We are a group of newly admitted international PhD students at the University of Washington. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us now have difficulties entering the U.S. to activate F-1 student status before the autumn quarter 2020 starts, which may have a fierce impact on our study, research, and funding. Thus, we wish to put forth our request with the university about our employment status and academic experience this fall.

We sincerely appreciate UW's efforts in helping its international students with their studies, health, and safety, which is expressed in the statement of President Ana Mari Cauce. Much of the perplexity has been dispelled when the government rescinded the 7/6 F-1 student directive. However, certain demands of the incoming international PhD students, as the case of many of us, are still left unaddressed.

Our primary concern is how the TA/RAship will be processed if we will not be able to be physically present in the U.S. this fall. Based on the current responses from some UW faculty, we have all noticed the high risk of losing our PhD funding and even guaranteed tuition waiver in the case of remote learning. We do not want this to happen and sincerely ask for the support from the UW official, as most of us, indeed, would be able to commit to our TA- or RA-related work remotely as required.

The following petition provides more details regarding our requests:

1. Allow incoming international PhD students to study/work from outside the U.S. while maintaining their tuition waiver and TA/RA ship regardless of their F-1 status.

2. Provide assistance for incoming PhD students who will have a delayed arrival after the autumn quarter starts. The assistance should include but not be limited to postponing the start date of the programs on I-20 and scheduling the arrival dates upon students' requests.

We have also collected some schemes from peer institutions who are facing similar circumstances. For example, UC Santa Barbara announces that new international students can enroll in courses from outside the U.S. If students were given a funding package that includes employment for the fall quarter, they are still eligible for that employment, even if they must initially perform their duties from their current country of residence. More details of similar schemes are attached in the Supplementary Materials.

Thank you for reading our petition. We are most grateful to the University of Washington's endeavor of consideration for the benefits of incoming international huskies. It is quite a tough time for every one of us due to the pandemic situation. We cannot afford to sit around doing nothing at the risk of losing our legal status or being banned from entering the U.S. for too long, which might have a big impact on our future study. Therefore, we launch this petition to let you know our demands. As part of the UW family, we believe you would take prompt actions to help us get through such a difficult time. So we implore you to carefully consider our situation and adapt the school policies to students' needs.


Signatures of incoming huskies who are eager to start our graduate research and study on the normal track:

1. Yifan Sun - Geography PhD Program, sunyifan@uw.edu

2. Danwei Zhu - JSIS PhD Program, danwezhu@uw.edu

3. Xin Wang - Electrical Engineering PhD Program, xwang99@uw.edu

4. Yuying Xie - Geography PhD Program, yxie993@uw.edu

5. Kaiyu Zhang - Bioengineering PhD Program, kennyz@uw.edu

6. Yijun Tong - Electrical Engineering PhD Program, yijunt@uw.edu

7. Jingwen Zhang - Information Systems PhD Program, jingwenz@uw.edu

8. Yifei He - Materials Science and Engineering PhD Program, yh549@uw.edu

9. Lanyi Zhu - Political Science PhD Program, lanyizhu@uw.edu

10. Yuan Wang - Art History PhD Program, yuanw25@uw.edu

11. Jiaxin Feng - Geography PhD Program, jxfeng@uw.edu

12. Linxuan Wu - Epidemiology PhD Program, lwu3@uw.edu

13. Yinsheng Wang - Industrial and Systems Engineering PhD Program, yinshw@uw.edu

14. Ruoxi Shang - Human Centered Design & Engineering PhD Program, rxshang@uw.edu

15. Meng Zhou - Biomedical Engineering PhD Program, mengz25@uw.edu

16. Cheng Chen - Econometrics and Quantitative Economics PhD Program,  cchen09@uw.edu

17. Hai Wang - Communication PhD Program, wanghai@uw.edu 

18. Jieyu Zhang - CSE PhD Program, jieyuz2@uw.edu

19. Yujuan Fu - Biomedical Informatics PhD Program, velvinfu@uw.edu

20. Kexin Song - English PhD Program, kexins61@uw.edu

21. Rui Chen - Electrical Emgineering PhD Program, charey@uw.edu

22. Ye Liu - Information Systems PhD Program, yeliu@uw.edu

23. Yilin Song - Biostatistics PhD Program, yilins6@uw.edu 

24. Feng Lin - Industrial and Systems Engineering PhD Program, limper@uw.edu

25. Ziyi Zhao-Feminist Studies PhD Program, zhaox355@uw.edu 

26. Zhang Yi - Bioengineering PhD Program, yizhang1@uw.edu

27. Mingming Cai - URBDP PhD program, mmcai@uw.edu



Signatures of students who support our petition:

1. Vincent Zheng - Civil Engineering PhD Program

2. Obinna Ukogu - Applied Mathematics

3. Frances O'Shaughnessy - History PhD Program

4. Andres Guerrero-Guzman - Mathematics PhD Program

5. Brian Nugent - Mathematics PhD Program

6. Jonathan Niño - Mathematics PhD program

7. Lindsey Beach - Sociology PhD Program

8. Ignacio Tejeda - Mathematics PhD Program

9. Joseph David - Mathematics PhD Program

10. Herman Chau - Mathematics PhD Program

11. Caelan Ritter - Mathematics Program

12. Sam Roven - Mathematics PhD Program

13. Tyler McCrea - Geography MA Program

14. Kevin Tully - Mathematics PhD Program

15. Vasily Ilin - Mathematics PhD Program

16. Clara Lemme Ribeiro - Geography PhD Program

17. Sumyat Thu - English PhD Program

18. Sourojit Ghosh - HCDE PhD Program

19. Jenny Lee - Communication PhD Program

20. Aleksei Sholokhov - Applied Mathematics Program

21. Ranjana Dobal - Marketing PhD Program

22. Aamaal Akhtar - History PhD Program

23. Brooke Wolfe - Communication PhD Program

24. Kyle Kubler - Communication PhD Program

25. Angela Zhang - Biostatistics PhD Program

26. Soohyung Hur - Geography PhD Program

27. Sandesh Adhikary - CSE PhD Program

28. Nayon Park - Chemistry PhD Program

29. Pranav Malhotra - Communication PhD Program

30. Matt Poland – English PhD Program