“The enforcement is where they really fall short.”

Thomas Raney is a sociology student at UWM. He talked with Ezra Quint life with covid at UWM.

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

(Thomas Raney) I transferred to UWM during the pandemic last year and my first impression of the university was largely online. As far as I could tell they’ve done a good job in terms of tracing and having open-source data to see case rates. Now that we are back in person, they’re doing a good job of letting you know if classmates have covid. I also appreciate that they are making online classes an option for most classes. I think it’s good to have that option for people who are more at risk. I also think the Wisconsin University system made the right choice of giving incentives to get vaccinated.

(Quint) Is there anything you think the university could be doing better with handling covid?

(Raney) I think they could enforce the Covid regulations better. The enforcement is where they really fall short. If you walk through the commons and the union, they have the mask mandate, but they’re pretty laissez-faire on enforcement. I had an outbreak in one of my classes and they said that if you were in close contact they would send you a separate email to let you know that you need to get tested, but there’s no assigned seating in that class so I don’t know how they’re tracking who was in close contact. I don’t know if the professor is just giving the university names and guessing whose been in close contact. However, I’ve had individual professors that go above and beyond to make it safer. I have one professor who uses a medical grade air filter in the class. I have more faith in individual professors who are making sure we’re safe on campus than I do the university enforcing the rules.

(Quint) Do you think most people are following UWM’s Covid guidelines?

(Raney) The place I feel the most unsafe is in the union where everyone is eating. It’s part of the guidelines where if you’re eating you can take your mask off, but people stay in the area with their masks off even when they’re not eating. But if you go to the Union study lounge it seems like everyone is happily following the rules. It kind of depends where you are on campus. It’s tough for them to enforce it in the commons because someone can easily just lie and say they’re eating.

(Quint) How has the pandemic affected your education and career goals?

(Raney) The two ways I can think of it affecting one, my career goals, and two, my education goals, are actually kind of the opposite of each other. In terms of my education, I feel like it accelerated my education. I think if I had more opportunities to do internships and extracurriculars that weren’t restricted by covid regulations, I would have actually been in school longer. So, by me not being able to participate in extracurriculars or an internship, I’m almost going to be graduating maybe faster than I wanted to. And in not being able to take part in a lot of extracurriculars or internships it’s I think hindered my career and job possibilities due to not being able to find internships or not being able to talk to classmates in class.