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 other sections. Subscribe here to receive emails like this.

stanforddaily.com | April 5, 2020   Click to view this email in your browser

Weekend Roundup     Welcome to Week 2 of the quarter no one saw coming. Here are some highlights from The Daily’s coverage over the past week, as well as a look ahead — and, at the end, the latest installment of our “Humans of Stanford” series.     Workers, activists fight for pay continuation Stanford’s workers and the activists supporting them — most notably Stanford Students for Workers’ Rights (SWR) — won two substantial victories this week in their campaign for pay continuation: The University agreed to guarantee pay for all SEIU-represented direct hires through April 30, and 56 furloughed kitchen staff employed through Student Organized Services (SOS) will continue to receive pay through May 3 and benefits until the end of May. In an email to SOS staff announcing Stanford’s offer, SOS CEO Nick Peters called the pay extension “a testament to the profound upwelling of support you all [the workers] have generated from students and alumni.” SWR’s activism has included numerous Daily op-eds, petitions and a Twitter campaign that caught the eye of alumni such as former presidential candidate Julián Castro ’96 and his brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) ’96. Students, alumni and other donors have also raised over $250,000 to support laid-off workers. Despite this week’s successes, SWR is still calling for pay continuation for all Stanford workers through the end of spring quarter — including over 130 contracted workers employed by UG2, a national custodial service, who are currently set to be laid off by April 30 without pay continuation.     Stanford adapts to virtual spring With dorms and classrooms largely empty, students and staff alike are adjusting to a fully virtual spring quarter. For frosh, whose in-person residences are usually the cornerstone of the first-year social experience, dorm staff are turning to Zoom events like “Sip and Simp Sundays” or Netflix discussion clubs to build community. More formalized peer support is continuing digitally, too: The Bridge Peer Counseling Center is offering drop-in appointments via audio-only Zoom calls from 3-9 p.m. PT every day. On the academic side, some hands-on classes are proving difficult if not impossible to transfer online. Faculty whose courses extend beyond lectures or seminar-style discussions have been forced to cancel classes or otherwise make dramatic adjustments to their format, including evergreen hits like Social Dance I and II. And, this April, Stanford’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month will be held virtually for the first time. The rally, march and speak-out that usually make up Take Back the Night will be reimagined as a series of visual galleries on a landing page built specifically for the month, and other events like Denim Day will be conducted through social media.     Researchers study COVID-19 Stanford researchers across disciplines and departments have launched research projects to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on daily life via a wide range of approaches. Scientists, physicians and engineers are collaborating to find drugs and vaccines for the disease, combat personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilator shortages, test existing therapeutics in nationwide clinical trials and optimize the productivity of the work-from-home workforce. Other projects include rounding up mask decontamination methods and collecting the experiences of family caretakers, whose responsibilities have increased as the pandemic has ramped up.     Tyrell Terry declares for NBA draft Standout freshman Tyrell Terry officially declared for the 2020 NBA draft on Monday morning, confirming the suspicions of many basketball fans following a season of numerous attention-grabbing performances by the 6’2″ guard. If drafted, Terry would be the second Stanford player in two years to enter the NBA after then-sophomore forward Kezie “KZ” Okpala joined the league as the 32nd overall pick last June.   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. Symone Morales, currently a coordinator of first-generation campus-wide initiatives at UCLA, has been named the permanent FLI Office director, despite pushback from FLI students who advocated for acting director Jennifer Rolen to get the position instead. Stanford’s free safety-net clinics have closed, leaving patients to seek care at county hospital affiliates. Stanford researchers have created a smart toilet that can detect a variety of diseases and identifies a user by scanning their anus. After telling students their belongings could be shipped to them at no cost, the University is now saying that it will “ideally” set up a time for students to return to campus to retrieve their belongings. Associated Students of Stanford University elections, originally scheduled for early April, will now be held virtually in mid-May.   Procrastinating your readings? Check out one of our editors’ picks:     In Opinions, Stanford’s Center for Ethics in Society Director Rob Reich M.A. ’98 Ph.D. ’98 and Mohit Mookim ’18, a researcher at the center, stand in solidarity with the workers and activists fighting for pay continuation, arguing that Stanford should not compound the government’s mistakes by failing to pay its workers. Also in Opinions, Thomas Slabon Ph.D. ’22 urges students and professors to take advantage of a fully S/NC quarter by choosing classes and setting assignments in order for students to grow as thinkers and as individuals, not in pursuit of grades. For The Grind, Amy Zhou interviews students on how they’re using Zoom, video games, shared Google docs and more to maintain love in the time of COVID-19. In Arts & Life, Carissa Lee walks readers through the basics of adopting sourdough baking as a quarantine hobby (her apple-walnut cinnamon bun is pictured above). And in Satire, Benjamin Midler explains where University administrators’ pay cuts are going: Stanford’s most underpaid worker, head football coach David Shaw ’94.   Meet the humans of Stanford     ” … I already have two tattoos. I have this one. It’s a nurse stitching a heart. It was my first tattoo. I spent a lot of time thinking it out, then I finally got it about two weeks before coming to Stanford. I had to convince my mom, though. She doesn’t really like tattoos. I told her that I got it since I like medicine and human anatomy and stuff like that and that it relates to that. At first, she told me that she couldn’t believe I did it and thought I would back out. Then, after a while, she started complimenting my tattoo, which is nice. So, yeah, this tattoo was kind of a gateway into getting more tattoos … ” For more on Yadira Calderon ’23 and the full “Humans of Stanford” project, please visit @stanforddaily on Instagram.   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.