Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
A spirit that is not afraid

Auburn University resumes full on-site operations

<p>The Harold D. Melton Student Center saw increased numbers of students during the first fully in-person week of spring semester.</p>

The Harold D. Melton Student Center saw increased numbers of students during the first fully in-person week of spring semester.

This week, many students have started attending classes in-person, leading to a spike in the number of students on campus.

For Evan Heller, freshman in special education, and Sophie Livadais, freshman in early childhood/elementary education, it is nice to finally have in-person classes.

“It’s just nice to be back in like actually being in a classroom and actually being taught in person rather than going on zoom and like seeing people,” Heller said. “… it’s just different and it’s a cool experience.”

Livadais said the influx of students on campus was a big change for her. While this is due largely to temporarily online classes transitioning to in-person, she suspects the cold weather of recent weeks had something to do with it as well.

“Literally, as we were walking up, I said, ‘Oh my gosh, there are so many people out here today,’” Livadais said.

Lily Dorman, junior in nursing, said she thinks the student population on campus doubled this week.

“There’s a lot more constant flow of people, whereas before classes were in-person, you’d only see some people like between class change,” Dorman said.

For her, this is a good thing. Dorman works with Auburn University Dance Marathon, which holds big events and is raising money for Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Georgia, this year.

“Since a lot of our donations are going towards children’s hospitals and helping those children, we like to show pictures of the kids and show that stories,” Dorman said. “And it’s a lot harder when you don’t have that face-to-face interaction on the concourse.”

Heller and Livadais, however, are more worried about the increase of students, due to the potential increase in the spread of the coronavirus. Heller said it was frustrating to see so many people not taking the proper precautions in wearing a mask.

“We always try to wear our [masks], but it’s frustrating when it’s not reciprocated,” Livadais said.

To the two of them, not taking these precautions shows selfishness, because masks are designed to keep other people safe since you can’t know what the conditions are of other people.

“You don’t know who they live with. You don’t know what they live with, what health conditions they may have, so it’s just frustrating,” Livadais said.

Though new variants to the coronavirus are beginning to appear across the world, they are more concerned with people following the rules. Heller has already been vaccinated and Livadais said she is getting vaccinated as soon as she can.

“I just want to see everyone follow the rules so we can get through this and go back to normal,” Livadais said.

Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Auburn Plainsman delivered to your inbox

Trice Brown | Enterprise Editor


Trice Brown, junior in english language arts education, is the enterprise editor of The Auburn Plainsman.

trice@auburn.edu


Share and discuss “Auburn University resumes full on-site operations” on social media.