housing costs, and cut the university's cooperative education fees which had previously increased every year. Due to the adjustments, the average cost of room and board at Purdue declined from the second most expensive to the most affordable in the Big Ten. In fall 2014, Daniels announced a deal with Amazon to save students on textbooks and provide students, faculty and staff with free one day shipping to locations on campus. The partnership was ended by Amazon in 2018 but the on campus stores remain in place. Purdue Moves initiatives In September 2013, Daniels announced the first major priorities of his administration, known as "Purdue Moves". The plan continued Daniels' focus on affordability but also called for new investments such as the hiring of 165 new faculty in STEM disciplines, expansion of flipped classrooms, growing summer enrollment, investments in plant science and drug discovery research, and the creation of competency-based degree programs and some three-year degree options. The Purdue Moves also emphasized commercialization of research. Under Daniels' leadership, Purdue increased the number of affiliated start-up companies by more than 400 percent and broke the university record for patents. In 2021, Daniels announced an expansion of the original moves called "Next Moves". Response to COVID-19 Daniels announced in April 2020 that Purdue intended to welcome students back on campus in the fall, becoming one of the earliest university leaders to do so, saying it would be an "unacceptable breach of duty" to not reopen. Daniels released a plan called Protect Purdue that was designed to protect the most vulnerable of Purdue's campus from the disease by relying on masking, contact tracing, facility modifications, and a student pledge. Some faculty objected to Daniels efforts to reopen while others worked with the administration, lending their expertise to craft the plan. In May 2020, while on CNN, Daniels dismissed the criticisms of a tenured engineering education professor, saying she represented a "very tiny minority view" …"Frankly, not from the most scientifically-credible corner of our very STEM-based campus". The American Society for Engineering Education responded to the remarks asking Daniels if he "meant to cast doubt on the academic integrity of Dr. Pawley", "cast doubt on the value of the School of Engineering Education, the first such department in the nation, recognized internationally", or "to cast aspersions on the entire College of Engineering and its globally recognized research, innovative instruction, and respected faculty and alumni".