Forge ahead, FINISH STRONG By ELIZABETH FONTAINE HILDEBRAND ’92
W
hile some colleges and universities closed before they barely began this fall, Westminster College plugged along week after week this semester, motivated by two words: Finish Strong.
Pandemic fatigued students, fresh off nearly five months of quarantining and video chats, wanted to return to campus to be reunited with their friends and resume in-person learning. First-year students were anxious to start new chapters in their lives and immerse themselves fully in the college experience. Faculty were weary from the spring’s experiment of full remote instruction—and they longed to see their students and colleagues face to face. Getting back to campus was essential to the Westminster community. If the campus were to reopen, it had to be done safely and responsibly with protocols in place to keep students on campus until the semester’s end. “We knew that in order to reopen our residential campus, we had to do it the right way—and carefully.
We wanted the campus to move forward and thrive through the end of the semester. Finishing strong became our goal for students, faculty and staff,” said Westminster President Dr. Kathy Brittain Richardson. Once enhanced health and safety precautions to mitigate the spread of coronavirus were put in place, Westminster could then get back to business as somewhat usual. While roughly 34% of the nation’s four-year colleges and universities are primarily online this semester, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Westminster is among the 23% operating primarily in person. Westminster’s employees, Richardson said, have been the driving force at keeping Westminster’s campus open and safe.
W e s t m i n s t e r C o ll e g e M a g a z i n e 3
