ICE’s New Policy Affects UPR Students
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) temporarily amended their Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) and will send students back to their home countries if classes at their universities are imparted online during next semester.
The students will not be eligible to receive visas from the Department of State, which means they might not be able to complete their studies if they are sent back to their home countries.
On one hand, New York University (NYU), Stanford University and the Michigan Institute of Technology (MIT) have taken the necessary steps to keep their students in the United States, since there are some exceptions to these new amendments.
On the other hand, the University of Puerto Rico’s (UPR) Auxiliary Department of International Relations (DARI) expressed via email that they are doing “everything possible to find alternatives” for the institution’s international students.
PUCPR Employees Suspended due to Operational Adjustments
The Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico (PUCPR) announced last week that, due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 70 employees will be suspended from their jobs without pay.
The vice-president of Administrative Affairs of PUCPR, José Frontera Agenjo, emphasized that the employees are being suspended, not fired. He said because classes will be online during the next fall semester, there are not enough tasks for those employees.
Frontera Agenjo also expressed that 15 more employees’ work days will be reduced from full-time hours to part-time schedules. These decisions were taken because of the “administrative and budget restructuration” the institution has gone through during the coronavirus pandemic.
Students Plan Parties to Get Infected With COVID-19 in Alabama
Students from Alabama University, diagnosed with COVID-19, assisted to some parties organized to see which of the partygoers would get infected with coronavirus first, according to ABC News.
Sonya McKinstry, councilor of Tuscaloosa City, confirmed that these COVID Parties have infected at least eight students.
According to Randy Smith, chief fireman of Tuscaloosa, COVID Parties have been taking place during the past few weeks.
Groups Call for Protests to Demand Governor’s Resignation
On Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, groups of citizens rallied others to protest and demand the Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced’s resignation after a press conference held on tuesday morning, where she spoke about an inquiry she currently facesled by a Special Independent Fiscal (FEI).
The citizens’ outrage came after the former interim Justice Secretary, Wandymar Burgos Vargas, ordered to stop the delivery of the documents that recommended the investigation of Governor Vázquez Garced to the FEI.
New Rector Appointed for UPR Carolina
Jorge Haddock Acevedo, President of the UPR, appointed José Meza Pereira as the new dean for the Carolina’s campus of the university system.
Meza Pereira, who previously worked as Dean of Administrative Affairs of the Carolina unit, said that he has experience working in administration because he implemented measures to save energy, and costs, on the academic institution during these past five years.
College of Humanities at UPRRP Receives Money from National Endowment for the Arts
The faculty of Humanities at the Río Piedras Campus of the UPR received $50,000 from the federal organization National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
The university was one of the 855 chosen institutions to receive this aid, from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. There were 3,100 submissions to receive the funds.
Río Piedras Campus’ dean, Luis A. Ferrao Delgado, said the money will be used to cover operational costs, to hire employees and to “attend to other necessities within arts programs that were affected by the closing of institutions that promote them.”
