Student Union
- By Ying Fu
Chinese Students in US Reflect on COVID Chaos
Ryan Wang was among hundreds of thousands of Chinese students at U.S. colleges or universities who struggled over whether to return home to China or remain in the United States when the COVID-19 pandemic surged in the spring of 2020.
“When the pandemic started in China [months earlier], I felt lucky I was already back to the U.S. for the new semester,” Wang, a Chinese undergraduate studying economics at Columbia University in New York City, told VOA.
Unlike Wang, many international students had not returned to the United States from winter break in January 2020 and fretted that they would lose credits and tuition fees if they could not get back to school.
For Wang, the concerns centered around whether he could return home to China.
“I had to live through the fear of infection, paying over $10,000 dollars for a one-way ticket, and being scammed by fake ticket dealers before I could go home again,” he said.
Fake dealers were selling bogus tickets to international students desperate to go home after Beijing limited international carriers to one flight a week into China in April 2020. To the delight of his parents, he said, three months after U.S. colleges and universities shut down their campuses and moved all learning online, he finally made it home to Jiangsu.
“It was such a relief. Not only because I [could stop worrying] about securing tickets home, but also that I didn’t have to sanitize everything and worry about COVID-19,” he said. In Jiangsu, a province of over 80 million people in East China that includes Shanghai, there was less reported community spread from March 2020 to June 2021.
Just how many Chinese students sat out the 2020-2021 academic year in the U.S. was revealed this week by the Institute of International Education in its yearly report about international student mobility. The report said almost 3,000 U.S. colleges and universities showed a 15% decrease in overall international student attendance, and a 45.6% decrease in new student enrollment.
Among Chinese students -- the largest percentage of total 914,095 international students in the U.S. -- there was a 14.8% decline from the previous year to 317,299, or 34.7% of all international students. The second largest group from India, comprising 18.3% of all international students, showed a decline of 13.2%.
Engaging students far away
U.S. universities struggled to keep students on track. Like many schools, Columbia University extended its pass-fail policies, which reduced the academic stress of online learning. Wang said the university also provided office and study space in China where lockdowns were lifting, so students could stay engaged.
Others took classes at local universities through exchange programs arranged by their U.S. universities. Xinle Hou took two classes at Beijing Normal University (BNU) through a program called “go-local” through Barnard College, which is the women’s undergraduate institution affiliated with Columbia. Other universities, including New York University (NYU) and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, arranged for their students to attend classes in China as the pandemic abated there, while infections rose in the U.S.
Online learning fail
But not everyone was so lucky. Many students were required to take classes online remotely. [[ https://www.voanews.com/a/student-union_if-its-330-am-it-must-be-time-online-class/6199331.html ]]
Hou, who had attended Barnard in New York City, described feeling burned out, and then “dystopian” from sleep deprivation, trying to attend classes at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., and then at 8:30 in the morning.
“As I had an online class at night, I did not have much energy to actually go out during the day, which made me feel very detached from the place I was physically living in,” she said.
Florence Chen, an undergraduate student at Columbia University, told VOA that most of her classes were synchronous, meaning students worldwide attended class at the same time, regardless of their time zone. [[ https://www.voanews.com/a/student-union_why-students-go-dark-zoom-classes/6202872.html ]]
“It was truly a suffering to take classes late at night,” she lamented, adding that 3 a.m. was just too late for her.[[ https://www.voanews.com/a/student-union_students-give-online-learning-low-marks/6186962.html ]]
Irene Zhang, who attended Colby College in the northeastern U.S. state of Maine, returned to China during COVID-19. She ended up taking a semester off.
“My college experience was definitely disrupted,” Irene wrote in a text. “I think COVID disconnected a lot of international students to their U.S. institutions.”
While American campuses remained in lockdown, China was opening up, students said. Some studied online and interned in person.
Chen worked a full-time internship while taking online classes in the evenings. Wang interned on weekdays and watched lecture videos intensively on weekends. Most of his online classes, he said, were offered asynchronously, or at his convenience.
“It was arguably the most productive period in my college years,” he said.
Mass return
After more than a year of closures, most American universities have called all their students back to campus. But not everyone feels secure about the pandemic.
“I still don’t feel entirely safe, but I really needed to come back and graduate, as my college does not offer remote options anymore starting this semester,” said Zhang.
“Although many COVID restrictions have been lifted and people wander around, I personally still follow the protocols, which include masking all the time indoors and outdoors, distancing wherever appropriate, eating in my own room, and sanitizing everything,” said Chen. “It’s been kind of sad that I cannot hang out with friends or explore the city since COVID-19 hit. However, I do believe that safety and well-being is my top concern and priority studying in a foreign country.”
US, or else?
After graduating from University of Maryland, Rhine Liu has started law school in Hong Kong. Although she said she thinks U.S. law schools are unparalleled in excellence, her parents want her closer to home.
“Overall, I am very glad for the opportunity to be able to spend my college life in such a culturally diverse environment,” May Ding wrote VOA. “The experience shaped me to become a global citizen with a global vision."
For her part, Hou said she plans to stay in the U.S. and pursue a master’s of fine arts in creative writing. The U.S. has the best resources and opportunities for creative writers, she noted.
Zhang, who is looking at graduate programs in education, also plans to stay in the country as there are “some great programs” that fit her passion.
“If money is not a problem, I believe that all parents may aspire to send their kids for the best education,” Chen noted. “Studying in the U.S. indeed brings a world of opportunities.”
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misspelled Xinle Hou.
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
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