rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/petition/columbia-leave-of-absence?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-petition-area-columbia-leave-of-absence' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> Columbia Students for Equitable Undergraduate Policies https://actionnetwork.org/groups/columbia-students-supporting-equitable-undergraduate-policies-during-covid-19 https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/petitions/photos/000/183/745/normal/Header.jpg COLUMBIA COLLEGE & ENGINEERING PETITION FOR EQUITABLE UNDERGRADUATE POLICIES DURING COVID-19 President Bollinger has recently announced that Columbia University plans to divide the 2020-2021 school year over three terms while Provost Ira Katznelson has released the academic calendar. We hope that this will allow campus to de-densify and adjust enough to allow the resumption of in-person classes, but Columbia is still bound by federal and state-level pandemic restrictions. It is impossible to predict whether two consecutive semesters will be taught online, though this seems likely as Governor Cuomo’s phased reopening plan for New York State will permit schools to reopen only in its final phase. Our current situation is full of immense uncertainty, and we fear that students will be forced to take classes online for a semester or more if plans for in-person instruction fall through. As we experienced last semester, this compromises all students’ quality of learning and is dangerously inequitable for students with poor technology access; financial, food, or housing insecurity; unsafe or unhealthy living conditions; or who are living in other time-zones. While Columbia University does allow students to take leaves of absence, there are often penalties such as diminished academic standing, loss of guaranteed housing, reduced financial aid, etc. that prevent many students from taking them. To ensure that Columbia University has equitable policies that allow students to maximize their education, we make the following demands: 1. Students should be allowed to take a leave of absence for one semester or year if they face financial, personal, or logistical uncertainties or medical risks, regardless of academic standing and without penalties. Current Columbia College and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences policies only permit students to take leaves of absence if they are in good academic standing. The SEAS leave of absence policy only allows one-year leaves and requires students to apply to return after a one-semester leave. Students should be allowed to take a semester or year-long leave of absence regardless of academic standing and without penalties. We ask for semester-long leave eligibility for maximum flexibility, such as in the case that Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 are entirely online but the Summer 2021 semester is not and students wish to take classes in-person then.Many students have diminished family and personal incomes; housing, food, and financial insecurity; unsafe or unhealthy living conditions; poor technology access; and face circumstances that make studying virtually impossible. Many students depend upon work-study and on-campus employment during the school year to pay for living expenses. It is impossible to predict whether consecutive semesters of the 2020-2021 school year will be held in-person, while student work opportunities are likely to be reduced regardless. Asking students in such precarious situations to study online is dangerously inequitable. International students face increased Visa acquisition and travel difficulties due to global travel bans. Many students are in different time zones. This puts them at a critical disadvantage if there is any synchronous instruction or testing set to the EST timezone. If classes resume on-campus, asking students barred from entry to the United States to take online versions (assuming they have adequate technology access) is still inequitable. 2. Taking a leave of absence should not have any deleterious effects on students’ academic standing, Columbia Student Health Insurance, guaranteed housing, or financial aid. The students who most need to take a leave of absence due to the challenges of COVID-19 are the ones who depend the most on financial aid, guaranteed housing, Columbia Student Health Insurance, and scholarships contingent upon satisfactory academic performance in order to attend Columbia. Columbia University should ensure these students can take time off without negatively affecting them when classes resume on-campus. Academic transcripts should be clearly annotated with COVID-19 as the reason for why students are taking a leave of absence. If students take a leave of absence after the CC pass/D/fail deadline or the SEAS drop deadline, the semester should not appear on their academic record and should not count toward the eight-semester graduation limit. Students must retain their right to Columbia Student Health Insurance for both the duration of their leave and the remainder of their studies. Students should continue to receive guaranteed housing upon returning from their leave of absence. Their position in the housing lottery should correspond to their class year based upon their post-leave anticipated graduation date. (For example, if a rising sophomore who is part of the Class of 2023 takes a year-long leave of absence, when they return in Fall 2021 they should have the same housing lottery process as a student who normally matriculated into the Class of 2024.) Students who take a leave of absence should receive the same amount of Columbia University institutional grant aid as they would if they were normally matriculated into the class of their post-leave anticipated graduation date. Moreover, the Columbia Financial Aid and Educational Financing office should prepare its officers and create materials to help students adjust their educational finances for a leave of absence. 3. The student contribution must be waived. Most students’ summer internships and jobs have been cancelled due to COVID-19. Many families are experiencing financial hardship due to lost employment, rising costs of living, and other struggles. Asking students to still pay a student contribution during this pandemic is unfeasible, dangerous, and most detrimental to first-generation, low-income, and already marginalized students. While we applaud the Summer Earnings Grant introduced recently by Columbia Financial Aid, the grant has limited funding and will not be able to cover all eligible applications. Moreover, the economic fallout and downward pressure on students' earnings from COVID-19 will last beyond the 2020-2021 school year. The student contribution has historically and systemically made Columbia less accessible to low-income and marginalized students; the time for its removal is long overdue. We stand in solidarity with the Columbia People’s Coronavirus Response petition and the Graduate Workers of Columbia, who have endorsed this petition. We are deeply grateful for their support and assistance. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/columbia-leave-of-absence