Senator Marion Santo ’23 proposed a resolution to make online courses more accessible for students with disabilities during Tuesday’s Undergraduate Senate meeting.
Discussion about the resolution comes after the University announced that the first two weeks of winter quarter will be fully online and amid rising COVID-19 cases nationwide. The United States reported over one million cases on Monday — a single-day record.
The resolution, co-authored by Santo and Senator Joshua Jankelow ’24, would require professors to record lectures and attend an annual training on beneficial online learning practices, led by the Office of Accessible Education and students with disabilities. Senators planned to further develop the resolution at a future meeting.
Santo also introduced a resolution calling for the C-10 Committee, the group tasked with examining current student accountability policies, to include doxxing as a violation of Stanford’s Fundamental Standard.
Santo worked in collaboration with the Graduate Student Council (GSC) to craft the anti-doxxing resolution, which follows debate on anti-doxxing policies during a Faculty Senate meeting on Nov. 18. In this meeting, faculty senators tabled a vote on four anti-doxxing recommendations put forth by the Planning and Policy Board Subcommittee on Campus Climate. Members of the committee resigned after the vote, and Santo contended that “no consequences took place” for perpetrators targeting Stanford community members in online spaces.
The subcommittee’s recommendations called for prohibiting the transfer of “information, by any means, to an outside organization or individual affiliated with such an organization, including media outlets, with the intent to harm, harass or defame any Stanford student, faculty member, or staff member,” as written in the draft resolution.
Santo said she felt “disappointed” that these policies were not approved by the Faculty Senate.
The Undergraduate Senate’s approval of the resolution would urge the Faculty Senate to “acknowledge that the physical and emotional harm of doxxing,” Santo said, adding that their decision to table anti-doxxing recommendations “perpetuated more harm in the Stanford community.” The proposed resolution states that student leaders have “feared being candid with their opinions” in Senate meetings due to doxxing.
In addition to the change to the Fundamental Standard, the resolution states that the Faculty Senate should engage in “continued conversation around issues with Stanford’s campus climate, particularly for minority students, faculty, and staff, during at least one Faculty Senate meeting every academic year.” The Undergraduate Senate will hold a vote on the resolution during next week’s meeting.
The Senate unanimously approved three quick grants for Stanford Women in Finance, Stanford DJ Society and Adopt a Science Olympiad Team as well as one standard grant for ArtX.