that we were really hoping to avoid was students going home at Spring Break, catching covid and then bringing it back for the last half of the semester. I believe firmly that had we allowed spring break to go ahead, we would probably now be closed. We’ve avoided them. And that’s why you and I are sitting in our rooms, in our offices having this conversation and not you sitting at home.
DJ: Why is it important for all of us to be wearing masks at all times and following this rule in particular?
Dr. Richard: Masks work. All of the evidence has shown that masks work and those institutions and those communities that have rejected masks— and actually, to be fair, I don’t think any universities have rejected them— but those communities that have rejected masks have higher incidences of covid. Masks will cut 90, depending on the mask, 95% of the potential transmission. And what’s really important in the sort of epidemiology of the contagion is we now have a system on campus where we are sort of maximizing the capacity of each of those things. Let’s not forget that this virus kills people. I mean, this is not a trivial sort of um… logistical exercise in keeping people apart. This is to stop people from dying.
DJ: What are some of your suggestions for students who want to maintain some sort of normal social life in college while also being safe for themselves and their neighbors and following the rules?
Dr. Richard: I think I think students have to, at the moment, have to take a deep breath and take the long view because not getting us out of this situation means it’s going to go on and on and on. And we’ve seen this around the nation, we’ve seen this around the world. When countries or communities try to open up too quickly, they get another wave of infections. If you were to look at the front page of either The New York Times or The Washington Post, you’ll see a graph that shows, it looks like a mountain going up and down and up and down with the, the surges, the waves of infection. And these have all been caused by people trying to open up too quickly. So I would say to students, you’ve got to take the long view. Realize that your sacrifice now increases your chances of more normal student experiences in the future. But in terms of how we go about making these decisions, we have a group, a senior staff group, the President, the Chief Financial Officer, student life, me, the Provost and some other administrators. We meet three times a week, more if necessary, and we have been considering and debating the science. And that’s one of my roles, as I said, is to bring that to the meeting. And we have been trying to come up with rules and regulations that balance between being too restrictive and being too permissive.
Kiara: Dr. Richards gave the DJ and I some great insight into the importance of following COVID-19 rules, as something as simple as mask wearing can save hundreds of lives. He explained to us how the COVID-19 rules are developed and dispersed throughout the campus, but we wanted more. So I decided to sit down with the top dog at Susquehanna University, President Green. President Green or ‘El Presidente Verde’, as he’s informally known throughout the student body, is a loved and influential member of the Susquehanna community. He has proudly served the university for five years now and is the 15th commander in chief of our school. Throughout our conversation, I wanted to know what it has been like being in charge of a university during a critical time like a pandemic.
Kiara: Nobody expected to live through a pandemic or has even been through a pandemic like this, so I’m sure that has been a big challenge for college administrators and yourself to create different rules and regulations in order to keep those on our campus safe. So I just want to know, as you’re… as the president of a university, what has been your role to help create the policies and procedures? And how has the experience been for your team?
President Green: I think the… the role that I’ve tried to play is getting the right people in the room to be able to analyze the situation and try to make a decision that will help us take care of our campus as best we can. And whether that’s safety protocols or even business decisions, we were one of the few colleges and universities in the region and maybe the country that didn’t lay people off, we didn’t cut benefits, we didn’t reduce salaries. We spent a lot of time wringing our hands and doing planning to figure out how we could take care of our people effectively. You know, in some ways that’s just as important as figuring out where we wear masks and, and how we clean things. I mean, it’s all part of the collective because we’ve got to take care of them in more ways. But then, you know, we’ve had members of the medical community that are part of our planning group. You know, Dave Richard from Biology has just dived in and used his expertise in extraordinary ways. Chris Bailey in facilities, and he worked, you know, when we go around campus, there’s a sign on every door that says how many people can be in there? That’s because they got out their calculators and measured the cubic volume of every room and the airspeed. And I mean, it’s it’s it’s not just a random number. If it looks like seven people can fit in here, they can tell you how many air exchanges per hour are happening in that space and and um in using that level of detail, realizing that we could make things safer by putting UV filters into residence halls where there’s more residents rooms, where there are two people living so that the air is being cleaned while people are sleeping. In the music, building their HEPA filters in the practice rooms so that somebody else can come into a practice room in a short amount of time and and be safe and just that level of attention, I think is only going to happen when you have people with real expertise that are focusing on that work and making good recommendations. And one thing I realized this morning, you know, every time that we learn someone else has covid on campus, I feel like like we’ve had a little failure. But then when you look at the big picture? Right now, the total number of cases we’ve had on campus this semester is less than the total number of active cases on campus today at our nearest competitor campus.
Kiara: Wow, that’s amazing.
President Green: Well, we’re talking about taking those moments to sort of step back and see the big picture. That was one that this morning. Oh, my goodness, we’d love it to be zero. But but where we are now is really quite an accomplishment. And the fact that everyone who has been sick has, has managed to recover, or of those who are currently recovering or not suffering dramatic symptoms. So that’s been good fortune for us.
Kiara: OK, so my next question is going on to more of the social policies and things like that. So on Thursday, March 18th, the school relaxed a couple of its policies surrounding like visitation, um how many people are allowed in upperclassmen areas like 18th. Do you predict any more changes to be made soon since the weather is getting warmer or any more changes at all?
President Green: But when the weather gets warmer, that actually makes a lot of things easier for us because um frankly, we’re just safer outdoors. There was there was just a story in The New York Times two or three days ago about how, you know, there are a lot of communities where outdoor mask wearing has become a requirement, but that whether or not in the coming months that that that should be relaxed on the national level, except when people are really close to each other, just because of the ways we know that the virus is transmitted. But I think the relaxation in March was both a combination of the ways we’ve changed testing, because you remember in the last semester we were tasting testing wastewater, hopefully not taste testing wastewater [laughing]. That’s a bad idea. The testing wastewater and then then when we had positives would test the uh the buildings that were upstream, as it were. And now since we’re, we’re testing the whole community a couple of times a week, we’ve got more refined data. Um and so when our positivity rate got low enough, there were very, very few infections in the campus community, and the fact that we were getting tests twice a week, that’s when just statistically it seemed like it was safe enough to be able to relax those. And the thing that’s a little scary right now is that numbers are up nationally and regionally. So will anything be relaxed in the next couple of weeks? Probably not just because right now we’re going we’re going in a positive direction, but the nation isn’t. But certainly by the time the Fall rolls around, things will be very different.
Kiara: Well, that’s very great to hear. I know a lot of students, the common phrase is, “Oh, next year will be different or next year will be better.” So that’s very optimistic to hear for those students that are looking into that future.
President Green: Now, one of the things that’s going to affect that, the more people nationally who get vaccinated, the quicker we can get back to normal. I mean, it’s just that the whole idea of herd immunity and at the point where we don’t need to worry about people who are immunocompromised, being in danger because of of other people. So I was excited. I think it was earlier this week that we crossed the threshold of at least half of American adults that had had one shot. But getting it, hopefully by the by the time August rolls around, the percentages will be high enough that we really can do a lot more than we’ve been able to do.
Kiara: And my final question for you, President Green, is what is one thing that you wish the student body knew about the process for creating covid-19 restriction, restrictions and rules?
President Green: Well, I think most of them do know. There hasn’t been a single restriction that was put in place that wasn’t put in place because we were actually caring about everyone’s well-being. And I think, you know, one of the things that when we’re growing up, often there are some rules that, you know, the worst thing that you ever want to hear from your mom or your dad is, “Because I said so, that’s why.” And I do think probably some of the restrictions feel like nameless, faceless authority figure has said because we said so. Any of those rules, you know, down to the 14000 stickers to walk this way, were done entirely because, you know, I want you to come back for your 50th Class Reunion. If there are some inconveniences about how Starbucks works this year and you’re going to have a life well-lived, and great things are going to happen because we took care of you. That’s why the rules are there.
Kiara: So the overarching theme of everything that we’ve heard today is that these rules were created to keep all of us here at Susquehanna safe. Everything down to the direction arrows in the floors of Hawk’s Nest were created to prioritize the health and safety of our community. Taking on these restrictions alone as an individual is hard. But if we all work together and take care of the little things, we will grow even stronger as a university. And with that, me [door opening and closing] Chet, what are you doing back here? I asked you to leave, I’m recording.
Chet: I, I know, but the guys downstairs are being mean and told me I couldn’t hang around them anymore because I ‘ruin the vibe.’ [Sighs] I guess some Saturdays just aren’t for the boys. I didn’t know where else to go.
Kiara: [Sighs under breath] I can’t believe I’m about to do this. [In full volume] Chet, if I let you record the closing credits, would it make you feel better?
Chet: Really?
Kiara: Yes, come on…
Chet: Swaaag. All right, here we go! [Can opening] Me/Us/U is produced by the students at Susquehanna University. [Party music fades in] We were advised by Dr. Heather Lang. This episode was written, recorded and edited by Kiara Bryant and DeannaJames Bunce. Special things to our Editorial Intern, Nicole Frank, and to our interviewees, the students of SU, Dr. David Richard, and President Green. Our theme music is “It’s Night Out” by Pro for free. Other music featured in this episode is “Let’s Have a Partyyy EDM Party Dance Music” by JuliusH. To hear the rest of Me/Us/U Season 2, check us out at Me-Us-U.org or find us wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and stay swaggy!
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