Link to text of the Fall 2020 Statement.

Link to Padlet to share anonymous concerns about the Fall 2020 Statement.

Summary:

As members of the UMN community, we are concerned about the “Fall 2020 Statement” which was released on MyU earlier this week in a vague and coercive manner, with inadequate warning or student input. All students must agree to the statement by clicking “confirm,” to access MyU in order to register for classes, resulting in direct and adverse influence on wage payment, visa status and academic progress and concerns about agreeing to the statement. It was also released days before many students will receive paychecks that they need for essential goods like medicine or health-related expenses.  Finally, this statement so far appears to be student-specific (including postdocs, who are legally students, residing on campus), despite the student body being a small fraction of the campus community.

We feel that if any community-wide statement made in good faith is meant to succeed, it must be done with student input, contain a focus on mental health harm reduction, and be made with awareness towards minority communities and international students. We must find a way to combine scientific data-driven COVID-19 risk mitigation with humanity and community building.

Above all, there must be significant student engagement at multiple levels including with community groups advocating for various student interests to create a Fall 2020 Statement that is able to limit the spread of COVID-19 in our whole campus community and address our diverse needs - rather than just covering the U from being sued. 

Our Demands:

We urge the university to consider changes to the Fall 2020 Statement to include the following actions to meet the State and County pandemic management guidelines for employers for a vibrant learning environment with equal access to all individuals:

1. Commit to twice weekly case reporting in individual university buildings and student and off-campus subsidized residents in university-wide centralized announcements for proactive pandemic management with transparency including: number of cases, building location of individuals cases or case clusters, and de-identified details for the purposes of contact tracing.
2. Commit to a transparent plan of staged testing for proactive pandemic management for the student body including no less than 2 required tests within the month of move-in. Details for testing should be made available to the entire UMN community and testing should be guaranteed to be available in a timely manner (3 days or less). COVID tests and flu vaccines should be made available free of charge as needed to all members of the UMN community regardless of health insurance status.
3. Commit to daily disclosure of available isolation space for infected individuals including number of beds, rooms, and locations on campus for the safety of individuals. Guarantee isolation times of 3 weeks or more consistent with field-standard epidemiological data describing viral shedding and viral load of infected individuals and provide free food for individuals forced to isolate.
4. Release details of cleaning schedules and extent of cleaning and provide free cleaning and social distancing supplies (masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, etc)
5. Subsidize costs of studio apartments/private dorm rooms for students who are immunocompromised, immunosuppressed, or otherwise at high risk of complications from COVID-19, so that these students can afford to minimize their risk of contracting COVID-19.
6. Agree to deliver food, medications, essentials to students in need of quarantine as needed via a specifically designated fund of the university’s emergency management funds. Release information on availability and use of these funds to the university; allow CAs and other community resource individuals to manage funds for their community.
7. Provide students with contact information of new roommates so that residents can coordinate health precautions around move-ins prior to arrival.
8. Remove the dark pattern pop-up on MyU, and have a less coercive form of outreach to get students to agree, that allows students to think critically about what they are agreeing to before signing and which allows students to access finances and academics on MyU without signing. Move the statement to the notification tab. Allow student workers to access pay statements, tax documents, without signing. 
9. Acknowledge that part of what we are paying for is mode of instruction, and that remote instruction is not the same value as a normal semester. Offer a discount for remote classes and refund for classes which are moved online. Offer a refund for on-campus services and fees that will not be utilized when the university inevitably closes down again. 

You have had a summer to prepare for how to handle COVID-19 precautions on campus and you’ve made it clear that you are putting profits over your students’ safety and wellbeing. You've sent vague reopening plans sent out over the summer when you've known the whole time, knowing well that the university will inevitably move to online learning. And now, coercing them into agreeing to pay full tuition in the event of the university closing is not prioritizing student safety. While the University is experiencing a financial crisis, students are struggling to pay rent, pay tuition, get COVID-19 testing, and stay healthy. Show us who you’re really working for, there is still time to take adequate action to protect your students - the most important stakeholder on campus. 

Thank you for signing and join hundreds of students in signing onto supporting UMN CAs and residents. And over 1,500 students demanding lower tuition for this academic year.

For now you can bypass the statement by using the BehindTheOverlay Chrome extension.