NYU Shanghai seniors who are studying away typically return to Shanghai before their graduation, but in 2022, many graduated at other NYU campuses outside of Shanghai due to pandemic-related travel complications. Members of NYU Shanghai’s 2023 graduating class are requesting that the same policy be applied to them.

NYU’s undergraduate student government passed a letter in support of the students studying abroad last week, calling on the university to provide academic and legal aid for those who feel that it is unsafe to return to NYU’s campus in China due to recent COVID-19 outbreaks in Shanghai and Beijing.

“Several cities in China have experienced an uptick of domestically-transmitted COVID-19 infections, risking our last semester being moved online thus jeopardizing career opportunities and students’ well-being,” the letter reads. “We have seen that New York University has the global resources to support our request, and would like one more extension of these resources.”

In addition to passing the letter of support, the student government discussed the return of the Swipe it Forward campaign and recent events held to address global conflicts at its Thursday, Oct. 13 meeting in the Kimmel Center for University Life.

The Swipe it Forward campaign — a food donation program that allows students to request a free meal swipe at select NYU dining halls — is set to return next Friday, Oct. 28. Dining halls will begin to collect student meal swipe donations, which sustain the program, on Oct. 21. The program is currently limited to Jasper Kane on NYU’s Brooklyn campus and Lipton, Downstein, Kosher Eatery and Third North on its Washington Square Park campus.

“We’re going to be tabling in front of the dining halls, so we encourage everyone to come up and donate a few meal swipes which will go a really long way,” said Gallatin sophomore Mya Sato, the president of the Commuter Student Council and the Academic Affairs chair for SGA. It’s just very nice to help everyone out within the community, especially if they’re food insecure, which a lot of kids at NYU are.”

In other updates, the Student Government Assembly’s Global Humanitarian Issues Committee has also sought to  address global crises affecting the NYU community by holding events such as a recent vigil for Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman who died in police custody last month. At the vigil, students called on university president Andrew Hamilton to address the NYU community in a universitywide statement about Amini’s death and resulting global protests.

Contact Yezen Saadah at [email protected].