Hello everyone,
Universities have been placed in a tough position due to the dangers of Covid-19. While every college student across the globe can agree that in-person learning is more beneficial for our education, the logistics of in-person learning can endanger the entire student body. Safety aside, universities are still run as businesses and remote learning makes the school less appealing for incoming students. Stacked with the loss of profits from campus housing, the balancing of loss of profits with student safety becomes a difficult choice.
The specific case of Albion College in Michigan provides a great example of what colleges shouldn't do in this situation. The rushed roll out of their unsecured but still mandatory tracing app is an ethical problem that needs more attention. Forcing students to install an app that tracks them through GPS constantly and preventing them from leaving the campus is unnecessarily strict and the benefits of the system are grossly outweighed by its flaws. If the same policy was enacted here at Penn State, I would choose to return home rather that allowing my location data to be collected 24/7 without even telling me who has access to that information. While public safety is very important, so is privacy and Albion's program absolutely destroys their students' privacy without enough benefit to public health
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