Many students for the past few years have missed out on an important coming-of-age ritual: the high school prom.
At Webster University, administrators and student leaders put their heads together to construct a ‘make-up prom’ for their students, complete with loud pop music, bright, sparkly backgrounds, and a dark gymnasium.
Students determined their own outfits, ranging from a t-shirt-fake-nails combination to a floor-length prom dress that the student hadn’t had the chance to wear in the years before.
Student leader Megan Sander spent the summer setting the event up, “getting all the decorations prepped, making sure we had a DJ and photo booth.”
“We know they missed out on the prom at their high schools due to COVID, so we really wanted to make Webster their home…and make it the best prom ever,” she said. The prom was part of the university’s first in-person orientation week since COVID hit.
At Webster, college is starting up in a more ‘normal’ way than it has since the pandemic hit St. Louis in March 2020, thanks to the school’s vaccine mandate. Every student at the dance was masked, and was at least part of the way through their vaccination series. Associate Dean of Students Dr. Colette Cummings said that the hardest part about moving back to in-person school was just getting students to upload their vaccination cards on time.
“I think the biggest challenge is making sure that we keep every student safe. And we’re doing that, because we’re requiring everybody to be vaccinated.” Cummings said. And regarding the prom, “I love it. It’s really refreshing to see this many students again.”
Some of the college sophomores putting together the prom had missed their own high school proms, too. Taylor Friend, a sophomore at Webster, said she loved the chance to see people dancing together in person. “Starting my first year of college not able to see anyone was sad, scary…we didn’t get to meet a lot of people. Seeing a lot of people in person’s an amazing feeling.”
Many of the freshmen she mentors, Friend said, are still anxious about starting school in-person: a fully real-life college experience, after multiple years of virtual learning, can be socially overwhelming.
“You get a lot of social anxiety after not seeing people,” Friend said. “So a lot of them are kind of skeptical. But after talking with my mentees this past week, they’re excited and ready for the new experience.”
Webster’s leaders had wanted to hold the prom at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, but were unable to do so due to the lack of vaccine availability. “The idea behind this came up over a year ago, when we were having conversations with our parents of the new incoming students last year, and listening to the fact that their students didn’t get to have prom,” said Billy Ratz, first-year experience director at Webster. “But there wasn’t a vaccine yet, so we pushed it off. Then we thought this year hey, we’re coming back, we’re going to be in person. Let’s do it this year, and give these students that experience that they didn’t get to experience in high school. We thought it would mean a lot to them.”
Webster plans to hold the semester entirely in-person, though they are willing to ‘adapt’ to virtual learning again should the pandemic make that necessary, Ratz said.