CSU Students for Quality Education advocates criticized the California State University system for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and provided a list of demands in a Friday news conference hosted on Zoom.
“We are here today to bring awareness to a large group of people who have fallen into a gray area during this COVID-19 pandemic; college students,” said Hayli Antoniewicz, a Students for Quality Education representative from California State University, Long Beach.
The student movement was formed in 2007 after the Great Recession to deal with students’ issues in the aftermath of an economic crisis.
The California Faculty Association participated in the Zoom call discussion in solidarity with the student representatives.
“We have made an intentional and conscious decision to organize and form an anti-racist and social justice unionism frame,” said Margarita Berta-Avila, University of California, Sacramento California Faculty Association chapter president from California State University, Sacramento. “Which means we are organizing to ensure that the CSU is not only a vantage point for our faculty, but our students and their future.”
After discussing the perceived problems students are facing during the pandemic, advocates voiced solutions to address refunding student fees, eliminating student debt, paying CSU employees and providing free housing.
“The CSU system’s students need far more sustainable support from the system as a whole and their individual campuses in the wake of campus closure and the transition to online courses,” said Mei Curry, a California State University, Stanislaus Students for Quality Education representative.
The representatives demanded the CSU system fully reimburse school fees and services that were suspended because of COVID-19. Additionally, they said the CSU campuses should create an emergency stipend for recently unemployed student workers and another for students currently enrolled. Faculty members and staff should also receive the same pay now as they would have during in-person instruction, said the student representatives.
The student movement also called for the full cancelation of student debt and a wealth tax to pay for these measures.
To address resource instability, representatives also demanded that the CSU campuses provide safe, free and universal guaranteed housing for students during the pandemic and enforce a full rent, mortgage and utility freeze.
The student movement also called for the formation of a paid student oversight task force, named by their organization, to maximize transparency in the CSU’s use of the coronavirus relief bill funds.
They also demanded that all 23 CSU campuses provide a solidified date for an in-person commencement ceremony for the graduating class of Spring 2020.
Finally, the organization’s representatives said emergencies such as the pandemic show the need for more student input in the CSU system’s operations.
“These demands recognize that our students, faculty and staff are people first and with that, their basic human needs can no longer go unrecognized in the CSU system,” said Tamiel Mckee Bey, a San Diego State University Students for Quality Education representative.
Alejandro Bupara, a student representative for California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, said that the demands were made with the interests of the impacted community in mind. , said that the demands were made with the interests of the impacted community in mind.
“Our dream for the future is simple: a society in which CSU students, faculty and staff are safe, loved and well provided for at all levels of our lives,” Alejandro Bupara said. “We hope [others] will share in the dream with us.”
