To the Office of the Chancellor at Vanderbilt University, 

We write to you to address prescient concerns raised in reaction to a number of alarming incidents involving student welfare on campus. 

A coalition of over fifty alumni writers, researchers, designers, and publicists assembled to compile the solutions we advise below. We are grateful to the current students who brought this issue to our attention, provided feedback, and continue to do all they can to support their fellow students. Our attention was first drawn upon witnessing waves of hysteria and embarrassment ravage the undergraduate student body during the week of October 5th, 2020. Undergraduates’ social media pages erupted in personal and secondhand stories of trauma, fear, uncertainty, humiliation, and confusion as they expressed the enormous indignity they expect to experience as a result of several new University-wide policies. Several undergraduates reached out to us asking for help. We write to contextualize these interactions, identify the problems, and offer solutions.

A recent University-wide email notified students of a never-before-seen daily rate for on-campus residence during the upcoming winter break. For context, generations of students have enjoyed the freedom of remaining at their Vanderbilt homes when school was out of session. In the past, students were instructed to simply notify their housing office of their intentions to stay on campus. Now, with less than two months to prepare themselves, students were informed by the Office of the Chancellor that a daily rate would be in place for the pandemic winter break. Moreover, the University’s email explicitly specified that those in marginalized groups, such as homeless and international students, would not be exempt. Only after an onslaught of direct student and alumni outreach did administrators pledge that the fee, which is $50 per day, would be waived in certain cases. This is far from a sufficient promise.

It is unclear what threshold of homelessness or poverty students must meet in order to be considered for financial aid for the winter break. Moreover, other students on campus, who may be athletes or teacher-trainees, should not be forced to gather three-thousand dollars to add to the fifteen-thousand dollar housing cost, even if they are not in the bottom income class. There are many reasons students may need to remain on campus the University is currently not considering. For instance, many students who rely on campus housing during breaks are seeking sanctuary from abusive, unstable, or otherwise toxic home environments. Nevertheless, the University intends to close most of the residence halls, claiming that forecasts for the winter COVID-19 and Flu seasons necessitate such action. 

Our research has failed to replicate similar concerns. Despite the fact that Nashville is a coronavirus hotspot and Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been treating most of the worst cases, the campus has remained remarkably safe. This is undoubtedly due to the exemplary direction and stewardship of this University’s leadership. Therefore, keeping the dormitories open and accessible to students who belong at Vanderbilt is not only a moral choice, but a practical one as well. From our research into the endowment, we understand it is feasible to maintain operations as Vanderbilt University has done every other year in recent memory. There are more reasons to avoid such an extreme decision: keeping staff on payroll is good for the economy, and keeping students safe is good for us all. If Vanderbilt undergraduates have been the select few in the United States to avoid a campus outbreak thus far, we are optimistic they will continue to do so. 

These same conscientious, careful students reached out to us concerned with sourcing the funds to stay at their own campus, nervous about returning to abusive, unstable, or toxic homes, or worried about acquiring coronavirus in transit and infecting their elderly and immunocompromised family members. One current pre-med undergraduate forfeited study hours for upcoming exams in anatomy and biochemistry to begin the process of legally declaring herself homeless. When Vanderbilt’s housing memo began to proliferate, residents of Nashville began to offer their homes to Vanderbilt students. While we are touched by the public’s support, and heartened to witness the powerful symbiosis that the Vanderbilt Community shares with Nashville, as alumni, we are mortified.  

In addition to the housing crisis, Vanderbilt University is perpetuating a resource crisis. The newly established Student Hardship Fund caps at a meager five-hundred dollars and only offers reimbursements which are useless to students unable to spend such money upfront. This model prohibited one undergraduate from purchasing a new computer to use in her classes. For another example, administrative correspondences suggest that the University leadership believes instructing students to utilize the local food pantries is a preferable alternative to providing dining and meal money options as the University historically has done. To be clear, Vanderbilt students are Vanderbilt’s ward; they are not the responsibility of outside groups who serve homeless and hungry Nashvillians. But because Vanderbilt University will not provide enough, the undergraduate student body created a Mutual Aid Fund as well as a Students’ Basic Needs Coalition, two entities that were never in existence prior to Fall 2020. It is unconscionable to suggest that Vanderbilt students, who are beholden to one of the most well-endowed institutions in the world, should scramble to conjure their own resources or deplete the resources of those who are not encased by the wealth of our university. 

The aims of this petition do not end at the dissolution of affordable housing and food on campus. In true Vanderbilt spirit, we are rising to the occasion of proposing bold solutions to disadvantageous conditions that have been previously met with complacency. We draw our inspiration directly from the visionary leadership that Vanderbilt University assumed during the Great Recession and delivered Opportunity Vanderbilt. As Opportunity Vanderbilt was unveiled, skeptics called it too expensive, a waste of resources, and unnecessary. But the risk paid off: not only were the undergraduates that Opportunity Vanderbilt sustained and supported strong campus leaders amongst their peers and in their classes, they now serve society as educators, surgeons, attorneys, astronauts, authors, faith leaders, business owners and elected officials. Indeed, the students who benefit from Vanderbilt’s financial aid have consistently demonstrated a tremendous return on the University’s investment, through their contributions in their academic fields and communities. It is clear that because of Vanderbilt’s risk, our country is better off.

Now we ask for no risk; we ask for our alma mater to again embody the same principles that once anchored this institution at the helm of educational and social progress. Beyond this immediate crisis, we ask our University to re-evaluate numerous aspects of its financial aid policy, adding improvements to the very framework that shifted inclusivity paradigms at every elite college in the United States. The time for clear-eyed, inspired action on economic justice is now, and with our petition below, we are offering a foundation on which to continue the University’s previous groundbreaking leadership. Squarely in the beating heart of the American heartland, Vanderbilt University has a unique and vested interest in leading during this brutal moment in history. We ask our Vanderbilt Community to harness the moral courage and strategic stewardship that underpinned this University’s revolutionary vision once more. 

Our petition is composed of three Sections, separated by the terms of installation of our requests. We sincerely look forward to joining our Vanderbilt Community in formulating and implementing the best solutions to preserve Vanderbilt’s position as the global leader of financial inclusivity at elite universities. To emphasize our commitment, we sign our names below. Until negotiations begin between the recipients and the writers of this petition, we, the Alumni of our beloved alma mater, pledge to withhold all of our donations and fundraising efforts to the institution. 

To the Alumni reading this petition and signing your names: include your class years! Include other information that you feel you ought to share with Vanderbilt University’s leadership and the viewers of this petition at-large. 

To our University’s leadership: we are disappointed, but not discouraged, and we look forward to working with you. Many of the writers of this petition know you personally, as do even more of the signatories of this petition. We have seen you work around the clock to keep our campus safe amidst these unprecedented circumstances. As former students, we attest to the indelible impact of financial aid in our own success, and in that of our peers. We know you are capable of answering this call, and we look forward to helping you accomplish the lofty goals we have outlined.

To all: economic justice is not a question of money, it is a question of humanity. Vanderbilt University understood this when it created Opportunity Vanderbilt, affording students who were prejudged as unfit a dignified and prolific seat at what is now the #14 university in the nation. An integral factor to the evolution of Vanderbilt University as a standard-bearer of higher education is the exceptional diversity of thought, background, and demographic that our financial inclusivity policies welcomed to campus. Other institutions understood this, and followed suit. We understand this, and thus, we respectfully suggest that our Vanderbilt Family continue to lead.   

To the current students at Vanderbilt: we see you, we hear you, we support you. As alumni who have once been in your position, we understand the necessity of having basic needs met in order to achieve academic success. We stand behind you wholeheartedly in ensuring that our Vanderbilt community is safe and empowered.

 

Section I: Covid-19 Relief 

A.     On October 7th, 2020, at 8:06 am, Chancellor Diermeier sent a lengthy email outlining a number of coronavirus-related policies for the rest of the academic year. Sandwiched in those lines was an unprecedented development in Vanderbilt’s housing procedures. While students previously enjoyed the freedom to stay on campus during scholastic breaks, now only certain groups of students would be permitted to stay, such as “homeless students, student-athletes in competition, international students, and Peabody College students pursuing teaching licensure,” for an unspecified daily rate, as quoted from the email. The writers of this petition later learned, through communication with Vanderbilt University’s Office of Housing, this rate was $50 per day. Provost Wente later clarified the fee would be waived for homeless students and students above a threshold of demonstrated financial need. 

We request that the aforementioned daily fee is eliminated in its entirety for all students intending to stay at Vanderbilt University for the Winter Break. The protected class of students should include all students who deem it necessary to their personal safety and health to remain on-campus amid the pandemic. Under normal circumstances, students could refer to a number of intersectional reasons why it would be beneficial to them to remain on campus. The campus is a haven for queer students, students from unstable, abusive, or toxic family residences, students suffering from mental illness, students who work, and more. The added complications of the pandemic have exacerbated the aforementioned justifications, and added new ones. More fundamentally, the campus is a Vanderbilt student’s home. All Vanderbilt students belong at their homes. Due to the tremendous responsibility and community spirit the Vanderbilt student body has shown in abiding by safety protocols thus far, we trust Vanderbilt students to make the right decision. 

B.     Correspondences amongst administrators and operators of student spaces on campus indicated that students ought to be informed of a nearby food pantry at St. Augustine’s that can service their needs to eat. On multiple levels, this is unacceptable. Food pantries are meant to sustain the extremely vulnerable, impoverished population of Nashville at-large, which has been suffering from increasing food desertification and homelessness for years. Second, Vanderbilt University recorded a 78-million-dollar revenue and $39 million in financial aid for room and board. Within these numbers, and within the social contract between Vanderbilt University and its students who pay $75,974 per year to attend but are earmarked $131,699.25 per year from the endowment, is a moral and economic duty to provide for basic needs, especially during a global pandemic.

As dining halls are generally not open during breaks, we request that Vanderbilt University provide meal money stipends to those students who elect to remain on campus and self-report a financial need. Most students likely do not live in abject poverty, but at least 40% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency. We believe the decent and respectful young adults of Vanderbilt’s community are able to accurately and honestly self-report their needs. Moreover, we suggest the University utilize the Honor Code to vet and accommodate any self-reports. We ask that the University trust the validity of, and show great flexibility in accommodating, the reported financial need, as the circumstances of the pandemic have exacerbated costs beyond what can be conveyed through the previous year’s tax files. We recognize this may come at a financial cost for this fiscal year, yet we understand the cost is worth it. 

C.     As Provost Wente revealed in follow-up communications regarding the housing crisis, the University intends to close residence halls as a method to defend campus against the winter COVID-19 and Flu seasons. Because Vanderbilt’s leadership has been so decisive and judicious in vigilantly applying pandemic protocols, drawing from experts at Vanderbilt’s many health centers and those in public health, our campus has served as an example to the nation of prudent and thoughtful re-opening. Due to the strength and unity of the Vanderbilt Community, students have ensured that their personal actions aligned with the University’s guidelines, and, despite having an accelerated academic schedule, have performed admirably on academic as well as social metrics. During the winter break, campus will be less populated and there is no reason to believe students will waiver in their vigilance. With both that in mind and the University’s $134-million investment into housing projects, we believe the University has ample resources and reason to allow students to remain home on campus and spare them the strain of moving into isolated dormitories in the middle of the winter. 

As a result, we request that Vanderbilt University allow students to remain in their existing living spaces, if those students elect to stay on campus during winter break.

 

D.     Undergraduate students have brought it to our attention that remote learners are being tasked with purchasing their own science lab equipment. Although voltmeters are certainly fun to own, students have limited use for these and other tools outside of their respective semesters. Moreover, such tools are expensive, and lab equipment is simply not included in the projected cost of attendance. As with so many other points on this list, there is no way that students could have adequately planned for these sudden expenses.

As a result, we request that Vanderbilt University reimburse students who have already purchased lab equipment, and that Spring purchases are covered by the University, or that tools which are easily transferable, such as voltmeters, are shipped from the University’s campus to students’ homes.

E.     In response to the resource shortages outlined throughout this petition, undergraduate students have established two networks, a mutual aid fund, and the Students’ Basic Needs Coalition. 

We request that Vanderbilt University take the following steps to eliminate the need for students to bargain amongst each other for resources, money, and financial stability through the following steps. 

1. Immediately establish a COVID-19 Emergency Fund with the sole purpose of providing expansive financial aid to students’ unexpected costs of living, namely food and healthcare, to varying degrees depending on the status of such students. The primary utility of such a fund ought to entail stipends for physical and mental healthcare, specifically mental telehealth expenses, as the University Counseling Center will not treat any remote students outside of the State of Tennessee. The administrators of the fund should also work with the financial aid office to cover the cost of related medical and medicinal copays if students are encountering unique COVID-19 related healthcare costs, especially if those treatments would have otherwise been administered at the Student Health Center. Secondly, the fund should provide stipends to students with a self-reported need to cover any expenses associated with traveling away from campus for the break, if those student-requests are in order to preserve their own and others’ physical health amid the contagious pandemic. Lastly, operators of the fund should assess whether any students remaining on campus during Winter Break or throughout the winter months are unable to provide warm winter clothing for themselves. If this is the case, the Fund should provide limited funds for such clothing purposes or directly re-appropriate Vanderbilt apparel.
2. Immediately shift from a reimbursement-based model to a grant-based model within the Student Hardship Fund that was established in the Summer of 2020. In response to COVID-19, The university divested $1 million from university funds towards the Student Hardship Fund to assist students with demonstrated financial challenges, a generous action taken by the administration. However, the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships has capped distribution to $500 per student, of which not everyone who applies for will receive the assistance. Furthermore, a number of students have shared with us a notable difficulty in actually making use of this fund, due to the reimbursement-based model of the Student Hardship Fund. On the application, students must provide receipts to demonstrate the costs of their requests, which would then be reimbursed. Students are thus unable to apply and procure supplies or materials, because they cannot spend money they do not already have. Therefore, shifting the Student Hardship Fund towards a grant-based model will ensure that students will have access to the resources necessary to succeed academically. For this reason, the COVID-19 Emergency Fund ought to be grant-based as well. 

 

Section II: Short-Term Relief

F.     Immediately pay Resident Advisors their promised hazard pay. The Office of Housing and Residential Experience previously stated on their website that RAs would receive a monthly compensation of $295, which would include an additional monthly $60 hazard pay. However, an email sent out on October 2, 2020 from the Assistant Director of Housing and Residential Experience stated that this was an erroneous typo on the website, and that the actual compensation rate is still an approximate $235 per month. Due to the nature of their position, resident advisors are at a much higher risk of coming into contact with COVID-19, and thus should not only be compensated accordingly, but must also be given the appropriate personal protective equipment to fulfill their duties.

 

G.     We kindly request that Vanderbilt University incorporate the need for the University’s health insurance in its determinations of financial aid. As it currently exists, the process for purchasing or waiving the requirement for the student health insurance plan from Gallagher occurs after students are notified of their award amount. Only financial aid money that is “left over” can cover health insurance, even if students need to utilize the Vanderbilt-affiliated plan. Many undergraduates and alumni, including authors of this letter, have described this as an undue burden when students’ parents’ health insurance plans are insufficient, but their financial aid awards do not outnumber the cost of attendance. As a result, we suggest that Vanderbilt University incorporate the cost of health insurance into the overall cost of attendance and allocate financial aid accordingly. Although this will only result in a modest increase to individual students’ financial aid packages, it will be extremely beneficial to their quality of life. We ask for this policy to begin at the financial aid calculations of the next academic year.

 

H.     In cases where students are unable to pay their total cost of attendance within University-prescribed payment plans or take out a federal or private loan to do so, the University will charge late fees until the entire payment is made. While this alone is egregious, the policy is particularly troubling during a pandemic with unforeseen and unprecedented job loss, as well as financial strain and insecurity. Thus, we reasonably request that the University stop charging late fees for indebted students who are in open and contractual communication with the University about non-prescribed payment plans. We ask for this adjustment to be instituted prior to the beginning of the Spring 2021 semester.

 

I.     Several undergraduate students have reached out directly to us with frustrations at the University’s new policy rejecting credits for classes taken at other institutions. Numerous students have been documented in The Hustler, describing the discriminatory effects of this policy, and we concur. Prior to the Summer of 2020, students had frequently opted for a summer session at a state university in order to complete introductory-level classes. These students subsequently became summa cum laude graduates of Vanderbilt, went on to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and more, for graduate, law, or medical school, or made ingenious and innovative contributions to the workforce. To deny students the financial flexibility of attending a summer course at their state school is a callous and inefficient change to student life during the pandemic. 

We trust that Vanderbilt students will always prefer to take their classes at their own University, and we value their discretion in making the choices that support their financial and educational success. However, we also recognize that encouraging students to take all of their classes at Vanderbilt University is key to our continued rise in the national rankings. Therefore, we urge Vanderbilt to return to its previous, longstanding policy of allowing full-time, four-year students to transfer credits for classes that are offered at Vanderbilt, at least through the following academic year and until the country re-stabilizes post-pandemic. 

 

Section III: Accountability

J.     Our last recommendation is to construct an Economic Justice Committee within the Office of the Chancellor that will oversee the implementation of these requests in partnership with the administration. This Committee should be composed of: at least two current students on financial aid, at least two alumni who were on financial aid, two of the top alumni donors and fundraisers at the University’s discretion, a Resident Advisor representative, a representative of Project Safe, a representative of the KC Potter Center, a representative of the Multicultural Leadership Council, a representative of the Graduate Student Council, a representative of the International Student Council, Vanderbilt’s in-house economic and social justice experts, and any others the University’s leadership deems appropriate to join the Committee. 

 

In conclusion,

Until our alma mater agrees to institute Section I, Parts A and B, of this Petition, and once the University joins us in creation of Section III which will oversee the implementation of Section I, Parts C through E, and Section II, Parts F through I, all of our donations and fundraising efforts remain on pause. We look forward to undertaking the necessary steps with our alma mater’s leadership to actualize economic justice on campus and resume our alumni giving accordingly.