Florida Is Reopening, But A Normal Fall Semester Remains Unlikely

Frederic Aurelien/Staff Writer

Fellow FIU Panthers: great news!

Governor Ron DeSantis has announced that Florida will begin entering phase one of the reopening process, effectively allowing restaurants and retail stores across the state to begin opening their doors back up as soon as this Monday!

Well, hold on—let me backtrack.

Businesses across most of the state of Florida will begin to reopen their doors this Monday. However, this will not include establishments within the counties of Palm Beach, Broward and—you guessed it—Miami-Dade.

Now, I know that this can be somewhat depressing news for many but, please do hold your languishing exhales until the very end.

We’ve been receiving plenty of signs that our “return back to normalcy” probably won’t arrive as soon as we would like it to—one of them being the email we received last week informing us about FIU extending remote learning into Summer B. 

Guido Gonzalez/PantherNOW

This was painful news for a lot of us, incoming freshmen especially. Now having both summer semesters completely online has left many of us wondering what that could mean for the fall.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a number of schools are already considering staying entirely online, or at most, having a smaller population of students on campus during the fall if the virus remains a threat. 

FIU is the fourth-largest university in the United States, hosting more than 57,000 students. Meanwhile, Miami-Dade has the highest numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths in Florida at 12,389 cases, which include 358 deaths and 1,589 hospitalizations. Attempting to return campus life to the way it was prior COVID-19 could be a huge safety risk for the entire Miami community.

Assuming that we do return in the fall, it’s likely that we may not come back to GC lawns full of student organizations tabling for new recruits. It’s likely that we may not experience that packed football stadium for the first home game of the season, or the massive tailgate that precedes it. It’s likely that lecture halls will be much smaller than they typically would be, and on-campus events will be in decline.

This is heartbreaking, and the financial implications that this pandemic has created will be nothing short of devastating. 

Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs and as a consequence, many students will no longer be able to afford the school’s tuition or expenses come fall. Because of this, colleges throughout the nation could face a steep drop in enrollment, as well as an increase in students dropping out.

To brace for impact, colleges and universities are cutting spending, freezing staff and halting plans for campus building. Even Princeton University, one of the wealthiest schools in the country, has already announced a salary and hiring freeze. No one knows what’s going to happen here, but it is possible that this will have a significant impact on the resources and employees that we are so used to experiencing here at FIU. 

For better or worse, our Governor will take steps to open up South Florida as soon as he can. This sounds exciting, but the truth is that even if we do reopen by the fall, it probably won’t be this grand and celebratory event where all of our friends gather in large groups and physically embrace one another—as much as I myself would love for that scenario to manifest somehow.

It is more likely that this will be a slow and gradual process that we take our time in executing. Hopefully, after we get through the worst parts of this pandemic, we can come back as a more resilient and adaptable student body, and a stronger FIU. 

You may now exhale in languish.

Featured image by FIU Flickr .

DISCLAIMER:

The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.

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