Due to the Coronavirus outbreak and shutdowns, classes and exams are now being held online, as well as office hours and tutoring services. Because of this, the quality of instruction, and the ability to approach resources, have been significantly hindered.

Covid-19 has caused many traumas and stresses for the whole nation.

To alleviate some of those stresses, on Wednesday, April 1st, 2020, UC Santa Barbara sent out an email explaining a waiver passed by the Academic Senate authorizing departments at the school to allow students to take up to 8 units Pass/No Pass and have it applied to the major.

Under UC Santa Barbara's waiver, students would be given the option to take their classes as P/NP or as a letter-grade, which will give the student the discretion to decide what is best for his or her own GPA, grad school applications or CPA firm offers.

Campus departments have overwhelmingly opted-in to this waiver.

Humanities and STEM majors alike have opted-in, and even the Statistics department which originally said they weren't going to, eventually decided to opt-in to this temporary grading system to offer some solace to students.

In sharp contrast, the Economics/Economics and Accounting department at UCSB stated early on that they were not going to opt-in, prior to discussing it with much of the professors or hearing from students and parents. When asked about their decision, the department chair claimed that "it is not possible" to take courses in the major as P/NP, offering no further explanation even though this is clearly not the case.

We are asking collectively that UC Santa Barbara's Economics and Economics and Accounting department opt-in to the P/NP waiver for the Spring 2020 quarter for the main reasons below:

- To offer fair grading treatment to all the departments on campus.

- To reduce some of the stresses placed on Economics students

- To keep Economics students' GPA competitive and give them a fighting chance in the job market against the other 22M unemployed people who have experience.