By Delaney Smith
Staff Writer
The College requiring all students to be vaccinated for the 2021 fall semester opened the doors for a return to a kind of normalcy for many students. Commuters, however, are experiencing a very different fall semester than residential students because of one simple fact: they are not allowed in residence halls regardless of their vaccination status.
According to an Aug. 31 email from President Foster, 97% of all students have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, and proof of full vaccination is required to live on campus. The remaining 3% of students who are not vaccinated were granted exemptions and are exclusively commuters. Because of this 3%, commuters are not allowed in residential halls at all, vaccinated or not.
Julia Wyman, a freshman commuter majoring in elementary education created a petition on Change.org asking the College to change its policy and allow vaccinated commuters to visit residence halls. Within the first five hours of the petition being posted, it garnered over 100 signatures. As of Sept. 9, 206 people have signed the petition.
“I was in awe,” Wyman said, “I was like, wow, people actually agree with me.”
Besides residence halls, commuters are granted access to the same buildings as residential students, including the Brower Student Center, library and all academic buildings. The only places they are not allowed to go are the residential halls and lounges.
“I’ll text my friends who live here, and they’re like ‘Hey, we’re hanging out in Centennial’s lounge. You can come.’ But I’m like … I can’t,” Wyman said. “Which is kind of messed up because I did go out and get vaccinated to be in school.”
When asked about why she started the petition, Wyman said that it was her night classes that gave her the idea. She dislikes driving at night because she gets highway hypnosis and on some nights, she would rather sleep at a friend’s dorm than take her 40-minute commute home.
“We don’t want to drive that late. We want to be able to crash at our friend’s house or our boyfriend’s, girlfriend’s, whatever,” Wyman said.
From there, Wyman considered the various other reasons commuters might want to have access to residential spaces. The foremost concern she has is about campus safety — a concern that became reality in the wake of last week’s storm when she and many other commuters got stuck on campus.
“I couldn’t even get home from my afternoon class to get ready. I actually had to get ready here somehow. It was really hard,” Wyman said. “It was inconvenient as well. Because we’re not allowed in the dorms, so it’s not even like I could be like, hey, could I shower in your communal bathroom? Could I change in your dorm room real quick?”
Wyman added that if she ever feels unsafe on campus or unsafe to drive home, she wants the security of staying overnight with a friend in a dorm.
“People want to go into their friend’s dorm to feel safe,” she said. “Say I’m walking home from class late at night and someone is following me. What if I want to run right into the dorm room where my friend is because I feel safer like that? What if it starts downpouring and I can’t get to my car? I’ll run right into my friend’s dorm.”
Wyman is not the only commuter with these frustrations. She claims that several other commuters that she spoke to shared her frustrations of not being allowed within residence halls.
“I’m just a bit frustrated. I understand why they did it with the new strain. But with proper precautions, I feel as if that step is not necessary at the moment,” Sandy Sleiman, a freshman commuter in the undeclared program said. “It’s just another piece of our college experience that got taken away because of Covid.”
In spite of the number of signers of the petition, the College has not yet acknowledged it. Wyman spoke to the Office of Student Affairs but they have not yet gotten back to her about updating the policy. She is not done fighting for the commuters and is urging those who have not signed it to consider giving the issue a look so that she might get her petition to her goal of 500 signatures.
