email threat to administrators demanding
removal of a campus Black Lives Matter mural
that Okoro had worked on. In response, the
university imposed a day-long shelter-in-place
order Oct. 9.
“It caused students anxiety and a lot of fear
across the whole campus,” particularly students
of color, Okoro said.
Unnerved, she spent the following week at her
family’s Charlotte home, then returned to find an
increased police presence on campus, creating
mixed feelings for some students.
“It hasn’t been easy,” Okoro said of freshman year
so far, but added, “I don’t wallow in it.”
“I think that is something a lot of Black people
have grown up with,” she said. “The ability
to take in your circumstances and try to
move past them. What are you going to do
— not survive? There’s no choice but to get
through it.”
Just outside Asheville, at Warren Wilson
College’s rural campus, freshman Robert French
describes a “general sense of dread hanging
over us.”
After battling a mild case of COVID-19 in the
spring and being sequestered with his family
in Detroit during Michigan’s emergency
restrictions, French was looking forward to
getting away and making a fresh start.
He found that daily campus life begins with
temperature checks before breakfast and color-
coded stickers to wear indicating no fever.
Some classes are online only, which he finds
alienating. And one in-person class switched
to online when the instructor was exposed to