Student Union
Quarantined Students Take to TikTok, Stock Up on Noodles
Canned goods.
Video games.
Recreational substances.
In case they are restricted from classes or campus due to the coronavirus, many students have been preparing to be quarantined for a couple weeks.“
I’m stockpiling on ramen,” says Mason Sell, a grad student at George Washington University.
When he found out that at few cases of coronavirus had broken out in Washington, D.C., Sell decided to stockpile on food and cleaning supplies to get him through both a coronavirus outbreak and midterms, which happen to coincide.
“I decided to drive far away from D.C. to get supplies," he said, after seeing people on social media complaining about empty shelves and lines out the doors at some stores.
He drove more than an hour to find a grocery store that was well-stocked.
Armed with laptops, tablets, game consoles and smartphones, millennials and Gen Zers living in quarantine, while physically isolated, continue to be engaged with the outside world.
Students in quarantine are keeping up with their assignments online and continuing their internships remotely. Others, have passed the time watching Netflix, shopping on Amazon, and scrolling through social media.
Leighton Douglas is a third-year architecture student at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She is now one of the 106 students from her school who have been sent home from their study-abroad programs in Italy to spend two weeks in self-quarantine.
Her study abroad program in Rome ended abruptly after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave the country a Level 3 Travel Health Notice, indicating that transmission of coronavirus there is ongoing and widespread.
Within 12 hours of the CDC issuing a travel notice, the University of Notre Dame bought a flight home for all of their students in Rome, including Douglas.
While she was still in Rome, Douglas said travelers arriving at city's airport were having their temperatures taken.
However, her experience flying into the United States was quite different.
“We were expecting to have a health screening when we got back, but that just didn't happen," Douglas said. She found that surprising, especially because she noticed “there were definitely people coughing and sneezing on my flight and no one followed up with them.”
Along with her classmates, Douglas has to spend 14 days in self-quarantine and will need to be cleared by a doctor before she is allowed to return to campus. She has spent her time in quarantine in isolation in her room in her parents' home, mostly watching Netflix, building puzzles and patiently waiting for the two weeks to pass.
“Quarantine is a lot of sitting and waiting,” she said.
As the number of quarantined students increases on campuses across the country, some students, particularly those with a higher likelihood of infection compared to others in their age group, would rather be safe than sorry.
Anthea Johnson is a student at the California State University-Long Beach, where 10 students are self-quarantined over fears of COVID-19.
Johnson has circulated a petition asking her school to temporarily change their policies to allow students and faculty members to stay at home without a doctor's note and face no academic consequences.
“Students and faculty who identify as immune-suppressed, or have a household member who is, should be allowed to file for either temporary leave or excused absences for a period of time until the spread calms down,” Johnson wrote on her petition.
In two days, more than 2,500 students signed her petition.
Many in quarantine, especially students in the midst of midterm season, have little to do, so they have found creative ways to pass the time, leading to COVID-19 to go viral on thousands of memes, tweets and TikToks, documenting the virus' spread.
Student Mackenzie Britt has used TikTok -- a popular video app -- to pass the time and document her quarantine.
Britt, student at Loyola University in Baltimore, is studying abroad at the American University of Paris.
After her roommates returned from a trip to Northern Italy, they were placed in quarantine. Because she was in close quarters with her roommates, she joined them.
This led to Britt making a video documenting each day of her quarantine so far. Her TikTok shows her and her roommates checking their temperatures, getting groceries in facemasks, but mostly, just it shows them sitting around.
“I look forward to putting things on TikTok as I don't have much else to do.” Britt said.
Her videos have gone viral online, with her first racking up more than 50,000 likes. Some of her other videos were featured on the widely watched "Good Morning America" television show.
Swiss business student Gaia Pennissi entered quarantine after attending Fashion Week in Milan, which has been hard-hit by COVID-19. Upon returning to Switzerland, she has not been able to attend classes and has placed herself in quarantine.
“I am the type of person who likes to be out and about with other people,” she said. She spends time Facetiming with friends and family. She, too, has used TikTok to document her experience in quarantine, which she has described as more boring than it is hectic.
Madeline Joung contributed to this story.
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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."
