Student Editor’s Letter: Camosun needs to address what Bonnie Henry won’t

Running a college must be a tough job to do at any point, but especially now, considering the lack of detail around provincial health officer Bonnie Henry’s announcement in March that post-secondary institutions can prepare for a full return in September.

In pandemic time, those words were uttered half a century ago. It’s time for an update, one with concrete, specific details, such as:

1. What happens if a student tests positive for COVID-19 or is told to self isolate?
2. Can they access the in-person class remotely? And if they can, what’s the incentive for other students to not do the same?
3. Will in-person classes be full capacity? If they can’t be, how will that work in terms of classroom space and employee wages?
4. Given that vaccines aren’t mandatory in BC, does the college actually want to risk a massive campus outbreak in September, when we’ll be that close to the end of the pandemic?
5. And of course, the dreaded question: will we actually be close to the end in September?

The government has given Camosun the go-ahead to run at a deficit for two years. What Camosun will do in the fall, of course, ties into the bigger question that BC seems to be avoiding: how much longer until enough of us are vaccinated to start seeing a drop in numbers?

The province likely won’t decide details for post-secondary institutions for the fall until we’re close enough to September that many international students have arrived and quarantined. And, economically, that’s the right decision. But students expect more than economics when it comes to Camosun.

Some universities in the US—a country further ahead than Canada in vaccine rollout—have decided to offer mostly online classes in the fall. And with prime minister Justin Trudeau having cancelled flights from India and Pakistan—two countries that account for a chunk of Camosun’s international population—for 30 days on April 22, how is this going to work? After all, it’s not like these public-health restrictions never get extended.

We don’t want to be left to our own devices, but we might be. I took a total of 10 post-secondary credits this academic year, so that if I needed to take September off, I could do so without getting my degree later.

I hope the college answers the above questions, and many more, soon, because if they’re looking to—and mimicking—the province’s style of leadership, people will end up angry, disappointed, and generally tuned out, because the lack of specificity in daily COVID updates is getting to all of us.