“Don’t get mad, get smart” is a phrase that former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young’s father taught him. Young spoke about this phrase and its relevance as the keynote speaker during MU’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Jan. 26, as well as at a media briefing the day before.
“[My father] said [that] when you get angry, the blood rushes from your head, your brain stops working and you will inevitably do something stupid,” Young said at the media brief. “I think that s an even more relevant guidance today than it was 80 years ago when he gave it to me.”
Providing public access to case data has been an unwritten rule throughout the pandemic, with cities and states posting extensive case statistics and interactive charts online. Most universities followed suit, releasing their own COVID-19 dashboards to share information with the public on the status of cases in campus communities. Having public access to information about the status of cases on campus allows students, faculty, staff and the larger community to better understand the influence of these institutions on COVID-19 in their counties. Yet not all dashboards are created equal. Some provide in-depth detail about COVID-19 on campus throughout the semester, while others only give a snippet of the information they collect. Indiana University launched a public dashboard Aug. 28 that was updated every Wednesday with information from the week’s testing, including the number of tests administered and weekly positivity rates. In late September, the dashboard was given a C+ ratin
The semester ends this coming Friday.
Professors have shown a lot of flexibility with students, said Frannie Wilkinson, 24, a graduate student in nutrition science from Kansas City. She and other students interviewed were studying in the MU Student Center. Lots of professors have been really understanding, Wilkinson said.
Students have had difficulty staying focused on a computer screen, she said. She was a teaching assistant for a class of 700 students and said she could tell how much difficulty some students were having. She tried to be as understanding as her professors were, she said.
She quarantined for two weeks in off-campus housing when her boyfriend caught COVID-19, she said.