Pass failure Friday, October 16, 2020
University says no to pass/fail option amid COVID-19 semester
Ryan Novozinsky Oklahoma State sophomore Ashton Caufield didn’t sign up for this. Daily Zoom classes, masks around campus, and the constant worry of potentially catching the novel coronavirus can easily drive up stress levels and impact grades. Despite this, she –– and thousands of other OSU students –– are expected to carry on as if nothing changed. “Most students are struggling with online classes and professors aren’t doing anything to alleviate the stress,” sophomore Ashton Caufield said. “They’re teaching their classes like everything is normal.” University officials, however, don’t share this line of thinking. In a statement obtained by The O’Colly, OSU Provost Gary Sandefur announced that the university will not switch to a pass/no pass option this semester despite doing so in spring 2020. “We do not have plans
to switch to this option at this time,” Sandefur said. “Last spring during an unprecedented health crisis, we made an emergency decision to move classes fully online and to grant a pass/no pass grading policy for the spring semester. We have approached the fall semester quite differently, with a planned approach to academic delivery and other protocols to support student success.” This decision came in response to a student-created petition that garnered over 3,800 signatures in just three weeks. OSU student and petition creator Lacey Hickey started the movement because of the mental health impacts of a pandemic-filled semester. “I’m saddened by the outcome but certainly not surprised,” Hickey said. “This semester (OSU) has shown their students that they’re just a monetary value to them. Our campus is hurting and it doesn’t seem like the administration cares. OSU dropped the ball on academic accommodations, physical and mental health support and the basic compassion that we as students once knew.” Some experts on this topic side with students like Hickey and Caufield.
Graphic by Christian Van Curen
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OSU student looks to educate others about Armenia-Azerbaijian conflict
Courtesy of Raffi Demirjian
OSU student Raffi Demirjian is actively working to make sure the Armenian conflicts are known.
The biggest battle for most students this semester is navigating the pandemic, but Oklahoma State University student Raffi Demirjian is fighting another battle few of his peers know. That battle began long before Raffi was born and is rife with human rights violations, foreign intervention and press restrictions. Raffi, a marketing and sports management senior, is Armenian,
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Jenny Maupin
‘a small but proud The Nagogroup of people.’ rno-Karabakh Between recoverregion is 90% ing from COVID, Armenian and passing his has been classes for hunand pardreds of ticipatWe all years. ing in his The fraternity, obviously TurkishRaffi said backed he ‘has a can’t fly back Azerbaiduty to his jan govand fight for ernment people’ to spread called awareness our country for a of the complete but we do withArmeniaAzerbaidrawal what we can of Arjan conflict in the menians Nagorno- as American from the Karabakh region. citizens region. With The Turkey - Raffi Demirjian conflict is supportreaching ing the a tipping conflict, point, Armewith tensions rising nians are to levels not seen reminded of the since the ‘90s. genocide, which
killed 1.5 million of their people, at the end of World War I. “After the Armenian genocide of 1915 by the Ottoman empire in Turkey, it has just always been a sense of togetherness and survival among the Armenian community,” Raffi said. Never having visited his home country, Raffi said he was planning to visit next summer. With the unrest in the region and the pandemic, he said he doesn’t think it will happen anytime soon... See Conflict on page 5