Dear President McConnell, Provost Miranda, Graduate School Dean Stromberger, and the CSU Board of Governors,

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented upheaval for everyone here at Colorado State University, including undergraduate and graduate students, staff, faculty, and administrators.

As we all work to develop new plans necessitated by this crisis, we write to share concerns about graduate students at Colorado State University, and the problems they are confronting:

1. Reduced or no access to resources they need to complete their research, including archives, libraries, and labs.

2. Reduced or no access to external employment to supplement stipends.

3. Reduced or no academic job offerings as institutions of higher learning across the country announce hiring freezes for both the upcoming academic year (2020-2021) and the next (2021-2022).

4. Increased teaching demands as graduate student instructors, like adjunct and faculty instructors, scramble to transition to online teaching.

In light of these tremendous pressures and impending austerity measures, we ask that Colorado State University:

1. Ensure that the extension of time-to-degree clocks for all graduate students by one year is carried out by all departments, just as the tenure clock was automatically extended for all pre-tenure faculty.

2. Extend guaranteed funding for all graduate students for an additional year.

3. Provide official assurance, in writing, that teaching assignments, administrative and research appointments, stipends, and health insurance will continue to remain in place for the Summer of 2020 as well as for the 2020-2021 academic year and beyond. 

4. Expand support for international graduate students that includes full summer funding, assistance in the process of renewing or extending visas, and free legal support on issues related to immigration, work access, etc.

5. Cancel rent in University Apartment Housing. Rent collection during a pandemic is equivalent to a “soft eviction,” as tenants are already at risk of housing insecurity and accumulating unpayable debt.

Our overall demands are that the university immediately address the impact that COVID-19 and austerity will have on graduate students and set to work to mitigate that.

In these uncertain times, it is crucial that Colorado State University extend these lifelines to graduate students―an already financially precarious population that performs much of the academic labor vital to the functioning of the university, but will be one of the groups most affected by austerity measures. Austerity puts education out of reach for many students (current and prospective) and removes what were previously steady jobs. Extending the requested measures will not only help mitigate the impact of this crisis on graduate students’ wellness and progress-to-degree, but also ensure that the university works to fulfill the social wage compact and a core tenet of its institutional philosophy: To nurture excellence in teaching, learning, creativity, and research.