The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 5 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on February 19, 2021.
By Jenna Stern ’22
Staff Writer
Owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, students returned to campus for a spring semester that looks very different from previous semesters. In order to limit the spread of COVID-19, access and use of campus buildings are limited, and a small number of in-person classes have had health and safety measures implemented.
In-person classes at Lake Forest College follow all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines by requiring students to properly wear masks and maintain a six-foot distance from peers and professors. Hand sanitizer is almost always available for everyone’s use and facilities are cleaned regularly. Additionally, classes have moved into facilities that were not traditionally used for classrooms to maintain the space required for a safe learning environment. For example, some students find themselves trekking across campus to the Tiernan Trophy Room in the Sports and Recreation Center for a politics course that would have usually taken place in Young Hall.
Kate Rooney ’24 has had the unique experience of starting her undergraduate career with an entirely remote fall semester. This spring, only one of her classes is in-person, while the rest continue to be conducted via Zoom. Rooney is a commuter student this semester and attends her single in-person class in the Skybox of the Mohr Student Center, yet another location that was not used for daily classes in previous years. She says she feels relatively safe in class because of the measures she takes, including double-masking, and the measures taken by those around her.
Further, professors have taken measures to make classes seem as normal as possible. Rooney described small group discussions in a socially distanced classroom as “awkward and loud because everybody is having a different conversation from six feet away, and through a mask.”
Ryan Wang ’22 lived on campus for two years before the COVID-19 pandemic. He shared that the transition to an entirely remote school experience for a portion of the spring 2020 and the entirety of the fall 2020 semesters to having one in-person course this semester has been difficult. Like many other students who decided to live in off-campus housing this year, Wang commutes to campus for his in-person class. Wang noted that there are some disadvantages to trying to learn and be conscious of all COVID-19 precautions simultaneously. He said that he feels safe within the classroom, but referred to his few days every week on campus as “exhausting” because he spends a lot of time worrying about keeping himself and others around him safe. Additionally, Wang suffers from asthma and described the experience of coughing in class and receiving concerned glances from peers. However, he shared that he takes all the Forester Commitment rules for campus COVID-19 precautions very seriously.
Interestingly, Wang shared that there are advantages of certain CDC guidelines that he says go unnoticed. “I’m 6’4”, so sitting in a class where desks are six feet apart has made learning more comfortable,” he noted.
