Masks were mandated for the first two weeks of school in all classes.
On Thursday Feb. 3, President John Marshall announced with Dr. Amy Bronson that the mask mandate has been lifted and will not continue unless otherwise necessary. Administration is keeping an eye on numbers for all safety decisions as the virus continues.
“Everything you do in the classroom, everything you do in education, there are strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons, you’ve got to balance these things out. When we’re talking about a pandemic, ideally, we would be able to see everybody’s faces; but we need to balance that out with folks who might be taking care of an older relative or a vulnerable relative,” Professor of Sociology Brenda Wilhelm said.
Wilhelm stated that each professor can make requests of students in terms of masks, but it is the choice of the student. Colorado Mesa University (CMU) has been in person for three full semesters at this point and does not plan on going online unless necessary.
Students are still wearing masks in classrooms and around campus. Many students acknowledge that everyone is going to make their own choices.
“I’m not going to make an argument against masks because they are proven to work scientifically; but the more that you try to force something on a group of people that feels like they were done wrong, the more likely they are to completely disregard what you do or what you try to do. […] I just think that that also carries over a lot with vaccines as well, it’s not that people don’t think the vaccines don’t work. It’s more so that people think that the government forcing someone to do something is authoritarian and wrong,” junior civil engineering student Vaughn Beeson said.
Other students agreed with this sentiment. Many students said that when they felt others were at risk, they were going to wear a mask.
“I think it’s really important that we do look at it from a collective perspective, especially as Mesa County and CMU in general, we all want to be here. We all want to be in class together and not online, like some other schools I know of who went back online completely. I think we need to understand that we’re privileged to be in the classroom and that a mask mandate really isn’t that big of a deal; that we should really just care for one another, ourselves and our loved ones. [We should] think of it from a broader perspective and have more prudence,” sophomore sociology major Gina Dezwaan-Martinez said.
Varying students stated they would be wearing a mask while others said they would not.
