Once again, university officials are leaving students out of the loop. And this time, their silence makes it even more clear that they consider the university’s image more important than students’ health and safety.
As reported yesterday by The Diamondback’s Steven Overly, a student swim team member who practices in the Eppley Recreation Center’s pool contracted an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, and officials and employees at the ERC are giving conflicting reports on what the ERC’s cleaning staff is doing to prevent the bacteria from festering.
While employees said an extra emphasis has been put on cleaning those areas, officials denied those claims and said there has been no change in cleaning procedures.
Even though it is unclear whether the student contracted the infection at the ERC, it is not a reason to suggest it unnecessary to step up the cleaning procedures. Area schools in Maryland and Virginia responded to infections in their systems by immediately announcing more rigorous cleaning, especially in gyms like the ERC. So why are officials at the university downplaying the need for and denying the reality of such an improved procedures? Shouldn’t they be doing the opposite?
One reason for their actions is certainly that they are playing the same game many officials at the university have been playing lately, that of downplaying information that may cause concern for students.
A slew of rapes on and around Adelphi Road over the summer? No need to alert students, officials said. University staff complaining of sexual harassment troubles? Already taken care of. The university graduating fewer scholarship basketball players than all other NCAA teams? The players still succeed. An antibiotic-resistant staph infection possibly lingering around the campus? No need to clean more than staff already does.
Even the e-mail Friday from the University Health Center that addressed staph concerns trivialized the issue, implying that media were blowing the issue out of proportion.
Here’s some news for Health Center Director Sacared Bodison: A kid in Virginia died. The swim team member was hospitalized for days before they even made the staph diagnosis. It is normal for the public to worry over public health concerns.
For Bodison and other university officials, being clear about exactly what risks are posed have apparently taken a back seat to keeping the university’s scarcely intact safe-and-sound image.
Officials and employees are giving contradicting information because officials’ approved messages cater so much to what the university wants its students to think that they often misrepresent what is actually going on.
Shouldn’t students be privy to the same amount of information given to officials when it concerns a bacteria that could threaten their health? Of course.
The cover-up game has grown so large that the fact supervisors at the ERC are putting extra emphasis on cleaning regiments in light of staph concerns is deemed classified information, lest it be construed to mean that those supervisors don’t always place such emphasis on good cleaning methods.
That mindset is completely backward, and students who use the pool shouldn’t have to wonder whether their health is being taken into consideration by university officials when they are doing their backstroke. They should have a straight-up answer: We are being extra-careful in our cleaning to protect your health.
It’s that simple. It’s also pathetic that this type of honesty and straightforwardness with students is seen as more of a threat than a deadly bacteria.
