This semester, the University instituted outrageously expensive and under-advertised raffles as a COVID-19 testing incentive.
Despite promising more information on this practice at the beginning of the semester, the University has yet to formally notify students of the actual details of the raffle.
The University’s COVID-19 testing webpage says that students who take advantage of on-campus testing will be entered into a raffle, but no information is given about how or when this will happen, or who takes up the students’ names in order to select winners.
I emailed the Division of Strategic Communications after several laborious minutes of scrolling through contact info on the University’s webpage. I received no reply, not even an offhanded redirect to a different department.
I have been able to find no new or more detailed information about how the University is conducting the raffles or which locations students should go to be tested in order to be eligible for the raffle.
The first round of winners has already been chosen. The announcement came as a surprise to many, including psychology and communications studies junior Gaby Welling, who received one of the raffle prizes.
Welling was tested in Coates Hall one day after class and, despite never being told she’d been entered into a raffle, later received an email informing her she won an Apple Watch.
I am all for incentivizing students to get tested – in fact, I’m in favor of just making testing mandatory to begin with – but the University’s raffle plan is poorly planned and overly extravagant. The whole fiasco just makes the University seem out of touch with its students.
Students don’t need a slight chance of winning an expensive smart watch, they need real financial aid. Instead of purchasing Apple products and giving away $500 Barnes and Noble gift cards, the University should be assessing student financial needs and offering support to those whose academic careers are being put on hold in order to make ends meet.
Clearly, the University has not truly assessed the needs of its student body and isn’t even well enough coordinated to accurately advertise and implement a testing incentive program.
In light of the recent national bad press the University got for covering up rape allegations, administration should be doing everything in its power to make students feel cared for — and to make internal affairs seem efficient and well managed.
Which, in case anyone was wondering, isn’t going to happen just by handing out Apple products and ignoring the actual issues on campus.
Marie Plunkett is a 21-year-old classical studies senior from New Orleans.