Our Weekend Roundup is released on Sunday mornings during the school year and features an engaging rundown of the news from the previous week in the form of a briefing. It also includes editors’ picks from our Arts & Life, Grind, Opinions and Satire sections, as well as a list of upcoming events to watch out for in the next week. Subscribe here to receive emails like this.

stanforddaily.com | March 29, 2020   Click to view this email in your browser

Weekend Roundup     Welcome, at last, to “spring break.” Here are some highlights from The Daily’s coverage over the past week, as well as a look ahead to spring quarter.     All spring quarter classes will be satisfactory/no-credit The Faculty Senate voted on Thursday to approve a mandatory satisfactory/no-credit grading (S/NC) scale for all classes outside the Graduate School of Business, the School of Law and the M.D. program within the School of Medicine, though those schools may opt in. The grading system, an attempt at academic equity amid the widespread disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, passed the Faculty Senate with a 36-15 vote. Among respondents to an Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) survey, though, mandatory S/NC was the least popular option, trailing an A/no-credit proposal (amended to A+/A/no-credit after the survey) endorsed by the ASSU and an opt-in credit/no-credit system disproportionately favored by students who reported that online learning presents no serious barriers. Under the S/NC system, students will need to get at least a C- in a class to receive credit. Though spring quarter S/NC classes have not yet been approved to fill general education or major requirements, the Faculty Senate “strongly urges” that they be counted.     Grad students, few undergrads remain on campus Grad students living in the Escondido Village studios are petitioning for transparency from the University administration, after Graduate Life Office deans said that students exposed to COVID-19 had been self-quarantined in studio guest spaces. Despite California’s “shelter-in-place” order, some grad students are also reporting pressure to go into the lab to continue their research, a dynamic one student called “publish and perish.” With the vast majority of undergraduates now at home, only around 640 students remain in their on-campus residences. Some are being reassigned to different dorms; the University is citing isolation, vulnerability to crime and the potential need for self-isolation space as reasons to move students from sparsely populated houses.     Pay continuation excludes contracted workers On March 16, the University committed to pay continuation for its regular employees. Contracted workers — including more than 200 custodians responsible for cleaning academic facilities and 56 kitchen staff serving on the Row — were not included. Now, UG2 workers are expected to continue working through California’s “shelter-in-place” order without the option to opt out of work, receive paid sick leave without a deduction of accumulated sick days or receive hazard pay. Row kitchen staff are facing unemployment after Residential Education (ResEd) decided to suspend their contracts for spring. The community has responded with a petition calling on the University to support all staff and a GoFundMe to subsidize lost salaries for Row staff that has raised $22,900 as of Saturday night. Meanwhile, student residential staff have started a petition of their own after learning Friday night that seniors approved for a post-graduation quarter but who are not living on campus are not eligible to receive spring staff stipends. The student staff, who say that ResEd’s eligibility requirements reverse previous announcements, are calling on the University to pay all residential staff, regardless of enrollment or housing status. Angry that Stanford is only paying spring stipends for those enrolled in classes or spending their post-graduation quarter on campus, student staff are calling on the University to pay all residential staff, regardless of enrollment or housing status.   Here’s what else is happening:     For the latest coronavirus updates, follow along with The Daily’s live blog, which includes a map of confirmed cases and a timeline of Stanford’s response to the outbreak. As of Saturday night, Stanford is aware of 29 people who are “connected to the Stanford community either as faculty, staff, students or postdocs and who have received positive COVID-19 test results.” Stanford Health Care opened a drive-thru testing site, part of which is pictured above, at the Galvez parking lot on campus on Wednesday. The site can test about 150 pre-approved patients a day and brings Stanford’s total capacity for drive-thru tests up to about 630 a day across seven locations. All summer Bing Overseas Studies Programs have been canceled, affecting 348 students across 16 summer quarter, overseas seminar and summer internship programs. University administrators aren’t budging on spring quarter tuition, despite a petition with more than 1,500 signatures. The digital library JSTOR is expanding access to some of its content, prompting supporters of open-access information to remember the legacy of Aaron Swartz, a former Stanford student who died by suicide after being arrested for mass downloading JSTOR articles to share with the public.   Social distancing? Check out one of our editors’ picks:     In Opinions, both ASSU leadership and The Daily Editorial Board weigh in on the Faculty Senate’s decision to mandate spring classes be S/NC. In Sports, Inyoung Choi profiles 49ers administrator Hannah Gordon J.D. ’08, one of the few female executives in the male-dominated NFL. In the Grind, Susana Benevidez reflects on what a canceled commencement ceremony means to a first-generation college student. Arts & Life’s Natalie Francis explores the world of socially distanced music, whether via livestream or merely appreciated from 6 feet apart. And in Satire, Patrick Monreal reports on a student who left campus with only Nerd Nation shirts and Fireball in tow.     That’s all for this roundup. Though The Daily is suspending its print edition, we’ll continue to bring you updates on coronavirus, online spring and more through our email newsletters, social media platforms and our website, stanforddaily.com.     Are we missing something? Click here to send us a tip.