Face Masks and Enema U

First, a couple of confessions.  I hate wearing a mask in the classroom.  With every breath, my glasses fog up and the world briefly vanishes.  While talking a test the other day, I suddenly realized that I was subconsciously holding my breath while reading the exam.  If it turns out I flunked it, I’m going to blame it on the lack of oxygen.  

Secondly, I don’t know a damn thing about whether masks are effective or not.  I tried, like everyone else working on a Google Doctorate of Medicine, to do my own online research and eventually ended up watching videos of cats riding on Roombas.  I’m going to let my wife, The Doc, handle that problem and just wear the mask she gave me.  (I don’t know why I bothered, since after a half century of married life, I have long since learned that the only two problems I am in charge of are bugs and loud noises after dark.)

Now, that I have confessed my ignorance of all things masked, I find the current Covid policy of Enema U to be a little…. well…. useless.  First, everyone has to wear a mask indoors, maintain social distances, and either get vaccinated or be tested weekly.  Or maybe it was weakly.  In any case, very little of that is actually happening.

Okay, everyone is wearing a mask indoors.  Some people are even wearing them over their noses.  And those who remove their masks to sip at the ever-present coffee cup or thermos, usually put them back on.  (Officially, food and beverages are not allowed in any classroom, a rule that is followed religiously—which means the rule is only enforced on Easter Sunday.)

If a student doesn’t have a mask, they can walk into the building, continue down the hall, and go into their classroom, where they can ask the professor for one provided by the university.  The guidelines are unclear on the concept, but presumably the student is supposed to hold his breath until he receives his mask.

The university’s guideline on social distancing is also ignored.  Of the rooms in which my classes meet, if we were to strictly uphold the six-foot minimum spacing, half the students would not be able to enter the room.  Crowded doorways, restrooms, stairs, and hallways will remain the norm until someone redesigns the way the classrooms are built.

While every faculty member and student must provide either proof of vaccination or negative results of a weekly Covid test, these rules were enforced only after the first five weeks of the semester.  Hopefully, the virus, infused with school spirit, patiently waited though this period before it began to spread across campus.

Needless to say, I think most of the measures the administration is invoking to fight Covid will probably prove to be fairly ineffective.  But, I also think the university is doing the best job it can under these conditions.  You can’t rebuild the classrooms, you can’t turn the faculty into mask police, and you can’t control human behavior, though they have periodically tried to do so.  The administration might have instituted the vaccination policy a little earlier, but overall, I give the university a good, solid “B” on its Covid policy.  While I find the conditions to be slightly humorous at times, I’m also grateful I wasn’t tasked to do this impossible job.

College students are, at least technically, adults.  Everyone attending a face-to-face class does so knowing the dangers, and chooses to take the risk of being there in exchange for pursuing an education.  (That voluntary acceptance even includes that weird old, gray-bearded man taking freshman economics courses.)  While the choices may be harder for the faculty, ultimately, they too, are there by choice—something for which the students should be more grateful.

However, not everyone at the university deserves a passing grade.  Alone among the faculty, one professor used his classroom (and his students) as a way of spreading his own personal political opinions and biases.  He refused to wear a mask, refused to be vaccinated, and refused to submit to weekly Covid tests.  These were all ‘impositions upon his freedom’, he declared, daring the administration to take any action against him.

The administration, of course, promptly removed the onus of teaching from him, placing him on leave pending a final decision on his continued employment.  Since then, this lone professor has found any number of avenues via which to voice his opinions about his being placed on leave, about the results of the last presidential election, and on several other rather bizarre topics, managing to blame a large number of people for his troubles in the process, while accepting no personal responsibility for them in any way.

Personally, I believe that every person has the right to decide for themselves whether they wish to be vaccinated.  Although I believe in vaccinations, I also believe the first freedom you give others is the right to make bad choices.  If a person refuses to be vaccinated, that is their right.  I also believe just as strongly, however, that a business has the right to set standards and rules for its employees.

Long before I set foot in a classroom this semester, the university set clear standards for both students and faculty.  As a condition of my enrollment, I accepted these conditions.  As a condition of his continued employment, this professor knew what was expected of him—not only by the university, but by the students in his classroom.  It was within his rights to decide to refuse these conditions and leave the university system.  The university is also within its rights to give him the ultimatum to comply or leave.

The university goes to bizarre lengths to avoid this kind of public confrontation, and I’m reasonably sure that if this professor had wanted to avoid a public fight, he could have taken a semester off or have taken a sabbatical, while continuing to be paid.  Alternately, he might have taught his classes online, avoiding any necessity to be on campus.  The professor obviously chose to make this a public fight, satisfying his ego while sadly ignoring any responsibility to the students, who are the ultimate losers in his needless confrontation.

Employers are capable of making demands that employees do not like, and if they wish, these employees can refuse their paychecks and seek employment elsewhere.  That Enema U is a part of the state government does not change this simple fact.  

On second thought, perhaps the professor is teaching the students a valuable lesson after all.  As a far better writer than I once remarked:

“A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful.”  Mark Twain – Tom Sawyer Abroad.