With the recent distress of COVID-19 changing the way in which schools, businesses, and American cities in general will run for the next couple of weeks, mass confusion and hysteria has plagued American citizens. Grocery stores are running out of basic supplies, hospitals are trying to figure out how to continue serving patients while making space for potential COVID-19 recipients, and current college seniors are in distress about having to cut their college experience short- some worried they won’t even get the opportunity to walk across that stage, the moment they’ve been waiting for to share with their families for four years. Not to mention, classes have now been transferred online.

Online classes are inaccessible to many students. It requires students have access to a device in which a camera and a microphone be activated, and Wi-Fi connection- something that not all students have the means to gain. Additionally, students with mental health issues or even learning disorders (no matter how severe) could find taking courses online to be very taxing and stressful. Instead of immediately making face-to-face classes digital, classes should have been cancelled for AT LEAST a week in order to get the SUNY and CUNY systems and professors situated on how to move forward with education following the attack of COVID-19. Professors will need to assess their syllabus for the rest of the semester, and figure out how their materials can even be transferred online- not to mention, learning which online resource is even good enough to carry on with classes. Students will need time to figure out if going back home or staying on campus is the best decision for them, and how moving forward with online classes will potentially complicate the workload already placed on them by this virus. 

New information and news is constantly being shared with the public- some good, others bad- about the virus and how it continues to affect the global society, but for the most part, it adds on to the stress and confusion American citizens have suffered through so far. The students at Purchase College are creating this petition in order to DEMAND that the college (and hopefully other schools will follow ensuite) CANCEL ALL CLASSES for at least a week in order for students, as well as faculty, to recuperate after this major transition, and that the school gives students a tuition refund for the remainder of the semester in which students will not be living on campus, using any of the canpus resources (such as the meal plan), participating in any college-related activities, and the forceful act of classes being transferred online- otherwise, students will NOT participate in their online courses as a strike. We hope to take this time to figure out our next game plan, as the virus continues to impact the many different ways in which we maneuver through life.