How Can we Trust Administrators? - Joseph Pierce; 9/14/21
“Universities like to invoke community when rolling out and justifying their policies. But invoking community and centering it are two very different things. Centering community means caring for our most vulnerable members. It means putting the lives of our kin at the core of our decisions. It means offering the means by which our sense of dread can be turned into purpose. As it stands, we are being asked to trust that people will accurately report their vaccination status; that the air ventilation will be sufficient; that the testing protocols will catch infections early enough to avoid new outbreaks; that the long-term effects of the disease are not as bad as people say, and as some evidence suggests.
In other words, there is a contradiction between the invocation of “community” and the rampant neoliberalization of the university. At its worst, the rhetoric of community uplift is completely devoid of any real, meaningful relationship with the communities most affected by the pandemic.
If our administrators truly had community in mind, the most vulnerable, those with the least amount of privilege or access to health care, child care, or housing, then they would be arguing for the most flexibility possible for the fall semester. They would be arguing that we need to implement the most vigorous plan to prevent infections of those who are immunocompromised, children, and disabled people. They would be arguing that we must have the option to choose how to best care for our communities on the terms set forth by those communities. Instead, we are left with calls for “vigor” in the face of adversity.