On March 11, Florida Atlantic University announced that it will be moving all of its classes that were on campus to "remote instruction" (online class) temporarily, now as of March 17, FAU has moved the entire spring semester to online class only. 

Students were recommended to return home and continue the remaining spring semester at home. Although this was the right thing to do on FAU's part, it will still bring great stress to many of the students who relied heavily on the campus facilities and in class sessions. I highly believe that FAU should listen to their students and help us by changing the spring semester to a Pass/Fail grading criteria. 

There are many reason why this is a great idea: 

1. FAU has students from all across the world and many of which are returning home to where the coronavirus has hit home very hard, and even in its backyard of Broward County where they are seeing the most cases in Florida. Knowing that my community is at risk is causing a great deal of stress and is for many students who returned home as well. 

2. It is very difficult to go from learning in class to online class. Many students choose to take classes on campus rather than online due to the fact that they need to see and interact with the professor and other students in order to achieve the A they strive for. Now with this switch it is going to be difficult to achieve that when we have to teach ourselves criteria. 

3. Some students relied on the school internet to get work done online and now will have a hard time to find wifi or get wifi for them to get the class work done, and with businesses not allowing people to sit down such as Starbucks, it will be even more difficult.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that they would be transitioning to their alternate grading policy, which is a structure of pass/fail grading in the event of significant disruption outlined in Article 2.64 of their rules and regulations manual. Additionally, Smith College also announced their decision to transition into pass/fail grading for their student body. With these other universities switching to this grading policy, there are other petitions similar to this one that include the University of Florida and Florida State University. 

President, John Kelly, if you come across this please take it into consideration and realize that us students need your help on this. 

If you're a student, I please advise you to continue this conversation and help us get the grading criteria moved to pass/fail. 

Thank You!