Student Union
University Students Room in Chic Hotels, Apartments During Pandemic
Cristina Lozano, a junior at New York University (NYU), has been staying at the chic W New York Hotel, a 1911 beaux arts-style building that overlooks Union Square Park and offers a short walk to the Empire State Building.
The hotel is booked until next summer, when prices are advertised from the $400s to the $600s a night. For now, the place belongs to Lozano and others like her, who are living in single rooms that her university is using as campus housing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Living in the hotel is the exact same price as most of the dorms, which I find a bit weird because I don't have a kitchen and I am not getting many of the same amenities dorms have,” said Lozano. “If I wasn't on scholarship, I probably wouldn't want to pay to live in the hotel.”
Some students are living on-campus, others in off-campus apartments, some are sharing homes or hotels, and many have remained at home with their families during the pandemic, which has upended how students go to college and university in 2020.
Lozano was randomly assigned to the hotel after applying for on-campus housing earlier this year. A service comes every Tuesday to clean the bathrooms and bring clean sheets. Students receive a discount in the hotel restaurant, she said.
“The hotel has a huge lobby, but they closed off the sitting area because of COVID-19. They don't want people loitering in the hotel,” said Lozano. “There is hotel elevator music playing, which is funny, and very different from what you would experience in a dorm.”
On the weekends, the farmers market in Union Square brings a lot of foot traffic near the W, Lozano said.
Lozano, like other on-campus housing residents, is not allowed to have guests and is required to wear a mask at all times. She said she’s comfortable with her situation.
“I am happy, honestly, because I think you are in a different mindset if you are closer to school, even though I live in Manhattan,” said Lozano. “Once you are out of the house and in that college mindset, have your college routine and your college friends who are in your classes, I think you are more focused overall.”
Social life in New York City has changed dramatically because of COVID-19. To buy alcohol at a restaurant or bar, you have to order food, which has centered the social scene around going out to eat, Lozano said.
“In my immediate social group, a lot of my friends are off-campus in apartments, so they will invite people over,” she said. “But what used to be a group of 30 is now a group of five.”
A younger crowd of college students and people in their 20s can be seen out on the weekends, Lozano said.
“More so toward the East Village, you see people go to bars and restaurants later in the night to socialize,” she said. “In the street, you see people not wearing masks as much, but most people are wearing masks, and it seems like people really care about it here.”
NYU is among the universities that offer COVID-19 testing for students. Lozano has already been tested twice since returning to school about two weeks ago. NYU requires students living on campus or going to in-person classes to be tested weekly.
“I think the protocol is actually really admirable,” she said. “You go downstairs in your dorm and you pick up a saliva test, which is way easier to administer yourself, and you just have to return it back to the dorm before the deadline.”
Since Lozano is living at the W, she has to go to a neighboring dorm to pick up and drop off her tests.
Most of Lozano’s friends live within walking distance from her, although she occasionally will take public transportation to get around the city.
“I take the subway, but I definitely take it with caution,” she said. “The train can be really packed, as if nothing ever happened, especially during rush hours.”
While it's mandated by state law to wear a mask on the subway, Lozano said she doesn’t see that being enforced by authorities.
“That's one of my concerns about being on a train is if someone sitting across from you isn't wearing a mask, it's not like you're in a position to tell them to put their mask on,” she said.
While housing at the hotel is temporary for students at NYU, the university has not updated the students about when they will be moved out.
“The situation is really scary, but I feel pretty safe given what I am doing and the precautions I am taking,” said Lozano.
Off-campus housing
Students living in off-campus housing have expanded freedom while still living close to campus. Although, local jurisdictions have placed restrictions on the number of guests allowed in a residence due to COVID-19.
Despite these restrictions, off-campus housing can leave universities with little control over students' behavior and whereabouts.
Julia Seungyeon Han is an international student from Seoul, South Korea, studying to get her master’s degree in applied mathematics and statistics at the State University of New York-Stony Brook. She is living in a one-bedroom apartment off-campus.
Han made the decision to return to campus to take an in-person Real Analysis course at the university. Han was able to find her off-campus apartment through a friend.
“Exposure to COVID-19 is the greatest fear,” she said. “Since the school is reporting several positive cases, there is a risk of encountering positive ones whom I do not know and where they will appear.”
Han said she worries that if she got COVID-19, her student insurance would not provide adequate health care coverage. Also, she said if she left the U.S., her student visa status would become unstable, and getting back into the U.S. to go to school might become problematic.
Han stated that she notices most students at the university wearing masks at all times.
“It is not allowed to get into any of the buildings in school without wearing face masks,” she said. “There are a lot of signs and posters to let the students know that they should keep social distancing in all buildings, including libraries and lecture rooms.”
SUNY-Stony Brook offers free COVID-19 testing for students taking in person classes, according to Han. She said she doesn’t socialize with her friends in person while at school.
“I often go to the main library to study, but I don't go to school to interact with my friends,” said Han. “I spend time and socialize with my friends through online platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram.”
Sophia Michaelson, a junior at Syracuse University, is living off-campus in an apartment complex with two of her sorority sisters. Since moving into her apartment more than three weeks ago, Michaelson has already noticed several gatherings in the complex close to Syracuse’s main campus.
“I’ve noticed a lot of other apartments will have people over. Since many of those students are in Greek Life, sometimes the parties will get relatively large for how small the apartments are,” she said. “I feel like that definitely can't be safe in regard to COVID-19.”
Students often don’t wear masks in the apartment complex as the hallways are outdoors, Michaelson said.
Michaelson and her roommates signed their lease for the apartment back in October 2019, before the spread of the virus. While Michaelson is legally bound to her lease, there was a window before the start of the lease in August in which she could break her lease agreement for $500. She and her roommates decided to keep their lease despite COVID because of the freedom provided by living off-campus.
“I definitely am happy with this arrangement in a COVID-19 scenario, because we were considering living in our sorority house, and that would have limited our freedom to do stuff,” said Michaelson. “For example, we wouldn't have been able to have people over that didn't live there, but now I can see my friends to whatever extent I'm comfortable with.”
Living off-campus, Michaelson is allowed to use on-campus facilities with her student ID card, as long as she continues to update her COVID-19 status with the university. Like many universities, Syracuse offers a COVID-19 portal for students to upload their negative or positive test results, and it also provides contact tracing for students.
Kasey Borduas, a junior at the University of Maryland, was supposed to live in her sorority house — considered on-campus housing — but opted out at the last minute for fear UMD would send their students home mid-semester because of COVID-19.
Instead, she rented an apartment close to campus with three roommates.
“It was a financial sacrifice my family decided was worth it because if I didn’t pay for an apartment, I would have had to stay home for the semester,” said Borduas, from Madison, Connecticut.
While Borduas enjoys the freedom of living off-campus, she said she is cautious about the virus.
“I go out to dinner, but we follow the rules all the time and always have our masks on,” she said. “I'm trying to find a new normal as much as I can, but I feel like isolating myself completely would be sort of pointless.”
Borduas and her roommates live in an apartment building where she has noticed people wearing masks inside, but outside less so. Social scenes at UMD also have changed, according to Borduas. Bars at UMD now require everyone to stay seated.
“I have noticed loud music from some rooms, but we play loud music, too, and there are three people in our room,” she said. “I don't necessarily think people are throwing parties, I just think people are trying to have as much fun as they can.”
UMD requires students to self-report positive cases. Borduas and her roommates decided that if one of them tested positive for COVID-19, they would all quarantine together as an apartment.
Quarantining for many students living off-campus with roommates is a constant issue. UMD offers COVID-19 testing for students through their health center, and testing is a requirement for students to use on-campus facilities.
Uncertainty for college students continues as the fall semester commences. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sent students home in August because of a large COVID-19 outbreak.
The University of Wisconsin Madison announced early in the semester it would quarantine two dorms on-campus and switch to remote learning for two weeks.
Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, recently banned off-campus students from campus indefinitely after 10 students living off-campus tested positive for COVID-19.
And despite the uncertainty, 76% of college students planned to return to campus this fall if given the option, according to a College Reaction poll taken in July.
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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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