As students adjust to the changes that come with this semester, Pam Benoit, Ph.D. and Provost, offers words of encouragement to the student body.
“I’ve been very proud of our students,” Benoit said. “As I’ve been around on campus I’ve noticed that a great number of (students) are following the rules that have been set up to try and protect them. Vigilance is really important and all of us need to help each other in order to fight the virus.”
Benoit said the start of the semester has gone better than she could have imagined with UAB’s new procedures.
“One solution doesn’t address all the issues so there are actually several things that need to be done,” Benoit said. “So one of them is wearing masks both inside and outside unless exercising. The second is social distancing at least six feet (and) that’s also why we did the hybrid so we could use classrooms with fewer students and then still maintain social distancing.”
Benoit said there are measures students should hold themselves accountable to completing each day.
“So you do your healthcheck everyday,” Benoit said. “I do mine everyday and then you get your event passport which allows you to access class, go to the library, the rec center and it’s a way of continuously monitoring how you’re feeling. Then of course if you do feel bad, don’t come to class.”
Benoit said that while UAB was recently misrepresneted in a New York Times article, students have remained vigilant and understanding.
“I think it’s really important to recognize what got reported,” Benoit said. “For (UAB) they were reporting not just student cases but the cases that were from the health system and they did not do that for any other university. The article talks about what kind of student cases there were but the number wasn’t really representing our student cases which were quite low. So I think students recognize anytime they read something they need to read it critically and we’ve tried very hard to correct the misperception that was created by the New York Times piece.”
Benoit said she encourages students to remain optimistic as the semester progresses.
“The only thing I would say is we want a great semester educationally, socially and in terms of health,” Benoit said. “We only accomplish that if we are all working together. So far we seem to be doing very well in that part, (we) can’t let down our guard.”
