Students Respond to Loosened COVID Restrictions
By Anvi Bhate, Ellie Ana Sperantsas, Catherine Wu, and Lianna Yang
After the initial week and a half of serious restrictions, the Academy has gradually loosened these policies to allow community members to spectate at sports games, permit indoor dining, and start in-person classes and Learning Center opportunities. Dean of Students Russell Weatherspoon announced the return of intradorm visitations, followed by the return of interdorm visitations during the week of Jan 25. Additionally, according to a Feb. 4 email, students and faculty are permitted to be unmasked in their dorms, and may eat in common rooms.
However, even with these loosened restrictions, there are still shortened hours and room capacity limits on many areas on campus, including the Goel Center for Theater and Dance, the Athletic Facilities, and the Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center (EPAC)— affecting athletes, day students, dancers, and actors especially. Furthermore, although Elm Street and Wetherell Dining Halls are now open to eat indoors, the ban on eating inside restaurants in town remains.
Many boarding students expressed their thoughts regarding the newly permitted intradorm visitations. “It’s nice to be able to visit your friends’ rooms more because it’s freezing cold outside. And I think because there aren’t that many new positive cases it should be fine in terms of safety,” upper Vibha Udayakumar said.
“I think that it is acceptable because we haven’t been getting a lot of new positive cases lately, and it’s good to socialize considering that we have had virtual classes for a while,” prep Leonardo Chung said.
Students discussed their experiences with in-person dining as well. “In-person dining is nice because it’s cold outside. It was hard to hang out with people before when you couldn’t eat inside, but now you can spend more time with friends,” Udayakumar shared.
Prep Sarah Huang shared some difficulties around her dinner schedule before and after in-person dining was permitted: “Eating in-person at the dining halls has been good because [before,] after my H format class, it was hard to walk back to Amen just to eat dinner, and then go to orchestra rehearsal right after.”
Chung offered suggestions for restrictions in buildings across campus. “We should be able to eat in EPAC because we are allowed indoor dining. And we should be allowed to have more than two people sitting at that Harkness table in the Music Building, because how are four people allowed to surround a small table [in the dining hall], and yet this isn’t allowed?”
The return to school during the peak of the Omicron COVID-19 va riant has restricted day student usage of EPAC, with many expressing concerns regarding the inconveniences in opening hours of buildings on campus. “As a day student who takes the morning Amtrak from Dover to Exeter and reaches campus at around 6:47 [a.m.], EPAC not being open then was very inconvenient,” Lower Advay Nomula said. “This meant that I would have to just walk around in the cold until DHall opened at 7:00, and then, because I couldn’t just stay inside due to grab and go, wait outside until 7:30 when the library opened.”
“However, with some communication, [Day Student Coordinator] Mrs. Reyes got EPAC to open a little early just for us train commuters, so that was a big lifesaver. There were many complications to work around but that’s the price to pay if you’re a day student,” Nomula continued.
Lower Jack Hutchins shared similar difficulties regarding EPAC’s opening hours. “The building opening at 7:30 [a.m.] on Saturdays could be a bit of a problem if you got to campus early and didn’t have somewhere to drop off your stuff.”
During the first two weeks back from winter break, day students were required to work in their library carrels, as EPAC and many other buildings were closed or restricted. “Working in carrels is definitely a lot more productive than in DSL [Day Student Lounge], however, [not much has changed]. In fall term, when I wanted to have a really productive work session, I would just go to the ground floor of the library and work,” Normula added.
“Working carrels are a great spot to get work done, but it’s not so much for socializing like EPAC,” Hutchins said.
For day students who are also athletes like Nomula, commuting to campus on weekends for required sports practices has been difficult. “I had to go to campus for in-person sports practices as well, so not coming to campus wasn’t really an option. I also couldn’t make trains in the middle of the day because of my parents’ work and inconvenient timings,” Nomula said.
Other athletes also commented on their experiences during sports with COVID-19 restrictions. “During [swim] meets, we are required to wear masks on the pool deck. After we finish swimming and have to put on a mask, it’s hard to breathe especially after a race, and the mask is always wet and uncomfortable,” Huang said.
Lower and track athlete Tenley Nelson shared similar experiences with masks during races, as well as a decreased number of meets due to the pandemic. “We’ve had at least two meets canceled due to COVID-19 cases, [on either] our [part] or that of the visiting teams,” Nelson said. “We haven’t had a whole-team away meet yet.”
Another track athlete, prep Kayla Hyett, agreed. Hyett elaborated on the effect so few meets had on their season. “The lack of practices and meets has made it difficult for us to continue improving our speeds and skills,” Hyett said. “This has also caused many of us to have our first meet halfway through the season, but we all were very excited to finally race.”
Students have also noticed changes in sports spectatorship, even with the loosened protocols. “We had a swim meet on Wednesday, and there were some people, but the audience size was a lot less than usual,” Huang noted.
“I think in-person audiences for sports games is a nice next step, because without an audience, sports games don’t have that same amount of spirit,” Udayakumar said.
Besides athletics and the arts, COVID-19 restrictions have also affected other extracurricular activities and canceled competitions for many teams that have put months towards preparation. “The biggest effects on us have been having to hold Zoom meetings, as well as not being able to attend conferences,” senior and Model United Nations (MUN) co-head Lekha Masoudi said. Two conferences at Harvard and Boston Universities have been canceled as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, a fact which has been challenging for many MUN members.
“I understand why the admin wouldn’t let us attend due to them being in a major city as well as the overnight aspect, and potentially tricky contact tracing.” Masoudi added. “However, I do feel like we could have been told a little more in advance. Because of how late we were told and the way conference registration works, we didn’t have the time to potentially sign up for a later conference this term, like late February.”
Some students feel similarly about the restrictions against events they have put so much time and effort into, and while restrictions are loosening, the first couple weeks of January were very tough for a variety of reasons. However, with a Feb. 9 email from Joanne Lembo announcing lifted restrictions on in-person club meetings, many coheads’ hopes have been heard, and students can look forward to the increased return of in-person activities.
