In the wake of the campuswide power outage that left Michigan State University students with almost a week of freezing cold showers, glitchy WiFi and online courses, psychology sophomore London Smith felt there was more the university should be doing for students.
Smith took to Change.org and wrote a petition, asking for reimbursement from the university for the living conditions students had to deal with following the outage.
“Living without reliable heat and hot water was more than an inconvenience; it’s a risk to health and safety," Smith wrote.
The petition includes an exact change amount Smith calculated each student should receive based on their living accommodations to be registered into their Spartan Cash account or as credit towards spring semester's tuition. If the exact change amounts were not feasible for the university, the petition asked for $500 flat per student.
“It was a joke at first,” Smith said. “I talked to my sister about the situation and then I talked to a family friend also, and everybody was telling me the same thing that I said to my roommate about how we should get reimbursed.”
With encouragement from those around her and thinking back to how she feels unable to take a hot shower or warm up at night because temperatures were so low without heating, Smith thought there was something she could do.
After the petition was posted on social media Smith said there were multiple people who shared experiences having to throw away all their food or coming down with the flu from the cold showers.
While Smith’s petition was collecting signatures, the university announced that on-campus students will receive $25 in Spartan Cash as compensation for the power outage, according to an email sent on Oct 2. However, students have mixed feelings on whether this is enough, while many are happy the university gave anything in the first place.
“$25 in Spartan cash is the minimum I think,” zoology freshman Trevor Orndorff said. “They definitely could have done more, but they’re not going to do more. But at least they did something, I guess.”
Neuroscience sophomore Kayleigh Knapke agrees that the Spartan Cash is better and acknowledges there were so many inconveniences for students. But she said as she was not as personally affected by the outage because she lives in East Neighborhood and got all her amenities back first, she doesn’t have as much perspective.
The Spartan Cash “gesture of thanks” for students’ patience during the restoration process has drawbacks especially for freshmen who have not yet learned how to navigate their Spartan Cash balance.
Pre-vet freshman Aniyah Daniels agrees the university could have given more, but also doesn’t know how to use her Spartan Cash.
“I don’t have Spartan Cash because it’s not a part of my plan, so I never knew how to use it," Daniels said, "and then they sent that out, so now I have to figure it out."
Smith agrees that the $25 is not nearly enough compensation for what students went through but she is on the fence about continuing her petition. She has debated speaking with the board of trustees because she doesn’t think the university would do anything else.
“I could honestly ask the public, 'do you guys feel like there should be more money that you should receive and go from there?' But I’m kind of in the middle about it, honestly,” said Smith. “I feel like something could have been done so it didn’t happen in the first place, and so that’s where I’m like, ‘this is not okay.’”
Smith’s petition is currently still active on Change.org and is about 200 signatures away from her 500 signature goal.
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