As Purdue begins instruction in person, we call on the administration at Purdue University (including President Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., members of the Purdue Board of Trustees, and all other relevant decision-makers) to act swiftly to address the immediate needs of all students and workers on Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus in a way that is more transparent, equitable, and recognizes the inherent value each member of our university community adds.

Workers of  Purdue University supply the labor--research, instruction, and support--that allows Purdue University to function. In return, we expect organizational transparency, fair and consistent compensation, a safe work environment, and a say in the workplace decisions that will affect our lives--not just for graduate students, but to all workers and students in our institution.

So far, Purdue University’s return to in-person instruction plan has not satisfied these expectations.

Purdue must do better. 

We call on Purdue’s administration to commit to creating an inclusive, community-focused workplace by meeting the following demands in a timely manner. 

Demands

Transparency. Workers deserve to understand the rationale used to inform judgments and decisions that affect their lives and workplaces. Transparency is an essential part of decision-makers’ accountability to the communities they serve. Thus, we call upon the relevant Purdue decision-makers to do the following:

1. Release the  Safe Campus Task Force’s full report on the science underlying Purdue’s decisions around campus reopening. 

2. Release the detailed criteria for closure and transition to online instruction if an outbreak of COVID-19 was to occur on campus and what actions will be taken to ensure that groups with higher vulnerability are protected, such as (but not limited to) low-income students, part-time staff, and international students from deportation .

3. Release details of the decision making process that led to the creation of the Protect Purdue Plan.  

4. Release the guidelines used to determine which CARES act requests will be granted, and amend these guidelines to reflect the lived reality of graduate workers at Purdue.

5. Release information related to Purdue’s attempts to claim protection from liability if staff or students contract COVID from returning to in-person instruction and operations.

Participatory Decision Making.Workers and students are acutely aware of the impact of decisions on their daily lives. At this time, those who are making decisions at Purdue are not those most directly impacted and are often removed from campus life. To ensure that all members of the community are served by decisions, we must be included in decision-making processes. We call on Purdue to include community members in decisions.

1. Include one or more voting representatives (not administrator proxies) from every impacted employment or student position on all decision-making committees. This includes undergraduates, grad workers, post-docs, faculty members, clerical staff, and facilities staff. 

2. Address systemic racism at Purdue University by engaging with the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) organizers and activists on campus. Create actionable changes based upon their demands and calls to action.

3. Commit to soliciting input from all parties who may be affected by decisions and publishing the results of these data collection attempts before publishing press releases or making statements to the media.

Workplace safety for all. All workers must be provided with a safe and equitable environment in which to do their work. Likewise, students must be provided with a safe and equitable environment in which to learn. It is deeply unfair and wrong to force students and workers to choose between their physical safety and their job security, visa status, or education.

1. Codify policies around the enforcement of mask-wearing. These policies must account for and address the fact that enforcement policies are disproportionately applied to groups often targeted by punitive approaches- Black, immigrant, and disabled populations.

2. Provide free face masks at the entrance of every building on campus, and a supply of face masks to instructors for the classroom, in addition to the mask kits the university has already committed to providing.

3. Allow all students to opt into online-only learning or hybrid learning setups without risk to their funding or visa status. 

4. Hire and retain a immigration lawyer for ISS that is available for all international students

5. Join the lawsuit challenging the ICE policy forcing international students to be on campuses for courses.
  
6. Allow all students to fulfill research credits remotely, or with very limited in-person contact. Particularly those who are at increased health risk for negative outcomes from COVID-19 infections or visa status risk.  

Fair compensation for all. Under extreme and novel conditions such as the ongoing pandemic, workers are taking on a greater amount of labor than usual, to provide a safe, accessible, high-quality education for students. As such, they must be compensated fairly for this additional workload, as well as the risks they face returning to in-person instruction.

1.Provide hazard pay for front line workers at Purdue.

2. Grant all faculty and graduate RAs and TAs a one-year timeline extension

3. Provide additional pay for workers who are asked to take on additional duties during the COVID-19 crisis (i.e. increased sanitization, different course structures, etc.). 

4. Guarantee unlimited paid sick time for all workers, including graduate workers.

5. Guarantee funding protection for Purdue faculty, students and staff that need workplace accommodations for their health or others in their household (especially grad staff that seek accommodations)

Healthcare Infrastructure. Purdue’s healthcare infrastructure is poorly equipped to handle even a normal level of demand for medical and psychological care needed by undergraduate and graduate workers. This is evidenced by long wait times for appointments and frequent staff turnover. While the creation of the Protect Purdue Healthcare Center is a good start to address specific pandemic-related needs, such as COVID testing and contact tracing, little mention has been made of the resources that will be made available to provide treatment. Including the mental health concerns that are associated with the global pandemic. It is vital that Purdue University reinvest in its healthcare infrastructure to support those who contract mild cases of COVID that require outpatient care so that local healthcare systems are not overburdened. We call on Purdue administration to meet the following demands: 

1. Increase the capacity of PUSH  to accommodate the expected influx of people requiring treatment for mild COVID symptoms, as well as for other conditions

2. Increase funding to CAPS to accommodate the expected increase in need for psychological services due to COVID.

3. Increase the number of POC and Black healthcare providers on campus (mental and physical) and provide competitive pay and benefits to retain these providers.

4. Increase the number of LGBTQ+ healthcare providers on campus and provide competitive pay and benefits to retain these providers.

5. Provide space for any and all Purdue community members to self-quarantine, free of charge, beginning August 1. The current fee makes quarantining cost-prohibitive for many graduate RAs/TAs and undergraduates living with roommates off-campus. It also disproportionately affects international students.

We are aware and appreciative of the resources, care, and planning that Purdue University’s Protect Purdue team and administration have put into a plan for the return to campus. However, as it stands, the Protect Purdue Plan still does not adequately address the concerns of many members of the Purdue community. We strongly believe that this is due to the systematic exclusion of the Purdue workforce and community at large from the decisions that will affect our lives and workplace environment. The Purdue administration is asking workers and students who are the backbone and lifeblood of the university to make significant sacrifices in order to make returning to in-person instruction a success. In return, we expect Purdue to live up to its promises to provide a safe, equitable, democratic workplace, as well as a good education for its students. We ask Purdue’s administration and other relevant decision-makers to respond by implementing these demands in a timely, transparent manner.



Image credit: Nikos Frazier, 2020