Student senators at Arizona Student University’s Tempe campus adopted two resolutions on Tuesday calling on the university to cancel in-person classes and release more COVID-19 data. There are 775 students and 28 ASU employees who have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the university's latest statement.
Tempe senators are concerned about the risk of holding in-person classes while COVID-19 cases rise among students.
“I think we’re putting more students in jeopardy by the minute that they’re on campus. So every minute that a student is on campus, it’s another minute that they have to possibly contract the virus," said Sen. Alexia Isais who sponsored a resolution to suspend in-person classes.
The resolution calls the university to instead conduct classes remotely until the COVID-19 pandemic subsides in Arizona.
"ASU has been incredibly irresponsible in allowing campus to open back up in the first place," Isais said. "MIchael Crow and the ASU administration need to listen to student voices, as was decided during tonight's meeting, and shut down campus now before the situation gets even worse. Student lives are at risk."
In addition, the resolution urges the university to help low-income students through a possible online transition by:
- Providing free Wi-Fi hot-spots with a much higher than 10GB data cap, as was noted by students whose data was quickly drained by hours long, high bandwidth Zoom calls, among other online school-related activities.
- The ways in which to increase this data cap are as follows:
- Provide students with more than one hotspot at a time.
- Find a different provider that is willing to accommodate for such a need.
- Announcing via email and via other visible University publications that laptops and hotspots can be rented out for free by the library so as to increase awareness and accessibility for students in need.
The Tempe senators passed another resolution calling on the university administration to regularly release COVID-19 testing data, and provide detailed information about where the cases are concentrated.
“Being able to know how many cases are in each dorm is really imperative to students making smart decisions and I think that would be really helpful," said Sen. Daniel Lopez, who sponsored that resolution.
He noted that ASU has recently begun sharing its COVID-19 testing data. The university had previously said it wouldn't citing privacy concerns.