Student Compliance Naysayers
As President Daniels wrote in an August 9, 2020, message to Purdue students, “Skeptics are everywhere. There are those who scoff that it simply cannot be done. Most of those asserting that point directly at students, declaring them – you – unwilling or incapable of the sacrifice necessary to protect others. I don’t believe that, at least not about Boilermakers.”
“…it’s naive to assume that students will adhere to campus restrictions at the level required to prevent new COVID-19 infections.”
U.S. News & World Report article paraphrasing common faculty comments
“We are not convinced that student behavior will be sufficiently prudent for four months …. the restrictions are going to be brutal, and asking them to keep them up the whole time they’re here is asking a lot.”
Susan Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame
“Those advocating for schools to reopen appear to assume students will always stick to social distancing rules. How realistic is that? Who thinks students will not engage in social activities at close quarters (have you met college students?) ….”
Valerie Straus, Washington Post education writer
“… some students are going to party, regardless of what officials say.”
Forbes, Stephen M. Gavazzi, College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University
“These plans are so unrealistically optimistic that they border on delusional …. students will have become cavalier about wearing masks and sanitizing their hands. They will ignore social distancing guidelines when they want to hug old friends they run into on the way to class. They will venture out of their ‘families’ and begin partying in their hallways with classmates from other clusters, and soon after, with those who live on other floors, in other dorms, or off campus. They will get drunk and hang out and hook up with people they don’t know well. And infections on campus — not only among students, but among the adults who come into contact with them — will begin to increase.”
New York Times, Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at Temple University