What Is Penn State Thinking?
As the fall 2021 semester approaches, nearly 700 college campuses across the United States are requiring proof of vaccination for students or employees. If you plot these colleges on a map, the image bears a striking resemblance to one depicting the results of the 2020 presidential election. And that image resembles a map of current COVID-19 hot spots, which mirrors a map of vaccination rates. In other words, vaccination rates lag behind in the areas where vaccinations are needed most. And vaccinations are needed everywhere—including college campuses, which have functioned as incubators for community spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Oddly, Pennsylvania does not conform to the model mapped out above. , the university where I have taught for almost 25 years, is a massive state school with nearly 90,000 students. Since the start of the pandemic, the university has reported more than 9,000 cases of COVID-19, ranking it in the top five nationally among colleges. As of now, Penn State is not one of the eight schools in the Big Ten Conference with a vaccine mandate—despite the fact that at least two Penn State students have died from COVID-19 complications. Though Penn State
