Students Demand a Better Response from Sarah Lawrence College

We, Sarah Lawrence College students, are deeply concerned by the plan proposed by our administrators for Fall 2020 reopening. We believe that it fails to provide the detailed information necessary for us to make decisions for our futures and fails to address the inequities inherent to a hybrid on-campus and remote learning experience. Without a thorough review of the plan that includes a diversity of student perspectives, we believe new policies will only exacerbate existing inequalities at the College.

We refuse to sit quietly as decisions about our future are made for us, without our participation or consent.

Many of us will be learning remotely, lacking access to crucial resources such as the library, art studios, athletic facilities, and our cherished professors. Despite these glaringly obvious changes, we are being asked to pay full tuition––$56,020 before aid––with no guarantee that access to these resources will be provided through other means.

The College has not offered adequate compensation for these losses such as innovative partnerships with libraries or universities in other communities, stipends, or fully financed subscriptions to important services. Nor has the school invested in a robust, reliable, and sustainable support system to address students' needs in this economic, political, and health-crisis moment.

We are appalled that the College has not welcomed students to contribute to these vital conversations or solicited our insight. We appreciate the Q & A sessions, but also draw attention to the fact that students would have fewer questions if they had been included from the get-go.

We demand a seat at the table for Fall 2020 planning.

Our input is not only valuable, it is indispensable. This lack of student representation in the making of the Fall 2020 Plan directly contradicts the College's claim that it values students as the leaders of their own education. It is a shame that the College has not made space for student voices in its decision-making process. Outreach could have included consulting the student senate and releasing a survey on what students hope to see, as other schools––like Colorado College––have done.

We address this petition to President Cristle Collins Judd, Provost and Dean of Faculty Kanwal Singh, Dean of Studies and Student Life Daniel Trujillo, and all other deans and decision-makers, whose duty it is to represent students and ensure a safe and just learning experience for all. We hope that leaders on campus who support our demands publicly state their support and advocate for us in whatever ways they can.

Our demands address health, accessibility, housing and food security, academics, tuition, financial aid, sustainability, and, above all, our rights as stakeholders in this institution to an inclusive decision-making process.

We synthesized needs put forth by students to the best of our ability; however, our list is far from exhaustive. We urge administrators––independently and as a collective––to actively seek input from us, your students.

We are not just students at this school––we are this school. Sarah Lawrence College does not, cannot, and will not exist without us. 

We the students demand that Sarah Lawrence College:

1. Give us a seat at the table. Before making any additional plans for Fall 2020, first host an open town hall for students as soon as possible, then create a Fall 2020 planning committee that includes student representatives.

2. Reduce tuition by at least 5%. It's unfair to ask students to pay full tuition when we do not know what to expect. Honor the fact that our tuition is calculated to fund  resources that the majority of us will not have access to. We thank the College for extending the due date for bills to July 31, 2020, so long as they provide tuition reduction, clear explanation of our costs & fees under the Fall 2020 circumstances, and thoroughly respond to our demands.

3. Ensure access to resources and campus jobs. This may mean: partnering with local university libraries; financing subscriptions to major media outlets so that students have equitable access to information while off-campus, as other colleges, including Oberlin, Wesleyan, Vassar, Bowdoin, and Swarthmore have been doing for years; shipping books, food through services like Blue Apron, and art supplies to students; providing remote jobs for work-study students. 

4. Release detailed information about online learning. Which professors will be returning to campus? How will we conduct interviews, one of the most integral aspects of a Sarah Lawrence education? How will visual, performing, and musical arts be conducted? We cannot make informed decisions without answers to these questions.

5. Guarantee housing and transportation to all students in need. Reinstate room assignments in as many cases as possible, prioritize students who demonstrate the need for accessible living when allocating limited on-campus housing, and connect students to affordable off-campus housing.Provide transportation, either through a shuttle service and MetroCards, or by direct payment for new travel costs. 

6. Increase mental health services. Create new online support groups for grief, trauma, and anxiety and increase the amount appointments students can schedule with psychologists for free. Ensure that athletic coaches are in constant communication with their student athletes to support their mental health while they are unable to participate in sports.

7. Allocate the Health Services fee of $290 to provide free Personal Protective Equipment for students, more mental health services, and resources for students with disabilities, chronic illness, or other significant health needs. If it is not allocated this way, eliminate the fee.

8. Outline how the College will implement virus precautions and hold community members accountable to them. Ensure that COVID-19 testing is free and accessible to all students, faculty, and staff through a testing center on campus. Design non-punitive methods of holding community members accountable to following CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

9. Give a stipend to students on financial aid who are living off-campus. The stipend should be in the form of a direct deposit of $600 at a minimum, the College's calculation of the minimum amount international students should consider for books and personal expenses per semester. This stipend would support students' access to resources typically available on campus, such as books and research materials, athletic facilities, technology, and health services, including sexual healthcare.

10. Create a new fund dedicated to students' needs during the health crisis. Call on alumni to support a new flexible source of funds for students who experience emergencies, hardships, and other unforeseeable challenges for the duration of this health emergency. 

11. Support students in creating a mutual aid fund. Students are following the lead of our peers at places like Scripps College, where student activists have created successful mutual aid funds and are working on a resource guide to help students at other institutions do the same.

12. Ask international students to share their specific needs––and then respond.

13. Keep the Food Sharing Space open with new virus precautions. As we continue to deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic, it is incumbent upon the College to preserve current initiatives that increase food security on-campus, as well as generate new organizations and resources dedicated to food security.

14. Guarantee staff employed by the college have job security and wages that reflect the risks of working in-person during a global health crisis. While we recognize the College cannot act on this demand for its contracted AVI workers, students hope that by doing so for its own employees, the College will set an example for AVI to do the same. 

15. Lift the cap on transfer credits from outside institutions until in-person classes resume for all students. Students should be allowed to pursue coursework at local state and community colleges without being penalized. These credits should count toward relevant distribution areas but not the transfer credit limit. 

16. Allow for Pass/Fail grading at no penalty to students. While we are aware the College has chosen not to instate universal pass/fail, we believe inequities students face in completing coursework have not been fully addressed and therefore the College cannot guarantee an equitable learning experience. Until this changes, students should be able to opt for pass/fail at no detriment to their academic progress, at the College and beyond. We ask that the College advocate for students who pursue Pass/Fail.

17. Provide faculty with resources to support students remotely, as both teachers and mentors. Our dons are crucial to our experience at Sarah Lawrence. They are important mentors as we work towards a more just world; stand up against the violent racism of our government, police, and general public; and cope with grief, having lost friends, family, and community members. 

18. Release up-to-date information on the College's finances. We ask for transparency. We deserve to know where and how our money is allocated, what the school is choosing to invest in, and to be informed on the school's overall financial health.

19. Acknowledge that the proposed hybrid in-person & remote plan will exacerbate systemic inequalities and insecurities at SLC. President Judd's letter––while thorough in terms of health and safety guidelines––failed to address the severe economic stress shaping students' and families' decisions. She neglected to address the ways in which the current pandemic disproportionately affects the College's students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. We ask her to follow Vassar College's lead in acknowledging that, whatever the plans for the fall semester, a school's responsibility is to commit to anti-racism; restorative community care practices; and social accountability.

20. Commit to creating a comprehensive sustainability strategy. This will ensure a just future for the Fall 2020 semester––and beyond.

We want to see our school, Sarah Lawrence College, take this opportunity to set an example for other institutions. And, most importantly, to retain its own students. We released a survey to gauge students' feelings on Fall 2020: Over half the students who responded they would be more likely to return to campus if the changes they requested were implemented.

Among us, we have the tools to create a system that works for all of us, not just those who can afford it. 

We recognize the Diaspora Coalition and allies for their activism and thank them for the example they have set for students who follow. We ask the administration to review the demands voiced during the 2019 Fifty Years of Shame Westlands Sit In action. Though the demands were made under different circumstances, they remain critically relevant today. 

As part of addressing systemic racism, our community must recognize that the College was built on stolen land and that, as an institution, the school has benefited from elitism and institutionalized racism. We must face this history as we fight for a better future. It is time for the College to commit to enduring anti-racist, anti-classist, and radical feminist change. 

To the President, Provost, and Deans: Your students have shown a commitment to making Sarah Lawrence a more just, equitable, healthy, and safe community for all. We are not asking—we are demanding—that the administration do the same. 

We will collect student signatures until 5pm EST Monday, July 6, 2020. If you are a parent, alum, faculty or staff, please email the administration to show your support of our demands.

We ask that––by 5pm EST Friday, July 10, 2020––the administration releases 1) an apology for not including students earlier on, 2) a schedule of town hall style meetings with students and administrators, 3) an action plan and timeline for responding to the rest of our demands.

There is no SLC without us. So stand with us, enact our demands, or say goodbye to our dollars, our passion, and the fruits of our intellectual and artistic labor.

This is our education. And together, it is our school. We deserve to participate in this process. We deserve better.