By Sophie Soloway ’23
Global Editor
An image of Mount Holyoke College’s Blanchard Campus Center, where the Student Government Association regularly meets.
On March 22, Mount Holyoke College announced its plan for students’ return to campus for the fall 2021 semester after a full academic year of non-traditional campus living induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of this plan has yet to be released or finalized, leaving the student body to wade through uncertainties regarding their own individual plans for the fall.
In response, the International Student Organizing Committee announced on June 2, 2021 on social media that it had created and published a survey asking students, specifically international students, what questions they would like to see answered by the College administration regarding this decision. As the widely shared announcement noted, “Us Int’l students have questions.”
Rachel Kang ’23, a member of the ISOC, expanded upon this, saying, “The school has always treated international students as secondary in comparison to domestic students, and that’s very evident in the newly released fall plans.” Kang added, “The post addresses that we, [the] ISOC, [realize] the collective concerns arising from international students, and that we hope to function as a bridge between the community and the school, asking for answers and better accommodations.”
According to Kang and the ISOC, these accommodations may address issues such as vaccination status, mental health services and continued virtual learning support. The College’s initial announcement made clear that students hoping to return to campus life would be required to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. Kang stated, “What really frustrates me is that such uncertainties, although they affect all of the student body, clearly [have] a bigger impact on international students. Obtaining visas and planning travels all depend on what the school decides to do for the fall, and when things are vague like it is now, our entire timeline gets pushed back.”
Given the well-documented disparity in vaccination rates between, and even within, countries, the decision to require vaccinated status will likely have significant implications regarding who in the student body will be welcomed back to campus.
Kang shared that a significant hurdle in international and remote learning was lack of access to on-campus services such as counseling. Kang noted, “[I] really felt out of place in every situation, whether I was talking to my parents or taking classes, so I reached out to counseling services. I didn’t know that counseling services can’t provide sessions to student[s] out of M[assachusetts] or the U.S., and also with mental health being an unspoken topic in many other countries, international students faced a huge barrier to speak out about it.” To date, the College has not yet announced plans to expand their health services to an international level for the upcoming semester.
The ISOC’s announcement promised to “deliver [these questions] to the larger faculty and ask for answers, along with solutions that take international students into full consideration.”
In addition to this immediate action, Kang hopes the wide visibility of the form will remind students the ISOC is “a resource for communication when they don’t know who to reach out to; the fall demand form was a collective issue, but even if something is a personal concern, we’re still more than happy to help, and connect you with faculty/other students who could help.”
While the form officially closed on June 11, responses are still welcome through this form.