On December 10th 2019, the students of Virginia Wesleyan University were notified that the university was struck by a malware based cyber-attack. This event occurred on the last day of classes and ran through, reading day, final examinations, winter break and into the beginning of January term 2020. After we were told that things were back online, students were still unable to use certain services like campus computers and printers throughout the remainder of the January term.

The ramifications of this attack caused a ripple effect across the campus, this affected the students/faculty in the following ways:

1. Student drives became inaccessible (Most notably for those who have digital classes/portfolios)
2. Lab computers were unavailable with no backups in place
3. No immediate backup Wi-Fi access for those who have finals materials on their laptops they wish to submit or present
4. Services like the Campus Bookstore were unable to run efficiently, relying on a pen and pad method to make cash only transactions, relying on faithful students to return their rentals, the cancellation of the book buyback program (which was eventually rescheduled)
5. The cancellation, delay, modification of finals that potentially hindered the final outcome of students grades
6. Inability of posting or viewing of final grades throughout the period

While we respect the work that went into fixing the issue, this left many in our Marlin Family in a sea of anger, confusion and uncertainty on how things will proceed in the near future.

We, the student body of Virginia Wesleyan University would like to request a form of reparations to remedy this issue. Such reparations desired are:

• A refund of the Student Technology Fee for the 2019-2020 year in full or in-partial for the fall semester
• Back-up computers/laptops for emergency use to both faculty and students
• Offline access to Student Drives from last sync
• A back-up Wi-Fi network for critical services like the Campus Bookstore, Business Office, IT, etc.
• A separate secure Wi-Fi network for critical services' general use

We, the student body, would like to have some form of action to be taken on this matter. We would like something immediate and tangible to us, even having a transparent action plan would be a sign of good faith and a step in the right direction.