Jordan Tralins ’23 inspires national coalition for student vaccine awareness
May 7, 2021
When the U.S. began distributing COVID-19 vaccines this winter, Jordan Tralins ’23 found it odd that her social media feeds didn’t have any factual information about the shots.
“I remember seeing a video on Tik Tok of a nurse fainting after she received it, but the video didn’t explain this nurse was prone to fainting,” she said. “Other than anecdotes and conspiracy theories, there wasn’t much out there. The lack of information specifically targeted toward college students really surprised me.”
Tralins, a Human Biology, Health and Society major, decided to do something about it. She reached out to Olivia Pawlowski ’22, a Biology and Society major with a background in graphic design. Together, they launched accounts on the video-sharing network Tik Tok and the photo-sharing network Instagram to promote reputable scientific literature about the vaccines on platforms r
Asian Awareness Group (AAG) poses in a group photo. AAG has made sure the presence of Asian culture is on and around Albion College’s campus (Photo courtesy of Lily Goldberg).
Hate crimes frequently occur against people of color in the United States and across the globe. Recently, an anti-Asian hate crime was carried out in Atlanta, Ga., resulting in the death of six Asian women.
As the nation mourns the losses of those individuals affected, we must also reflect on how we can better support the Asian community on Albion College’s campus.
“I think it would useful if Albion addressed the the hate towards Asians, not just regarding the recent tragedy in Atlanta, but also when it started a year ago with people referring to COVID-19 as the ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘kung flu’ or just saying things like they’ll never eat Chinese food again and that we should stop eating bats,” said Lily Goldberger, a senior from Allegan.