Students Ready for Return to Campus

It will have been six full weeks of the semester, but Monday, Oct. 5, will feel special for freshman Owen Daughtery. He has been able to manage a heavy first semester workload with classes including Biology lecture and lab, Chemistry lecture and lab, Communications 101, first year experience and first year science. His first in-person class on campus will be Biology this upcoming Monday.

“I guess it will be like the first day of school for me,” said the Austin, Texas, native. 

 Chaminade University will be welcoming students back to campus this upcoming Monday after six weeks of students participating in class from home via Zoom.

 As bizarre as it seems to have your first day of school in October, Daughtery is excited to experience a normal day in the life of a college student. Daughtery landed on island earlier this summer and has been able to get familiar with the land. Although he has spent time adventuring and exploring, he is eager to engage in the social experiences of what goes on at a college campus.

 Despite already having a grasp of what the college experience is like, other students are ready to get back to school to optimize their learning. Senior Criminal Justice major Dominic Coffey is ready to to return to class so that he is able to dive deeper into the controversial topics with his fellow peers. Mass incarceration, warrants, the social climate now between communities and the police, and defunding the police are all topics Coffey hopes to cover once he returns to in-person learning.

 “The biggest reason that I would be looking forward to going back in person would be the in-class discussion,” said Coffey, who is from Huntington Beach, Calif. “Especially in my major right now, there are a lot of controversial issues and I was kind of looking forward to the in-class discussion to get different perspectives and viewpoints. We do have a discussion board that we post on, but that only goes so far.”

 Although the faculty and staff are working hard to ensure that students are engaging in a steady workload, many students are having a difficult time keeping themselves both motivated and accountable.

 “I feel like they’re doing the best they can, but it’s not really the same as in person,” said Anna Flook, Criminal Justice and Historical and Political Studies major. “I definitely just feel like it’s more about turning in assignments more than absorbing the information and learning. Online classes for me feel a bit more optional cause a lot of them I can do the work whenever, so I find myself procrastinating a lot more.”

 Despite many students wanting to return for educational and social reasons, others find it more ideal to hold off on returning until spring semester, which was just announced last week that it will start on Feb. 1.

 Junior Interior Design major Monsterrat Lanfranco misses enjoying her lunch with friends at school, however feels that is it better to be safe rather than sorry under the current circumstances. She feels we would be better off returning in February.

 “I just feel like we’ve spent so much time adjusting to online that it would just be hard to adjust to our new normal,” said Lanfranco, Honolulu native. 

 Once school officially returns on Oct. 5, classes will remain in session until dismissed for holiday break, which begins Nov. 26. This means students have less than two months to adjust from remote learning to a campus full of safety guidelines and social distancing signage. Some believe it is better to resume face-to-face classes second semester to reduce risk and help keep everything more streamlined.

 “I hope for consistency, whether I am online for class or in-person,” said Sophomore Nursing major Hannah Hovestol. “Either way it turns out, I want it to be consistent.” 

 Despite consistency, Hawaii Pacific University welcomed their students back to in-person classes this past week on Sept. 21. University of Hawaii on the other hand has offered a very limited amount of specific classes to meet in person on campus, however is not yet ready to welcome all students back. A decision is still pending to determine whether or not students will be able to return for the spring semester.