Campus, COVID, and the Blame Game

by Alexandra Brewis and Amber Wutich

Late August marks the start of students returning to US college campuses. At this stage, we know what works best for keeping them (and everywhere else) safe: mask-wearing with physical distancing alongside testing and contact tracing with isolation or quarantine as needed for possible or confirmed cases. The latter can only be done by the institution. But the former requires significant and consistent behavior change by each and every student on campus to be successful.

As reported this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, US colleges are struggling on this front. After all, socializing (whether for friendships or career connections) is one of the reasons students come to campus to begin with. Some of the earlier-opening universities have been unable to meet adequately the challenge. This week, in the wake of new infection spikes that identified student “partying” as the problem, both Notre Dame and UNC shifted to online, closing the dorms and moving students out.

What to do? Many university Presidents have doubled-down on harsh messaging to their students, reminding them of their responsibilities and often threatening disciplinary action or even eviction. These messages rest heavily on blame-and-shame tactics to motivate students’ behavior change one by one.

After reports of congregating this week, President Eric Barron at Penn State said to students: “Do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?” adding, “This behavior cannot and will not be tolerated.” Vanderbilt University’s Chancellor and Provost tweeted, “One person’s decision to shrug off their responsibility for a night of fun can be the reason an entire class misses its senior year” [and] “will not be tolerated.”

As anthropologists who study how stigma is embedded in public health efforts, we know it’s unlikely to work. Such messaging places the burden of solutions to complex health challenges on individuals. Shame is an especially weak public health tool, perhaps the weakest one. It leverages an unpleasant emotion and the threat of social (and physical) rejection from the community to get people to do things that are difficult to do. It is ultimately disincentivizing. It’s one used often around the so-called obesity epidemic, and it doesn’t work at all.

ASU's Community of Care Kit

Source: A. Brewis

What alternatives are there? Arizona State University is taking another tack, one that is based on positive emotions and appeals instead to students’ sense of belonging and connection. In the welcome-back kits handed to everyone on campus this month, messages encourage kindness, like “spread joy, not droplets” (along with hand sanitizer) and “wearing is caring” (with campus-themed masks). Students are reminded they are part of a “community of care,” rather than each being responsible alone.

In The Atlantic last month, epidemiologist Julia Marcus and psychiatrist Jessica Gold highlighted that encouraging physical distancing on campus isn’t enough in itself. Widespread testing, tracing, and isolation are also needed. Arizona State University has that testing capacity and begins systematic random testing of the entire campus community this week as part of a broader strategy to limit transmission of COVID-19.

This matters not just from an epidemiological stance, however. It also sends a vital signal of solidarity to students. Widespread (and free) testing demonstrates that leadership knows that the institution, too, shoulders responsibility for preventing infections. They are not just foisting efforts to individual students. This then helps reinforce the types of inclusive and supportive climate for behavior change that have the best longer-term prospects for success.

While days are early and the school year ahead will be long, we are cheering for Arizona State and others who are using kindness and collaboration — not blame-and-shame — as tools to keep their campus safe.