Readers’ Forum: 9/29/20

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The community needs BYU’s leadership

As the Fall Semester began, President Worthen spoke on “The Process and Power of Hope,” referring to a “Christ-centered” hope and not the worldly, almost-colloquial alternative. His personal first of four hopes is that students stay healthy and safe in the midst of a global pandemic that has now claimed over 200,000 American lives. Locally, BYU officials are disciplining students that do not follow health guidelines, and I am confident that the university will continue to hold all students accountable.

With the spike in Utah County’s case reports, the vast majority of them found among college-aged individuals, President Worthen’s challenge to lead my alma mater in an era of uncertainty becomes more complex. His addressing the troubling development to students, last week, would indicate a willingness to personally respond to and influence student behavior and decision-making, both on- and off-campus. As Utah County officials implement new restrictions, the president must remain and increase his presence as a leading public health advocate for Provo and its county neighbors in order to ultimately overcome this terrible pandemic.

In a year where policies and people have tested our Church’s principles of charity and compassion for the worse, my personal hope is that President Worthen fully exercises his leadership and further mobilizes the complete University body — students, professors and alumni — to support BYU’s efforts in fighting the pandemic. This starts with leading the execution of Utah County’s case management, it continues with offering these three BYU-affiliated groups enough opportunity to contribute to the cause, and it ends with us all working together for the strengthening of our physical, mental and spiritual health. While the world may always be our campus, the county — and greater state of Utah — will forever be our community. Now, more than ever, they need our collective, vocal and unwavering leadership.

Daniel Manjarrez
Class of ’16

Going online is not the answer

The buzz around campus seems to be speculating about if BYU will transfer to completely online-classes before Thanksgiving. Many people I know have made friendly bets about when the switch will happen. With the very strict social distancing guidelines currently in place for attending classes, taking tests and generally being in a campus building, there seems to be little opportunity for the virus to spread in the campus buildings.

Moving all classes online wouldn’t do much to stop the spread of COVID around the campus community when compared to the off-campus events happening. Off-campus parties probably won’t stop if BYU goes online. All moving classes online would do is take away the incentive students have to stay away from parties and large social gatherings since the benefits of in-person classes have already been lost. What you would be left with is a lot of young adults in Provo with fewer ways to safely interact with others.

There isn’t much impetus for a majority of students to leave Provo. We have jobs here, we have contracts we can’t get out of. If a large number of students did end up leaving, the local economy would be harmed even more, as a large part of small businesses in Provo and surrounding areas rely on college students’ patronage.

Let’s make it through these next two months. We should live by faith, not fear, and trust that the guidelines BYU has put in place will keep us safe.

Taylor Loftus
Aloha, OR

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