This fall, Knox College welcomed more than 400 new students to campus, the third largest class in the college’s history. It is also the largest international group in the college’s history with 37% of the first-years being international students.
Already, these students have thrown themselves into the Knox community without hesitation. Engagement across campus soared in the first few weeks of fall term, beginning with the Student Organization fair held on Sept. 13.
Several clubs – the STEAM and entrepreneurship clubs among them – report seeing increases in attendance at their general meetings and requests to join their membership on Engage. The majority of students contributing to these increases are first-years, they say. This trend is one that is in contrast with the student engagement at Knox over the past four years.
In the initial years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, student engagement plummeted. Enrollment has been dropping steadily for years, and the addition of a pandemic discouraged students from leaving their dorms, and in some cases caused students to stay off campus altogether.
Even when students made their slow return to campus, virtual classes and meetings made it simpler for students to stay home, to stay safe, rather than go out to a campus event or club meeting.
Then, as the classes of 2020 and 2021 graduated, we found that they left behind former first-years and sophomores who had little to no experience with a normally functioning college campus.
In the best of cases, these students experienced six months of pre-Covid Knox. In the worst of cases, they began their first year in the midst of the pandemic. These were the students who were elected into positions of leadership in clubs and organizations across campus.
In its own way, Covid-19 drove over-engagement as much as it drove less engagement. Those of us who didn’t want to stay at home joined more and more clubs, and hoped to help the beloved institutions of Knox recover.
Some clubs came back, rebuilding from the ground up. The Knox Student was one of them.
Some, like the recently disbanded magazine Cellar Door, faded into relative obscurity, retaining four to five members at most. Others disappeared entirely, unnoticed by the new classes of first-years.
This year has seen over 400 new first-years, and we’ve seen many of them jump headfirst into the clubs that Knox knows and loves. Others still have made new organizations, filling the gaps that others left behind.
As an editorial staff of juniors, seniors, and a fifth-year, we know it’s hard to let go of the vision we had for our Knox experiences, and hard to accept that we’re nearing the end. It is a necessary release, though, to give ourselves—our clubs, our organizations, our chapters—over to new people.
First-years, we hope that you stay as engaged as you are now. Learn from our mistakes, and avoid burnout – but make the most of Knox.
The TKS editorial board (Jenna Schweikert, Ellen Miller-Garrett, Pareesae Imtiaz, Julia Maron, Red Engel)
The opinions expressed in The Knox Student are solely the opinions of the writer or editorial staff, and not necessarily those of Knox College, or of its faculty, administration, or student body.
