By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Students are back on the Missouri Western State University campus as the university resumes in-person classes after a year dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Missouri Western President Elizabeth Kennedy says it was great to see students return to the St. Joseph campus.
“Monday, when it was bright and sunny outside it was great to pull in the parking lot and see the lots filled with cars, students walking on campus going to class, faculty talking to students, staff talking with students. It was wonderful,” Kennedy tells St. Joseph Post.
First-day enrollment at Missouri Western was 4,204.
Kennedy says she had hoped this semester would be back to normal for the students.
“I look back to when we were thinking about the fall last March and April, we were at that time, because we didn’t have the Delta variant in our area, we were pretty sure we would be close to being back to normal,” Kennedy says. “Well, that’s not the case.”
Kennedy says the mask mandates seems to be going over well, mainly because students are willing to put up with masks to be back in the classroom. She says there has been good response to the university vaccination incentive program called Max the Vax. Kennedy says the university is trying its best to keep on top of the coronavirus pandemic.
“And we’ve looked at the science as well as the CDC guidelines, which is why we reinstituted our indoor public space mask mandate, because we need to try to keep everyone safe and healthy,” Kennedy says. “Part of that mandate is to review the situation - our numbers, hospitalizations, cases, positivity rates, those kinds of things - every two weeks.”
Since the coronavirus pandemic lingers, it poses difficulties for the campus to return to normal. It also poses challenges for the Missouri Western administration. Kennedy says university officials work hard to keep up on the latest.
“So, in terms of planning for the semester, it’s really been taking into account what’s going on with COVID, how do we keep our campus safe, healthy, and operational,” according to Kennedy.
Kennedy says she isn’t discouraged by the low vaccination rate in Buchanan County, but is intent on encouraging students and staff as well as community residents to get the vaccine.
“We continue to push out information, like I said, to everyone about the vaccine information to dispel some of the misconceptions and myths that are out there and encourage as many people as can to get vaccination so that we are safe, healthy, and operational,” Kennedy says. “Those are our goals.”
Final enrollment totals will be tallied in the fourth week of classes.
Freshman transfers from other colleges are up substantially and not just from two-year community colleges, but also from Northwest Missouri State University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Missouri State University.
Missouri Western has also seen an increase in freshmen coming from the surrounding area, including St. Joseph and Kansas City area students. The number of freshmen coming from Buchanan County is up 12%.