As the first semester of the 2021-2022 school year draws to an end, with the beginning of
a new semester comes new and revised changes for the school, paritcularly within the resedential
life program.
With the reopening of the residential life program after the holidays new mandates have
been put into place for the safety of the haumāna. In order for students to return to campus for
the second semester, all students must be vaccinated or have an approved exemption. Otherwise,
students will be asked to attend full distance learning until such time that they receive the
COVID-19 vaccine or some sort of exemption, and will not return to the dormitories for the
remainder of the school year. All dormitories will follow these new guidelines that have been set
apart by the COVID response team. There are a number of students who are vaccinated but there
are still some, very few, that cannot receive the vaccination but wish to. In response to the news
about the new vaccine mandate, a student from the class of 2023 said, “We do not have control
over if we can get the vaccine. Our parents have control over it, I would love to get vaccinated. I
have an exempion but I wish they would acknowledge that fact.” The vaccine as some people put
it, is a way to return back to some sort of normalcy. A senior from the class of 2022 said, “I think
its lame, but necessary. I respect everyones decision, but it would just make life easier.” Many
people do “research” but their sources are not credible or do not have the correct medical
credibility. An anonymous person said, “Science is proven. The misconception is that the
vaccine should make you ʻbulletproof,ʻ but itʻs only supposed to prevent. It is good to question
things, everybody wants to be an authoritarian and feel empowered, but they should do actual
ʻresearchʻ with medical credibility.”