I’ll be blunt – I am angry about President Daniele Struppa’s indecision over whether to hold spring semester courses in person. It is two months before Chapman’s spring classes begin, and COVID-19 cases are surging in the U.S. Not only is this indecisiveness on the administration's part emotionally exhausting for students who are forced to make last-minute plans at the whim of their university, but it is also incredibly reckless.

When the pandemic began, I took a leave of absence from Chapman University and enrolled in Glendale Community College, because I did not trust my university to keep me or my peers safe. I knew that many Chapman students would not adhere to public safety guidelines; when you’re young, you feel like you’re invincible. Life is short, but COVID-19 will make it shorter. 

My community college closed its campus in March 2020, holding all student instruction online, while informing students of its plans for fall 2020 in May and spring 2021 in October. Many other universities, such as the University of Southern California, University of California, Berkeley, and the entire California State University system, are following suit. 

Chapman, on the other hand, left students hanging until Aug. 4, days before instruction began this past fall. What does it say when a public community college cares more for the health, success and stability of its students than a private nonprofit institution?

Entertaining the desires of donors and conservative parents to keep the campus running in their best interests is appeasement at best, and it signifies that Chapman prioritizes favorability and financial stability over student health. Here’s the kicker: If I die from COVID-19 complications by being on campus, Chapman will have already collected my tuition for the semester. The my.chapman.edu waiver we were forced to sign to enroll in spring classes is just one of many of Chapman’s attempts to eschew responsibility.

As I took time away from Chapman and attended community college classes over Zoom, I was relieved to know my college cared for its community. Students living far from campus could be with their families year-round without putting them at risk. Faculty could teach without worrying about becoming seriously ill from a student. Meanwhile, at Chapman, faculty are required to return to campus this spring, forced to choose between their health and their jobs. 

While the likelihood of students dying from this virus is low, our ability to spread it is high. We're endangering our faculty, staff, immunocompromised classmates and the Orange community as a whole when we congregate simply for the sake of congregation.

I am no stranger to COVID-19. My grandfather succumbed to complications from the coronavirus after months of indescribable suffering. The image of him struggling to take his last breaths, the smell of hand sanitizer at his socially distanced cremation ceremony, are forever etched into my psyche. And to think that a single viral exposure is the reason I can no longer sit with him at the dinner table frankly hurts in a way I cannot articulate. 

Those lucky enough to survive are not unscathed either. My niece was intubated in the pediatric intensive care unit, unable to breathe as a mysterious pneumonia plagued her. My father recovered from COVID-19, but now struggles with chronically low oxygen and extreme muscle weakness. One instance of exposure from one student is all it takes. This virus is a beast, as indiscriminate as it is ruthless. If we get family, peers or faculty sick, are we prepared for these possible outcomes? Are we okay with it? I’m not. 

I recently expressed these sentiments to Struppa via email. He told me, “you seem to have found a better and more satisfactory connection with a different school,” making me feel like if I didn’t agree with risking myself or people I love with a deadly virus, I should leave Chapman, as other students have. 

Chapman's administration is sending a message that this risk is acceptable for the pursuit of an in-person experience, or at least for as long as county regulations will allow it – which is currently not the case since Orange County is in the most restrictive COVID-19 tier. In exchange for the “college experience,” we are playing Russian roulette with invisible bullets. And the university, of course, eschews all responsibility despite forcing our hand (lest we leave our quarter-million-dollar education behind). I, for one, will not be returning to Chapman this spring if instruction is in person. 

Granted, my degree is worth a lot, but it's not worth a life.

Is it to you?