Rider University has been forced to take extraordinary measures in response to the COVID19 virus. Starting this week for the rest of the Spring semester, all classes on campus have been suspended. Classes will be moved to an online forum from this point on. This is a huge drawback to both students and faculty for many reasons. First, not all teachers are trained for online learning, in neither the technology nor technique, and have written their syllabi for in-person lecture and lab. Second, students living in other time zones, such as the west coast and, even worse, internationally, have to attend online classes at unreasonable times of both the morning and night. Third, there is also the issue of those students who do not have a computer or have limited access to a computer or wifi in general. This puts them at a disadvantage for the course making the playing field for grades uneven.  For these reasons and others, the administration should allow the courses to be graded as a pass-fail grading structure this semester. This way, a student’s GPA will not suffer when under normal circumstances they would have been higher taking the same class and relieve some of the stress that has come with dealing with the COVID19 outbreak, including housing, finances, supplies, and staying healthy. It is unfair to expect that all students can learn the same, many students cannot learn properly from an online course. All students regularly have the option of taking an online course every semester and prefer taking a lecture course, but this does not give them that option and puts many students at a disadvantage grade-wise. Additionally, many of the services that are provided at the university, such as tutors, student accommodations, SI sessions, and many other helpful resources are not readily available while doing online courses. For the sake of both the students' academic careers and mental health, we are calling on the Rider University administration and Gregory G. Dell'Omo to make classes this semester graded as pass/fail.

Thank you

(This petition and the points within were inspired by similar petitions, like those posted by students of Fordham University and Quinnipiac University)