With warmer weather, students adapt campus events to COVID-19 guidelines
April 21, 2021
Shanna Kang 21, Jacey Birkenmeyer 22 and Eli Calalang-Lacroix 22 (left to right) perform at The Grinnellian in Spring 2019, the last time the event was held. Photo contributed by Saketan Anand.
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu
As the weather warms up and the sun shines over Mac Field, Grinnell College students in a typical spring semester enjoy a wide range of exciting events and campus traditions every weekend. This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions that discourage large group gatherings, students are getting creative to figure out which events can and cannot be salvaged.
galpernl@grinnell.edu
After traveling from Greece to Grinnell, taking a total of four flights stopping in Munich, Washington D.C., Chicago and finally Des Moines, Inna Gjoleka `21 is back in Grinnell for the first time since March 2020, when students were forced to vacate campus.
Gjoleka says she didn’t mind being in Greece because it gave her the opportunity to spend more time with her family. Still, when the College announced fourth-year students would be invited back to campus for Spring Term 2, she was eager to return to finish out her final semester with her classmates.
“It felt more like closure this way. I didn’t want it to be my last memory of Grinnell, being sort of kicked out in March of last year because of the pandemic,” Gjoleka said.