by Kent Milligan
The state of Wesley College may be seen with the image above.
The empty dining areas, student-less hallways, and the pretty but lifeless campus on the outside.
Even the classes have seen a noticeable decline in attendance. Students numbers have dwindled to barely above 600.
Wesley Campus
A big factor why this may be the case is the COVID-19 pandemic. In early March of 2020, when the pandemic first affected everyone, people were aware of it but did not think it would get so out of hand. And then everything hit all at once.
Lockdown protocols were something most students enjoyed early on when they did not have to go to school.
But when everyone realized that almost everything also had to go into lockdown, and most venues required extreme protocols with distancing and population control, it became an annoyance.
Everyone wanted things to go back to normal.
Out of all the college institutions in Delaware, Wesley College is the only college that is in the process of shutting down and getting acquired by a larger school, Delaware State University.
Wesley’s closing, however, is not the direct result of the effects of COVID-19.
It more directly results from the inability of administrators to run, budget, and maintain the school for their students and faculty.
Student Interviews
Senior Jada Simon said the status of the school does not affect her so much now that she is going to graduate.
Simon also said she believes administrators played a great part in the decline.
“We have coaches that are finding out that they don’t have a job, we have staff that has no idea what they have to f******Â do now,” she said. “People have to move, people have to reapply, they have to do all this and that. They set us up to fail.”
Junior Wesner Dorcelus said Wesley hasn’t been the same for a while.
“It felt like another high school,” he said. “There weren’t enough people.”
Dorcelus said he will likely to transfer to Delaware State University following the acquisition.
The Atmosphere
Kent Milligan | Whetstone
