“I think they should actually be enforcing the mask mandate everywhere.”

Lauren Peterson is an art education major at UWM. She talked with Ezra Quint about how Covid has affected her as a future teacher, and life on campus.

(Ezra Quint) How do you think the UWM is handling the pandemic?

(Lauren Peterson) I think that they did a pretty good job with the rapid testing, social distancing and masks and everything last year. But at the same time, it’s frustrating because the majority of my major is physical art classes so jewelry and sculpture classes were online last year and I didn’t take those classes because I thought it was a waste of my money.

(Quint) And these were classes that you would have taken if they were offered in person?

(Peterson) Yeah, I would have taken them last year so now I’m taking them now while we have this small window of having in person classes again because cases might rise and we might be back online by next semester. I also think that UWM doesn’t really enforce the covid guidelines and regulations. It’s up to the teachers to yell at the students who aren’t wearing masks or aren’t wearing them correctly. It’s not really an issue in the art department because everyone seems pretty happy to follow the rules to keep everyone safe and healthy. But in the business building or the math and science building I’ve seen a lot of people wearing their masks on their chins and I’ve seen teachers give up on enforcing the mask rule because there’s so many people not wearing them correctly.

(Quint) What do you think UWM could be doing better to handle the pandemic?

(Peterson) I think they should actually be enforcing the mask mandate everywhere and in the union a lot of people don’t wear masks because they can use the excuse that they’re eating or drinking even if they’re not and I think this is only going to get worse once winter comes and everybody is forced to study and eat inside. I also think they should have a better system where teachers should be more lenient if you do get Covid in order to make up work. In one of my classes if you miss any class you can’t make up the in-class activities even though it would be easy to do an online make up. A girl in my jewelry class got sick with Covid right as we started a project and wasn’t able to go into the studio to get any supplies.

(Quint) Did she get an extension on the project?

(Peterson) She didn’t. She had to finish her project in four days. Which obviously resulted in a rushed project and will probably really affect her grade.

(Quint) Do you think the professors not being lenient with make-up work when a student gets sick makes people more likely to go to class when they are sick because they’re afraid they’ll fail the class if they tell the teacher they’re sick?

(Peterson) Yeah, I think a lot of people who probably do have covid are going to continue to go to class and just not tell anyone because they probably can’t afford to miss those two weeks.

(Quint)Were you living in the dorms when Covid first hit?

(Peterson) yes.

(Quint) What did you think about UWM’s response to Covid at that time?

(Peterson) It was during spring break so no one was at the dorms and the University sent an email saying we had to have all of our stuff moved out of the dorms in two weeks. I was luckily able to have my parents help me move my stuff out but I don’t know what other people did who lived really far away and weren’t able to move their stuff out in that time. I think they had a team of people who would pack your stuff up for you if you weren’t able to get there on time, but that seems a little invasive. The whole process was very rushed and stressful.

(Quint) How has the pandemic affected your educational or career goals?

(Peterson) I took classes that I knew I’d be able to do online. But I would have preferred to take classes like painting or drawing in person but I didn’t really have the choice. I also wanted to take more 3D art classes in person last year, but I couldn’t. In some of my art education classes a lot of people were already student teaching art classes online and they would talk about how hard it was and I think that made me a little less excited to be a teacher knowing this is the new reality.

(Quint) As a future teacher, what do you think of all the parents who are protesting their children wearing masks in school or protesting vaccine mandates?

(Peterson) I think it’s ridiculous. Teachers have literally died from their students not wearing masks. It’s frustrating that teachers who actually believe in science have to teach in areas where everyone denies that covid is dangerous and real and they’re putting their lives on the line to just do their job.

(Quint) Do you think your teachers last year when you were doing all online classes were taught well enough how to run an online class?

(Peterson) Mostly yeah, but because everything was online, I think instructors’ kind of assumed that students had more free time so they assigned a lot more work. And I think they relied too heavily on discussion posts. A lot of my instructors also just didn’t give us enough time to work on projects. They would assign a really big project and give us a week to work on it.