Nearly three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, responses from institutions of higher education remain ever-changing. Just ahead of the fall 2022 semester and amid declining local cases, William Jewell College released its 2022-23 Health and Safety Guidelines in July and announced a major revision on Sept. 01. Compared to Jewell’s…
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A Year of A Pandemic
It’s nearly been one year since the day the world seemed to break – March 13, 2020. While the coronavirus had been ravaging elsewhere for months, it was on this day that Americans were hit with the seriousness of the virus One year ago, I was in Oxford having potentially…
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A Kuhnian Re-Threading of the Needle
It is 3 a.m. Dutifully, my phone replays “Questions In a World of Blue” by Julee Cruise for what seems like the millionth time. My headphones have long since broken, so Cruise’s soothing, yet haunting, voice now just sounds tinny. I think that everyone has gone through a sort of…
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Advice: On Productive Room Arrangements
Staying sane during a pandemic is hard enough, not to mention staying productive. With classes and meetings being online because of COVID-19, the way people work and study has changed. Outside stressors are frequently affecting people’s mental health, often acting as a distraction. Many people’s schedules are now different, as…
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Winter Break Reflections
When I began to think about what I did over winter break, I couldn’t quite remember. It just seemed to meld together with the never-ending COVID-19 time vortex. For many of us, COVID-19 fatigue grew this semester as we had to attend school with little of the social benefits, since…
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COVID-19 variant with higher transmissibility rate emerges
After a year of unprecedented, global challenges brought about by COVID-19 , the approval of several vaccines gave the world hope that the end of mask-wearing and social-distancing might be approaching soon. That hope still exists, but a few more obstacles have appeared in the form of new variant strains…
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Opinion: Love thy neighbor, wear thy mask
2020 has been a year marked by tragedy, heartache and, unfortunately, great division. A quick glance or scroll through social media makes it very clear that our society is fragmented. Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center published a study regarding the division in the United States. They found that…
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Opinion: Jewell’s 2021 spring break model is flawed but responsible
On Oct. 29, William Jewell College Provost Anne Dema emailed all students announcing changes to the spring semester. The biggest announcement was the change to spring break. The five days that make up a regular spring break have now been spread out over the course of the entire spring semester,…
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Opinion: Online friends have made the pandemic more bearable
You don’t hear about it as much as you used to, but Fortnite, the worldwide multi-billion dollar online phenomena, has left a legacy much larger than people realize. Trust me, I see Fortnite the same way as everyone reading this does – a game for children to obsess over. Although,…
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