Penn State classes haven’t yet started. But large parties already have, raising community concern
Hundreds of Penn State students gathered outside of the freshman dorms Wednesday night — many without masks — to dance, twerk and party amid the COVID-19 pandemic, enraging community members and concerning plenty of other students.
Based on social media posts, the large East Halls gathering appeared to last about an hour before being shut down sometime around 10:30 p.m. It was not clear what ultimately ended the gathering, whether by university police or resident assistants.
Penn State President Eric Barron took little time in excoriating the students who took part, calling their behavior “unacceptable” in a written statement Thursday morning.
“I ask students flaunting the university’s health and safety expectations a simple question: Do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?” Barron asked. “This behavior cannot and will not be tolerated. We have said from the beginning health and safety is our priority, and if the university needs to pivot to fully remote instruction we will.”
The gathering came just two days after the start of move-in and on the same day a Penn State fraternity was suspended for hosting a “maskless social.” A petition has already gained more than 2,000 signatures to send Penn State freshmen home.
“They’re going to interact with the community and, in addition, they’re going to interact with faculty and staff at the university who are concerned about safety provisions,” Centre County Commissioner Michael Pipe said, referring to those at the gathering. “So I think myself, the community, we’re just deeply disappointed in what happened.”
Pipe — a Penn State grad who once stayed in East Halls — called on university leadership to publicly come out with “robust, immediate actions” on Thursday that address Wednesday’s gathering. Barron’s sternly worded statement went so far as to threaten “possible expulsion” for noncompliant students, and the president said more flyers would be posted in residence halls.
But Wednesday’s gathering shouldn’t have come as a big surprise, said two faculty members, Sarah Townsend and Michelle Rodino-Colocino.
College students are going to act like college students, they said. They will party. They will take risks. And they will not always heed authority. That falls in line with the June warnings of Temple’s renowned professor of psychology, Laurence Steinberg, who wrote in the New York Times that colleges’ reopening plans “are so unrealistically optimistic that they border on delusional and could lead to outbreaks of COVID-19 among students, faculty and staff.”
“Penn State created this situation by deciding to bring all students back to campus,” said Townsend, a professor and organizer of the faculty group Coalition for a Just University. “And now the very least it should do is immediate testing of all students on arrival, followed by 10% daily surveillance testing throughout the semester. Enough of the magical thinking.”
(Penn State is currently testing about 30% of students pre-arrival while carrying out 1% daily surveillance testing.)
Penn State’s large gathering Wednesday is hardly an exception to universities. Notre Dame tested all students before its Aug. 3 arrival, but an off-campus party led to an outbreak that saw 155 new cases alone Monday and Tuesday. (The school is moving to online-only instruction until at least Sept. 2.) The University of North Carolina experienced its sixth COVID-19 cluster in the last five days and has already switched over to online-only learning, as has N.C. State.
In the Big Ten, Michigan State also announced earlier this week it was transitioning to online-only.
“No one should be surprised even a teeny tiny bit by this behavior. Even the students in their PSU surveys said that this would happen,” State College Borough Councilwoman Theresa Lafer said. “All of the head shaking and bemoaning is window dressing for those guilty of inviting students, faculty and staff into the community.”
As of noon Thursday, per the state Department of Health, there have been 407 total cases of the coronavirus in Centre County since the first case was reported March 20. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, symptoms can appear anywhere from 2-14 days after exposure.
Penn State’s classes start Monday.
“The utter disregard for the health and safety of others was, to me, abhorrent,” said Penn State student Zachary McKay, the president of the University Park Undergraduate Association. “These students do not represent the majority of the undergraduate student body at Penn State University Park, and I don’t condone their actions. Now is the time to serve as examples, both to incoming students and to institutions around the country.
“We have to be in this together.”
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 10:22 AM.
