Dear on-campus students of Benedictine College:
As you are well aware, we are all under some level of quarantine as students. While on-campus students have been told not to leave campus, they are still able to go about their days as normal.
Off-campus students, on the other hand, have been forbidden from campus except in special circumstances. I do not mean for this to be about “whose life sucks more” but rather, I want to offer you a view into the life of off-campus and quarantined students because I am still hearing about on-campus students leaving campus to eat in local restaurants, etc.
While you go about your school day as normal, off-campus and quarantined students are not allowed on campus. Furthermore, a vast majority of our classes, the classes you sit in on, are prerecorded and posted at some later time in the day. This means we cannot follow the same schedule that we anticipated at the beginning of the semester. While you are done with school and can go be with friends at 5, we are sometimes just starting to watch our lectures at 3, or later.
While this is the case, we are still expected to turn in homework on time and attend whatever jobs we have. In brief, we are forced to cram during the evenings while during the day, we have nothing to do but wait around and twiddle our thumbs. And as our patron says in his Rule, “idleness is the devil’s workshop.”
Say what you will about COVID-19, Atchison County’s response, Benedictine’s response, etc. However, next time you consider ignoring the quarantine order, recognize that your decisions are greatly affecting other people’s lives. If Atchison County sees that you do not care about the restrictions, they will take further actions and your fellow Ravens will feel the repercussions.
This isn’t about politics anymore; this is about real people experiencing real consequences. Please, for your sake and ours, stay on campus! You have countless activities at your fingertips that off-campus and quarantined students are not able to participate in. Don’t take that for granted!
If you agree with me, please share! If you don’t, at least think about our perspective. Comment if you have constructive solution ideas. The school is trying hard to serve all their students, but they don’t know what we need if we do not communicate it with them.
