Students returned this semester to a stressed-out campus in a traumatized city. Operation Metro Surge has rippled its way into University of Minnesota classrooms. 

Some students and teachers are not coming to campus due to safety concerns, raising the question: Can students even engage in their education if they feel unsafe?

“It’s so scary coming back to campus,” first-year student Noah Woolford said.

The additional labor demanded by both teachers and students to navigate modality fluctuation, compounded with people’s fear of federal agents coming on campus, generates an unnerved learning environment. 

At best, the University administration has attempted to meet students where they are. Colleges have the freedom to make learning accommodations based on educational needs and formats. Under the guidance of their deans, professors who teach in-person courses have had to decide whether to keep or change the intended modality. 

“The adaptation is different between the colleges,” Woolford said. “It’s very interesting to see variants between all the schools.”

Woolford is triple-majoring in environmental policy, graphic design and global affairs, so he is exposed to a range of courses across different colleges. With an eight-class courseload, he has a vantage point in seeing how professors are adapting.

“The teachers there are either going fully remote or fully in person, and there isn’t really adaptation,” Woolford said, talking about some of his business classes. “I’ve noticed that a lot of my classmates were gone for my Carlson courses.” 

For Woolford’s graphic design class, the professor struggled with a split between virtual and in-person.

“I felt really bad,” Woolford said. “My professor was running around trying to help both of those online and in person. It was kind of unfortunate watching with my friends that were on the Zoom. They’re waiting to get instruction, like, hours into my lab, and it wasn’t my professor’s fault.”

University political science lecturer Tim Collins, who teaches in-person political science courses, said his classes would not work online.

“The need for discussion and inversion, especially just being able to see what’s on the slides at the same time, and what I’m pointing to,” Collins said. “Then, being able to break into discussion groups, as long as there are students who are on campus, it’s gonna be inherently unequal. And then, especially then, favor students who are able to come, or who are already on campus, which is already inequitable.” 

Collins added that before the semester began, students reached out to him, concerned about coming to campus, and he suggested that they speak with an academic advisor about taking a different course. As of now, he said, he records the class if a student has requested accommodations through their advisors and the dean of the College of Liberal Arts. But he said in-person learning is important.

“People learn better in groups and in person naturally, I think, as humans,” Collins said. “But also fewer distractions. If you’re at home, it’s really easy to just look down at your phone and just go down a rabbit hole and come back and things are completely different.”

In-person learning is a tried and true method, Collins added, but not everyone feels safe coming to campus, and that stress has larger implications.

“We know the stress has these profound downstream consequences on learning and cognition and health,” Collins said.  

Two days after the shooting and death of Alex Pretti and on the day of the Students for a Democratic Society walkout, Coffman Union was busy with students. 

Graphic design student Edith Soto said while she personally does not know anyone who is not attending class in person, she reads about students who have chosen to stay home on Reddit and Yik Yak. She said they are scared and uncertain. 

“I’m not choosing the online option just because I learn better in person,” Soto said, whose classes are being offered hybridly.  

Animal science major Raigen Dawson said her classes remain in person, though her major is based on the St. Paul campus.

“Even though ICE is still over there, they don’t really come on campus,” Dawson said. “But when I come up here, I have to worry about if I’m going to see them. I worry about coming in contact with one of them, or my friends coming in contact with one of them.” 

Is Operation Metro Surge’s disruption of education at the University deliberate? It’s hard to say, but the stirring of uncertainty and caution in our community is making it more difficult to be present and engage.

“I feel pretty distracted this semester with just keeping an eye on the news, and also campus events, like, ‘Oh, are we in person? What’s going to happen next?’” Eleanor Kelly said, a fourth-year political science major. 

It has been quiet and tense on campus, Kelly added. 

“If the point is to inflict fear and uncertainty on people, it’s absolutely doing that,” Collins said. “It’s also hard to learn if you don’t feel safe.” 

It’s hard to come to campus if you don’t feel safe. And for some, educational engagement may be the least of their worries. 

“If they’re not learning or engaging, then what are they doing?” Collins said. “They’re probably just afraid, and I can’t blame them.” 

When I entered Collin’s office for the interview, it seemed like he was deeply considering the precarity of this semester. He had the same weightiness that I’ve seen in many of my fellow graduate instructors and my professors who are struggling to know how to effectively teach students, especially the students deeply and directly affected by ICE’s presence. 

“If they were scheduled to be in college right now and they’re staying outside of it, or they aren’t able to participate in college or be part of it, then they’re doing nothing, probably, or just trying to help their family, or look out for each other, I hope,” Collins said. “And if that’s the case, do what you gotta do, be present for your family and your community, but goodness.”

Engagement — educational, familiar or communal — is not easy right now. However, there is an urgency to engage that makes it a necessary means of meeting this moment. If Operation Metro Surge threatens education, then we are each personally responsible for protecting our right to it.