Student Issues

No information of a spread on campus was released by NAU until Tyler Best blew the whistle in his Daily Sun article in early August. After that, NAU came out saying there was one positive case. A day later, four people were moved into the isolation space at Gillenwater Hall (per anonymous source).

NAU reported seven cases two weeks later (keep in mind that this reporting came from the Coconino County Dashboard, where NAU was listed for only the students who had included the 86001 zip code in their address). However, someone in the isolation space was able to count fifteen occupied rooms. The math did not add up.

NAU reported fifty-three cases two weeks after that, on September 12th. Yet an anonymous source counted over ninety meals being delivered to Gillenwater Hall that same day.

As of September 15th, there were ninety-six cases reported. Simultaneously, NAU emailed residents of the Honors College, Roseberry Hall, and Campus Heights, telling them they had to move in order to make room for more isolation spaces.

The next day, after students were already being told they would have to move out of their living arrangements, Rita Cheng announced that there were 273 cases. This was almost a 600% increase in one week. Rita Cheng went on in her email boasting about NAU's nationally ranked engineering program in the next paragraph.

These 273 cases do not match up with the Coconino County Dashboard that is reporting only 123 cases. Where did the other 150 cases come from? If they were off-campus, then why had previous reports not include such a variable?

Do we know where these cases came from? No. NAU claims HIPAA and FERPA prevent them from sharing this information. However, in a recent Washington Post article, top educational lawyers claimed HIPAA and FERPA only protect the individual identities of the positive testers, and not where the cases are (Universities Can’t Use Privacy Laws to Withhold Data on Coronavirus Outbreaks, Experts Say).

More recently, NAU has been backdating cases. While they are technically reporting them, it is a form of hiding information. To read more, go to our COVID page.

In a recent SETNAU survey, students were asked to answer whether they believed that NAU has their best interest in mind. 100% said no.

This NAU administration praises itself on its commitment to NAU's Presidential Values when creating policy.

1. Student Centered- "We place student success at the center of our academic and service planning, policies, and programs."

Students coming back to campus was a risk NAU took knowingly, well aware of the risks. NAU did not do this because it would bolster academic success, but because they needed to extract the tuition and fees from the student body to prevent themselves from losing too much money. This is not a student conscious action, and NAU is putting students in an unnecessary risk.

2. Integrity- "We operate with fairness, honesty, and the highest ethical standards."

If this is the case, then why are faculty members afraid to speak out publicly against unsafe policies? Why are RAs being threatened to be fired or sued if they raise the alarm? NAU has been less than willing to be transparent on COVID-19 policies, and is unwilling to acknowledge or address the amount of cases on campus. Threatening to sue a grad student for raising money to provide proper PPE for faculty members on the supposed basis of defamation (a claim that NAU was not providing proper PPE to faculty) does not show integrity.

3. Diversity- "We strengthen our community through diversity of cultures, experiences, and perspectives"

Flagstaff is neighboring the Navajo Nation, a high risk population during the pandemic. We cannot strengthen our community if we are subjecting a major aspect of Northern Arizona to large risks, risks which NAU has not acknowledged. In terms of enrollment, there has been a decline in enrollment from Black, Hispanic/Latinx, international, and Polynesian student groups. Over 70% of NAU's population is white. Does NAU actually care about cultivating diversity of "cultures, experiences, and perspectives," or do they just want to appear that way?

4. Service- "We partner with our communities, in the spirit of collaboration, to provide services and expertise to support Arizona, the nation, and the world."

NAU did not consider how bringing students back to campus would affect the community. COVID-19 at NAU is COVID-19 in Flagstaff. Bringing students to campus directly harms the community that lives in Flagstaff. Likewise, overpopulation at NAU has led to more students taking housing off-campus, which has raised housing prices dramatically.

5. Discovery- "We engage in innovation to create, share, and apply new knowledge, scholarship, and artistry."

NAU is not the same as ASU or UA, despite the current admin's attempts to change that. NAU does not produce nearly as much research as the other Arizona universities, and has actively hurt itself attempting to. If NAU really cared about "knowledge, scholarship, and artistry," then why has the College of Arts and Letters (self-described on the CAL website as a "place to explore the ideas and art that define cultures") been hit so hard by the recent round of layoffs in comparison to NAU's other colleges? In the most recent firings, the College of Arts and Letters saw 35 non-renewed contracts, while the College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences saw 23, the Franke College of Business saw 16, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences saw 12, the College of Education saw 8, and the College of Engineering, Informatics, and Applied Sciences saw 7 (Northern Arizona University Eliminates More Than 100 Faculty Positions as Enrollment Outlook Darkens). NAU's upper admin cannot even commit to its own claims about caring for "knowledge, scholarship and artistry"; all they care about is their bottom-line.

6. Excellence- "We commit to the highest quality in all endeavors."

STEM departments have flourished under the current administration. However, every other department is losing funding and has borne the brunt force of the recent layoffs. Beyond academics, despite NAU having six months to come up with an extensive COVID-19 plan, NAU's COVID-19 policies appear to have been made in a week. Even now, NAU is still changing policies, a month and a half into the semester. Is this high quality?

On September 15th, NAU Residence Life sent out an email to residents of the first floor of the Honors College, all of Campus Heights, and Roseberry Hall. This email said students would have to vacate their current living arrangements to make room for more isolation spaces on campus.

A month and a half into the semester, these students were given a mandate on short notice to pack their belongings and move into locations that have not been yet disclosed to us. As compensation, students were offered $300 in NAU credit as well as people to help move their belongings. Some of these students are being moved into spaces with new roommates, or are being packed into small spaces that are not meant to hold four people. Some are considering moving off-campus. $300 does not cover even a third of the average off-campus living arrangement. Upset and distraught, students tried to plead their case to Residence Life. Conveniently, the Residence Life office was closed that night.

RAs working in the soon-to-be isolation spaces were told to either move and hope that there is another RA vacancy on campus or quit. If there is not a vacancy for them, they will be fired, now having to pay for on campus housing through NAU. Some RAs rely on the free housing and meals their jobs provide to afford university.

At the time of this mandate, NAU was only reporting fifty-nine cases on campus. The previous isolation space, Gillenwater Hall, is said to house around 115 people. If NAU was running out of space, then why were there only fifty-nine cases reported? Three days later, NAU released an email saying that there was 273 cases on campus.

The Honors College first floor being turned into an isolation space is especially problematic. The Honors College shares a singular air filtration system. The building also works as an academic center and a residential hall. This means the air being filtered in the isolation spaces is also being spread throughout the building with the rest of the healthy professors and students. This poses an unnecessary risk to the rest of the residents and students who attend classes in the building.

NAU Students Asked to Move Out of Housing for Quarantine Students Exposed to COVID-19

In the summer of 2020, during the uncertainty of the pandemic, NAU projected a 25% drop in enrollment in the coming Fall semester. To counteract this, the admin decided to implement a 20% faculty layoff. This left hundreds of faculty without healthcare or a job in the middle of a global pandemic.

The faculty senate pleaded that it would be better if higher administration making over $150,000 a year would take a 10% pay cut. The President and Provost refused. They said that they would cut their own pay but would not be implementing it over the entire higher administration. The President and Provost had received a 22% raise the previous year, which meant a 10% pay decrease would not lead to a substantial decrease in their salaries. The Provost and President only took the pay cuts because they did not want to "look bad to [the] press and legislature."

Faculty said they were willing to take pay cuts and furloughs, but again the President and Provost denied it.

NAU claims it did not cut 20%. NAU can only claim this because layoffs were disproportionately spread across all colleges and departments. As mentioned before, CAL was hit harder than CEIAS.

NAU projected a massive drop in enrollment which did not manifest. This led to a substantial gap in the amount of students to professors. Now low on faculty, classes were cancelled the day before the Fall semester began, and professors had to take on extra classes and more students.

To put it bluntly, Rita Cheng is widely hated by the community, faculty, and students. From her misuse of vacation money for personal trips to Israel and Russia to hiring her own husband for a role with little responsibility and a massive salary, Rita has misused her office for her own personal gain.

Rita Cheng lives in Scottsdale, but dictates what happens in a community over 100 miles away. She has no understanding of the community of Flagstaff or NAU's faculty members and students.

Yet we cannot place all the blame on Rita Cheng. Her presidential contract with the Arizona Board of Regents has multiple incentives ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 that encourage her to focus on higher enrollment and profits.