Mason Zastrow, Iowa State student senator and junior in political science, sociology and philosophy, wrote a letter to the administration of Iowa State on Sunday calling for online instruction.

Zastrow’s roommate tested positive for COVID-19 after she was exposed to a positive case in one of her classes. Zastrow has spent the last week in quarantine and voiced concerns about students remaining on campus and around the city of Ames.

He believes Iowa State did everything they could to set students up for success this semester, but now is the time to take action and send students home.

“Entering the fall semester, Iowa State was optimistic that its students would be responsible enough to put the well-being of the university ahead of their desire to socialize,” the letter said. “I shared this optimism with them. After only two weeks of this experiment, it would be grossly negligent to continue forward with this state of mind.”

Zastrow said the metrics from The New York Times stated Ames was top in the country for fastest case increase and greatest number of cases per capita, which inspired him to speak out and take a public stance.

“It was just unbelievable to me that there wasn’t anything being done,” Zastrow said. “It’s starting to seem to me like nothing is going to change and I just don’t think that’s an option for us.”

He also mentioned a bill he wrote for the Student Senate about the decision to go online.

“In [the bill], I wrote at one point that there was some threshold, but then I thought to myself ‘how is it possible that we haven’t passed that yet,’” he said. “We’re the highest in the country in two metrics; it’s just absolutely unbelievable to me.”

In his letter, Zastrow wrote about “801 day” and the continuous decisions being made by students to engage in irresponsible behavior.

“Our case is paradigmatic to the challenge universities face,” he wrote. “A small number of people acting irresponsibly entering an ecosystem of good-faith actors can bring the whole house down. If, at this point, the administration is under the illusion that there are no such people at Iowa State, nothing I can say will change their minds. But I believe that the leadership of Iowa State is aware of what happened on 801 day and what has continued to happen since.”

He said part of him wishes the Iowa State University Police Department would make more efforts to shut down parties and enforce social distancing guidelines and policies.

“At the same time, is that how the city of Ames wants to be? Where the police are just going house to house and issuing citations? Because that’s just as unviable as turning off classes altogether,” he said. “I think it makes more sense to just say ‘we tried our best, but we can’t go forward like this’ and transition to online learning.”

Zastrow believes Iowa State should have better anticipated the effects of 801 day.

“I think that Iowa State should have expected something like that,” he said. “I was disappointed that there wasn’t a stronger response from the university when it became clear that the repercussions from having so many people in contact with each other were going to be significant. They sent out one text, you know, as if somebody is going to be in the middle of a beer pong game and put it aside because they got a text from ISUPD.”

In addition to sending students home and moving to virtual instruction, Zastrow asks that the university provide resources for the city of Ames.

“Iowa State University has been the catalyst for Ames’ impending catastrophe,” he wrote.

“Although many University-managed resources such as the Iowa State Police Department and the Thielen Student Health Center have typically been used only for Iowa State purposes, those resources should be devoted to the community.

“Out of a sense of debt to the city and to those who the University has inadvertently endangered, those resources should be shared with members of the Ames area as much as possible.”

Zastrow ended his letter by recalling his first days on campus this semester handing out face coverings with Iowa State President Wendy Wintersteen.

“While we chatted, we expressed a shared anticipation for the fall. Nerves for the worst, and hopes for the best,” he wrote. “Unfortunately for both of us, our nerves were justified. It would be an enormous error to act like they weren’t.”

Zastrow’s letter was published on Medium and can be read on their website.