In response to the national COVID-19 outbreak, East Tennessee State University has announced that as of March 20, 2020, all academic instruction will remain online for the rest of the 2020 Spring Semester. During this time students are expected to stay home and complete their school work online. However, this puts ETSU students at an academic disadvantage by taking away academic resources that are essential for students' success.

While ETSU Professors and TAs might use Zoom, virtual presentations, email, and video calling in order to interact with students there are some restrictions including a student's time zone, Wi-Fi availability, Computer access, and etc that make online school more difficult for the students and the professors, all the while students are expected to maintain the same workload. This puts students who have to adapt to a new learning environment and professors who have to replan all of there academic lectures and work to be online in such a short amount of time under an enormous amount of stress. By offering a pass/fail option for all classes at ETSU, this will ease most of the stress caused by the efforts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused discord and confusion not only for the ETSU community, but for the Government, states, businesses, and churches all over the world. With limited access to public facilities and the uncertainties of how long this virus will affect our way of living is stressful. This pandemic has put a strain on everyone's mental health and way of thinking. ETSU students strongly urge you to make all classes pass/fail to remove some of the stress we are all facing. 

Sincerely,

The Students of East Tennesse State University