MU held a free COVID-19 vaccination clinic in the Student Center on Aug. 24 and 25. The Department of Student Health and Well-Being organized the clinic and partnered with student involvement organizations including the Office of Student Engagement and Campus Activities Programming Board to promote the vaccine to students.

Volunteers wore costumes and drove golf carts around campus, offering free rides to the clinic. Members of CAPB handed out cookies and ice cream to students in waiting areas. Involvement Ambassadors talked to students as they got vaccinated about ways to get involved on campus. According to Bryan Goers, the senior coordinator for the Office of Student Engagement, these initiatives were part of a larger effort by many organizations on campus to encourage students to get the vaccine.

“The more students that have the vaccine, the safer that our events and programs will be,” Goers said. “We’ll do whatever we can to support SHWB and their efforts, and really the campus’ efforts, to get people vaccinated.” 

Goers’ office oversees Welcome Week leaders who have been involved in efforts to promote the clinic. In addition to publicizing the event throughout Welcome Week, some leaders drove around campus, informing students of the clinic and offering to drive them there. Some even dressed in extravagant costumes such as dinosaur suits. 

Goers said beyond the excitement of dinosaur suits and the convenience of free golf cart rides, Welcome Week leaders and other student groups are fundamentally responsible for caring for students’ well-being and aimed to add a sense of comfort among students who may have been skeptical about the vaccine.

“The Welcome Week leaders are a group of students who are trained, and they volunteer their time to try to promote thriving on Mizzou’s campus,” Goers said. “One of the ways that we can thrive on Mizzou’s campus is for everybody to have the vaccine and be able to fully participate in activities throughout the year.”

Aside from Welcome Week leaders, CAPB also played a key role in the clinic by setting up a “chill zone,” where students could wait the recommended 15 minutes after their vaccine in case of adverse effects. The chill zone featured free snacks, a claw machine, music and movies. 

Senior Anthony Ashe, marketing assistant for CAPB, said that peer influence is a factor that makes student organizations instrumental in MU’s mission to increase vaccination rates.

“[CAPB’s involvement in the clinic] shows you that even if you may not be the most comfortable and you have your own personal reasons for why you didn’t get a vaccine, there’s a group of people who are interested in making you feel comfortable and doing what they can to help facilitate that so we can all get back to normal,” Ashe said.

These efforts to promote the clinic proved beneficial; by the end of the first day, the clinic received a much higher turnout than they were anticipating, Jamie Shutter, the executive director of SHWB, said. 

“We’ve been very pleased with the turnout.When we first planned this clinic, we weren’t sure what to expect. But we had 79 [students get vaccinated] yesterday, and we are already much busier today,” Shutter said on Aug. 25. At this point, the clinic officially opened at 11[a.m.]. And we had people starting at 10:30 [a.m.] wanting to get vaccinated. So we’re really thrilled.”

Given the turnout of the clinic, both SHWB and the student organizations it partnered with said they remain optimistic that campus-wide reception toward the COVID-19 vaccine will continue improving. With some aspects of regular campus life moving back toward normalcy, Ashe said he hopes that students’ desires for an in-person college experience will motivate them to stay safe and get vaccinated.

“I think with how last year went and students not really being on campus and not really seeing the same level of activities, people who were here last year didn’t experience that,” Ashe said. “Even though everything’s not fully back to normal, there’s still stuff going on and they can still get involved.”

SHWB will host another clinic on Sept. 14 and 15 to provide a second dose to students who were vaccinated on Aug. 24 and 25, but the clinic will remain open to anyone who has not yet received the vaccine. 

Edited by Namratha Prasad, nprasad@themaneater.com