Somewhere in the near distance, a muffled sound can be heard. Is it a plane? Is it a bird? Perhaps if you were on another Texas campus, this would be the case. But at SMU, that sound is bound to be the coarse coughing of an ill student. Over the past week, SMU seems to have been taken over not only by the common cold, but also by its sniffling little friend “Influenza.”
Witnessing the SMU administration’s initial response to this epidemic of sorts was absurd; the administration continued to keep the health center closed on weekends and penalized students for missing class due to illness, forcing students to risk their health even further by attending class. As the epidemic escalated throughout the week, the response changed minimally. The administration shifted its stance slightly, encouraging students to quarantine themselves to their rooms in order to prevent further contamination. In a laudable and effective move, the school began to allow friends and roommates to bring food to ill students – something that did, indeed, help many students recover from the illness.
Why, then, did the school continue to crack down on the attendance policy for classes? It’s one thing to blatantly encourage students to stay within the quarters of their own room, but it’s another thing to recommend self-quarantine and then penalize students for not going to class.
Professors have been pressured to tighten enforcement on students’ attendance this semester in order to better detect drug use, which is characterized by consecutive absences. Most of these policies include a three absence – excused or non-excused – rule. For those affected by the flu, staying in bed for even a day is simply not an option. Is it worth missing a few classes to get an extra hour of sleep to prevent the further spread of the flu? Some would say yes – in a heartbeat.
Others would not agree on the effortlessness of making such a decision. First-year Katy Grossman gave her take on the situation: “I was lucky to not have gotten the flu, so far, but I really feel for those who have. Many of my friends can’t afford to risk missing class and suffering a grade-drop, and therefore have been risking their own health, as well as the health of others, to get to class.” The effect of flu-infected students attending class reaches farther than it seems. Flu-infected students who cannot afford to miss a class not only aid in the spread of the virus, but also distract the class with incessant, interruptive, coughing and sniffling.
Of course, attempting to contain/quarantine the virus in close quarters has negative effects, as well. Neighbors in close-knit residential units continue to spread the flu virus as they mingle amongst already-infected friends and classmates. Second-year Jessika Chi, a Residential Assistant at Smith hall, experienced the ill effects of this dilemma first-hand: “At first, only a few of my residents started out sick, but because we live in a close community hall, the interaction between the quarantined and the non-quarantined caused others to catch the flu, too.”
Just like the season’s latest popular trends, the flu is sure to pass along from the green campus of SMU soon enough, but at what cost? The loss of a few grade-points based on missed attendance? The spreading of a virus that ensures more students have several miserable days of illness? Is it fair for students in good academic standing to suffer the same consequences as those students who miss class due to late-night partying, simply due to an unfortunate bout of illness? I think not.
Nureen Gulamali is an advertising and sociology double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
