I could be wrong, but I’m not sure this is accurate. I believe Bryn Mawr was open, with students on campus and in-person classes in the Fall of 2020. Students may also have had the option of attending online. I know they planned to go online for the short time after Thanksgiving and for finals, and believe they stuck to that plan, but I could be mistaken.
ETA: I double checked, and Bryn Mawr had in-person classes until Thanksgiving break, as planned. Students could request to say on campus after. Fall Departure and Spring Planning Information
Wow, actually the GBD is penned by three public health experts from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford who propose focused protection of high risk groups. They do not “underplay” covid dangers. They are very concerned about the mental health effects of lockdowns and restrictions. And many in the scientific community agree with them, including the governments of parts of Europe that are now dropping covid restrictions. And in today’s news, a Johns Hopkins study regarding futility of covid lockdowns is proving the GBD correct. However Fauci, MSM, et al tried to discredit this group…
You call the mother and the student “anti-vaxxers,” and “propagandists,” epitaphs that shut down any discussion and dehumanize the real students and their parents who are living through this experience. This is not really a story about an “anti vaxxer” leaves Bryn Mawr. Calling it that shows your true colors.
What we know is this student got a full ride academic scholarship to Bryn Mawr, the covid restrictions were difficult for her. As a healthy young person, she made a choice to not take a vaccine which was under EUA at the time it was mandated. She left her dream school and eventually landed at a school she would have not have considered prior to this experience. But she found the second school more accepting and a better fit than she ever would have thought.
I realize I am wasting pixels here and I am probably going to get flamed since most in this forum echo each other’s similar views. As parents what we have in common is that we want to see our kids happy and engaged in in college. We wouldn’t be here on this forum if we didn’t care about that. If you really want to learn about other people and come together, stop with the false dichotomy and name calling. There is a deeper message here that might be worthwhile if you open your mind a crack.
Thank you for your post. Pro or anti Vax aside, I’ve long been bothered by the degree to which some colleges have shut down. They should function to serve the needs of their students, who are a low risk group. Unfortunately the decisions are heavily influenced by their faculties (average age = 59). (My sister is one of them.)
Colleges could protect their faculties by allowing them to take leaves and retain their jobs. We have an oversupply of PhD’s in this country, many of whom would be happy to set up and take the place of those on leave. In fields where this could not be done, remote classes might be necessary but if this were done selectively, the overall on campus experience could be preserved - and was in many cases.
I point to Harvard as an example, which had almost all students off campus in 2020-21 while just a couple of miles away in the same metro area Tufts was open. Whose needs were being served by Harvard shutting down their campus? Certainly not the students IMO.
Thanks. Our Bi-Co student was home, but as you point out it was our decision when considering the restrictions / assumed conditions.
BMC being open only reinforces the point I was making. Any suggestion that BMC policy was overly restrictive is misleading. A very similar experience was available at both schools discussed in her article.
If you look at the link, BMC limits aid to 8 semesters. If the student failed classes and can’t “get through” in the semesters allowed, it is quite possible that the student couldn’t afford the extra semester (at $35k). The description of home life in the article seems to support the lack of financial ability to pay for a semester at “retail” prices.
Maybe the article is retribution for the school not making an exception? There are too many unknowns to draw any conclusions…what’s obvious is the student wanted to take a shot at BMC on her way out.
I don’t see it as much of “shot” at BMC as it is a bid to become a quick media star. Who doesn’t love the narrative of “sticking it” to the coastal elites?
Hope mother and daughter are happy with their choice. Seems like they aren’t being forthright about why they are leaving BMC for Hillsdale, though. They clearly have an agenda driven by politics, and are enjoying the attention they are getting from it.
Perfectly said. And the pearl-clutching over anyone who is skeptical about their motives and all the details that don’t add up is hilarious—they could have simply chosen not to share and amplify the story for clout.
Couldn’t this girl have shared a house with her best friends from college instead of moving back home ? She speaks of how privileged the rest of the students are so I am sure that many of the parents had empty second homes that they would have gladly let their kids live in with a bunch of friends to salvage a good college experience for them.
Zero covid restrictions to follow and all the usual opportunities for learning “ adulting” as the traditional college experience. As long as she house mates took the same major as her she would have had a built in study buddy as well for online learning.
The narrative is about how clueless and out of touch the elite colleges are with “real Americans”. So any problem-solving around how to improve her situation are besides the point!
There’s someone in my city right now making a big stink over Covid restrictions. Employer has required masks for anyone working on-site. Don’t want to wear a mask? You can work from home and wear whatever the heck you want.
But looks like she’s found a lawyer to take her case and to sue. She wants the right to NOT wear a mask, AND show up in the office. She is not in danger of losing her job- she can work from home. But she claims her rights are being infringed upon with the mask mandate (which is not up to the employer- the city requires masks inside buildings where the public has access. So inside your house? no masks. Supermarket? masks).
There are all sorts of kind people trying to help this woman by dropping off different versions of face coverings and of course- they are all missing the point. She doesn’t want help. She wants to show up for work, get denied access, and then sue. That’s the entire point.
College kids transfer all the time without their choices becoming front page news!
Two of the three authors of the GBD are prominent figures at Collateral Global, and the mom (who has been banned from at least one social media platform for spreading misinformation) is the "Managing Editor.” See the link at the end of the paragraph you posted.
As for the “name-calling,” you are mistaken. I did not call the student and her mother “anti-vaxxers.” Rather, I noted that, according to her mother, the real reason she wouldn’t return to school was because of the vax mandate. As for “propogandists,” that too is your term, not mine. IMO, the story plays fast and loose with the facts in order to elicit a strong emotional response for the purposes of pushing an agenda or point of view, and that’s propaganda. Taking this embellished and/or inaccurate story to Bari Weiss was not an attempt at building bridges or reaching a common understanding, it was an attempt to push an agenda and rile people up. So while I didn’t call them the name, I stand by the description.
I too am a parent, but I am not only concerned that children are “happy and engaged,” but also that they are aware, responsible, respectful, and safe, not only for their own well-being but the well-being of those around them. Part of that responsibility means that, hopefully, they will refrain from distorting and ignoring the the world around them just because it might make their own lives a bit easier.
As for the GBD, it may be a bit beyond the scope of this thread, so I’ll not engage in extended debate about it here. Briefly, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that that GBD drastically underplayed the dangers of Covid and relied on unsupported (and since refuted) scientific assumptions. These criticism weren’t political, they were scientific, and scientific evidence continues to mount which undercuts the Declaration. Here are just a few initial criticisms, written immediately after the Declaration was released: expert reaction to Barrington Declaration, an open letter arguing against lockdown policies and for ‘Focused Protection’ | Science Media Centre. There are many more, if you or others care to look into it.
I read this young woman’s piece with an open mind, sincerely wanting to understand her perspective. My S20 did his first year of college from home; all his classes were online, and he decided that the on campus “experience” being offered was too isolating and restrictive, at least for him. I agree that some colleges, including my own LAC alma mater, had some restrictions that even without the benefit of hindsight were unrealistic and punitive. One example: requiring masking indoors at all times, except when the student was alone in her/his dorm room with the door closed. At the very least, students in the same suite or hallway should have been allowed to form a “family unit” that could socialize indoors without masks. Or an example from my son’s university: all official, RA-led activities for first year students living in the dorms were online, despite the mild California weather making it very possible to safely do activities in person outdoors.
When I learned the full backstory of Ms Kitchen’s transfer to Hillsdale, I felt deceived and used. Setting aside all the background noise – the mom’s COVID activism, Bari Weiss’s agenda, the fudging of the timeline relating to online schooling, etc. – it seems the only reason Ms Kitchen transferred was due to Bryn Mawr’s vaccine mandate. According to the mom’s Twitter, her daughter in fact wanted to return to BMC so much that she wrote a letter to the administration challenging the vaccine mandate, hoping her “pushback” would cause the college to “rescind” the mandate. Mom also wrote a letter.
Shame on Bari Weiss for publishing and amplifying this highly misleading story (though, of course, she has the right to do so – that part I will defend). To think she once worked for respected publications like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. It’s sad, actually.