On November 12, 2020, GPSG Leadership joined fellow shared governance leaders from Undergraduate Student Government, Faculty Senate, and Staff Council in a letter addressed to the Iowa Board of Regents. The letter can be found here and is copied below: 

Dear Regents:

As shared governance leaders at the University of Iowa, we urge you to publicly recommend that Governor Reynolds implement the recent public-health actions taken by other states to control the rapid and worsening spread of COVID-19.

These actions include:

• Placing the entire state under a mask mandate in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC “recommends that people wear masks in public settings, like on public and mass transportation, at events and gatherings, and anywhere they will be around other people.”
• Limiting casual social gatherings to members of the same household only.
• Requiring students enrolled at public and private colleges and universities, who either live on campus or attend at least one in-person class per week, to be tested for COVID-19 weekly.

We also ask you to support a return of the measures Governor Reynolds took earlier this fall to fight the spread of COVID-19 in Johnson County, including the closure of bars and the requirement that restaurants stop serving alcohol at 10:00 pm. Please advocate now to protect Iowa’s hospitals and healthcare workers. Please advocate now to save lives.

You can read follow-up Press-Citizen coverage the statement and the Board's response, here.