By Victoria Durgin, Editor in Chief
Editor’s note: we heard from several RAs for this piece. Most of them asked to remain anonymous to ensure they would not jeopardize their job security.
As COVID-19 continues to spread on college campuses both near to and far from Susquehanna, guidelines continue to be fine-tuned and enforced.
To some student leaders on campus, that tuning has been inconsistent, and enforcement has been left largely to students, leading to frustration and concern.
Several residence assistants (RAs) voiced their concerns following a quarantined building lockdown drill that took place on Thursday, Sept. 3.
During the meeting following the drill, RAs were told that much of the procedure, from the checking in of students to the acquisition of consent forms for testing, would be handled by the student RAs themselves and not by Residence Life professional staff, according to junior Ella Moores. Moores is currently an RA in West Village.
Changes were made to the procedure following the outcry of student concerns, according to Moores and Vice President for Student Life Susan Lantz.
“We learned a lot from that run through, and we listened carefully to our RAs,” Lantz said.
According to communications sent to RAs, professional staff will check students into a building if it goes into quarantine lockdown, and RAs will be allowed to meet virtually with their residents during the lockdown procedures.
This is already in effect; as of Sept. 10, the Buenos Aires complex on 18th Street is currently under lockdown. The official quarantine guidelines on Susquehanna’s website say students will be assisted by professional members of the Student Life staff.
While that does make some RAs feel safer, some said they are still concerned that they are not being respected or given enough support.
Lantz, though, said she realizes student leaders on campus, such as RAs, are to thank for the compliance she sees with all guidelines.
“I’ve been incredibly impressed by RAs and our orientation team, specifically,” said Lantz, “it is because of them we have compliance like this.”
RAs are not the only student workers faced with different job protocols on campus. Student ambassadors, who guide tours for prospective students, also needed to make changes to their routine in light of COVID-19 policies.
According to members of the ambassador staff, though, students were left to make those changes themselves, without support or guidance from supervisors in the Admissions department.
“We received no formal [COVID-19] training, all we were told was to wear masks,” said Sydney Hergan, a junior who is currently on campus working as a student ambassador.
According to Hergan, student ambassadors realized quickly that their normal touring routes around campus did not align themselves with new exit and entrance limitations on buildings.
Further, Hergan said she and other ambassadors were never trained on how to talk to touring students about the guidelines put in place by Susquehanna.
“We were not told what to tell prospective students about the SU covid response, which areas to bring them to, or how to meaningfully adjust our tour routes to accommodate the safety plan,” Hergan said.
Hergan said many of the ambassadors currently on campus worked with each other to determine new routes and have implemented them as they have toured students in the past week.
According to the Student Government Association (SGA) meeting minutes from Sept. 7, all guests who come for a tour are pre-screened and masks are mandatory for everyone on campus. The minutes, submitted by Admissions liaison to the SGA Tessa Rendina, also state that all tours follow the proper signage on campus. Additionally, there are less people on tours and tours are scheduled only two times per day.
The RAs interviewed for this article and Hergan all said they hope the administration continues to listen to student concerns as they update guidelines on campus.
