Editorial | Checking off Chapman’s vaccination requirement

Illustration by RUPALI INGLE, Illustrator

An April 30 announcement from President Daniele Struppa revealed that this coming fall, Chapman University will be offering in-person classes only, with no online or hybrid options available. All students, faculty and staff are required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 upon a return to campus, or present medical or personal reasons as to why they aren’t. If they choose to opt out of the vaccine but still want to take classes, they’re required to receive twice-a-week testing from the Student Health Center. 

Maybe, just maybe, this is a sign that Orange County is finally starting to get a grip on this pandemic.

We support this administrative decision. If students buy in, get vaccinated and continue to wear masks indoors, we may get back that sense of college youth we’ve been craving. But, with all proposed COVID-19 guidelines produced during an evolving pandemic, no plan is foolproof.

With an announcement of this magnitude, the question remains: are we really clawing our way out of this hole, or are we just digging ourselves in deeper, as we did back in October with a premature return to campus?

The vaccine “requirement” doesn’t quite feel mandatory if unvaccinated students are simply allowed to get tested twice a week. This alternative builds a bit more discomfort toward the idea of returning. We understand that some demographics are more susceptible to vaccine side effects, but why isn’t there an option for students — who are uncomfortable being packed into a full classroom with unvaccinated peers — to stay online? Even though we all agree a traditional in-class experience is preferable, some students live with at-risk family members and don’t want to gamble their odds.

At the end of the day, however, the worst option for continuing in the fall is university-wide hybrid learning. Students and professors alike detest it even more than purely online learning or the prospect of returning in-person, a feeling that’s proven by actual data from fall surveys. And if we didn’t return in the fall to fully in-person learning, professors would continue to be stuck in the hellscape that is juggling online and in-person students.

Chapman had to make a choice, and while it came late in the semester after fall class registration and living arrangements were well underway, at least this is something. A four months’ notice for a COVID-19 vaccination requirement lends itself to a safe in-person learning environment — that is, as long as immunization and test screening is strictly enforced and checked at building entrances.

For all we know, things could go haywire again during the fall. They have in the past. But given how long our quality of education has been diminished due to the pandemic, it’s encouraging to see we’re moving in a forward motion during a year that has felt stagnant.

We’re ready to come back to in-person. We just hope the rest of the Chapman community is too.