All dining halls began 

serving 
takeout 
meals 

only on Monday night. On 

Tuesday morning, students 

were told they must leave 

the residence halls unless 

they fill out a petition 

to stay by Wednesday 8 

a.m., causing widespread 

confusion and stress as 

many rearranged move-out 

plans at the last minute. 

In the email sent by 

University 
Housing 
on 

Tuesday, students were told 

the push to leave campus 

was made necessary by the 

rapidly evolving situation.

“New developments in 

the 
COVID-19 
pandemic 

make it clear that now is 

the time to return home,” 

the email reads. “...While 

University 
Housing 
will 

ensure 
that 
we 
have 

sufficient housing available 

for 
students 
who 
truly 

have no other alternatives, 

we cannot promise that 

you will be able to remain 

in your current housing 

assignment.”

There 
are 
currently 

14 
confirmed 
cases 
in 

Washtenaw 
County. 
The 

University 
moved 
all 

classes online on March 11, 

the day after Gov. Gretchen 

Whitmer 
announced 
the 

first two cases in Michigan. 

Three people in Michigan 

have died from coronavirus, 

the first a man in his 50’s 

who died on Wednesday 

morning.

Cases of COVID-19 have 

also been confirmed in 

two 
student 
apartment 

buildings Vic Village and 

ArborBLU. 

The Centers for Disease 

Control 
and 
Prevention 

recommends people wash 

their hands often and avoid 

touching their eyes, nose 

and mouth. People are also 

encouraged 
to 
practice 

social 
distancing, 
or 
to 

avoid unnecessary social 

interaction, and to maintain 

a six-foot distance between 

one another. The White 

House and CDC recommend 

social gatherings of less 

than 10 people.

In 
an 
email 
to 
The 

Daily, 
Susan 
Ringler-

Cerniglia, 
Washtenaw 

County Health Department 

communications and health 

promotion 
administrator, 

emphasized the importance 

of 
social 
distancing 

and 
other 
preventative 

measures.

“Good 
adherence 

to 
the 
community 

mitigation 
orders 
and 

recommendations is critical 

to 
slowing 
the 
spread 

of 
illness 
– 
and 
much 

less 
about 
any 
specific 

or 
identified 
locations,” 

Ringler-Cerniglia 
wrote. 

“We 
all 
need 
to 
take 

precautions 
and 
assume 

the possibility of lower-

risk community exposures 

when we are out.”

Symptoms of coronavirus 

include fever, cough and 

shortness of breath. Anyone 

who believes they have 

been exposed to COVID-19 

should call their primary 

care physician. Individuals 

can also contact their local 

health department, which 

in Washtenaw County can 

be reached at 734-544-

6700.

Daily News Editor Claire 

Hao can be reached at 

cmhao@umich.edu.

Friday, March 20, 2020 — 3
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

DINING
From Page 1

This forced the campaigns 

seeking to win seats in next 

week’s 
CSG 
election 
— 

which traditionally brings 

campaigners to the Diag 

and posters plastered on 

campus walls — to adjust 

their outreach strategies.

Several candidates told 

The Daily that the shift to 

students going off-campus 

has affected the upcoming 

elections as they are unable 

to spread the word about 

the 
elections 
through 

campaigning on campus. 

Campaigning online, they 

said, can also be difficult 

since parties cannot send 

emails on listservs — a rule 

written into the election 

code.

Members of the three 

parties campaigning in next 

week’s election said they 

are now reliant on social 

media platforms to reach 

out to students and have 

their messages heard. 

Rackham 
student 

Austin Glass, Change At 

Michigan’s 
presidential 

candidate, said that while 

the party is still reaching 

out to voters through social 

media, the executive ticket 

has decided to suspend the 

party’s broader campaign 

activities in light of COVID-

19 and limit campaigning to 

friends and those they had 

already been in touch with 

previously. 

“Ultimately, we made the 

executive decision at the 

top of the ticket to put off 

campaign efforts other than 

those with people who had 

already reached out to us 

and to whom we had already 

reached out just to try and 

give people their space,” 

Glass said. “Obviously, this 

has been a huge disruption 

on all of our lives. We’ve 

tried to make sure that 

the folks involved in the 

campaign don’t feel like 

CSG elections are one more 

thing that they have got to 

worry about.”

Glass said Change At 

Michigan’s 
campaign 

strategy 
would 
rely 
on 

social 
networks 
like 

Facebook, 
sending 
texts 

to friends and group chats 

— platforms that, unlike 

emails, are not restricted by 

the election code. 

“The biggest challenge 

that we face is connecting 

with 
students 
we 
don’t 

already know,” Glass said. 

“We can’t just go out and 

stand on the Diag, we can’t 

post flyers in buildings 

that students are walking 

though because they are 

not walking through those 

buildings anymore.”

Public 
Policy 
junior 

Amanda Kaplan, Mobilize’s 

presidential 
candidate, 

said 
the 
suspension 
of 

in-person classes will not 

significantly impact their 

campaign strategy. Kaplan 

said 
most 
of 
Mobilize’s 

campaigning 
has 
been 

through social media, as 

it helped their campaign 

avoid using paper on flyers 

and posters and was in line 

with their emphasis on 

sustainability.

“Usually 
people 
use 

flyers, 
and 
that 
was 
a 

commitment that Sav and 

I made at the beginning — 

that we weren’t going to 

print any flyers even if we 

were on campus because we 

wanted to be paper-free,” 

Kaplan said. “We have been 

focusing on social media 

and using networks, so I 

think for (Mobilize), it’s 

just making sure that those 

networks are being used up 

to their potential so that 

as many students can be 

engaged as possible in the 

process.”

LSA 
sophomore 
Sam 

Braden, who is running 

for 
re-election 
as 
an 

LSA 
representative 
with 

Represent Michigan, also 

said the move to online 

classes will not affect his 

party’s campaign strategy 

much.

“Oftentimes, 
people 

haven’t really put a lot of 

effort into (platforms) as 

they focus on telling people 

to vote for them,” Braden 

said. “Represent Michigan 

started with coming up 

with a comprehensive good 

platform. A lot of our focus 

has been just to make the 

platforms high quality.”

Kaplan also emphasized 

how important each student 

vote is now that there 

has been an outbreak of 

COVID-19 on campus and 

the University is grappling 

with its effects.

“As students are being 

worried about what the 

future of the University 

is going to look like and 

what is the purpose of CSG 

elections in the midst of all 

this craziness, I think it’s 

important to ground people 

and recognize that this vote 

is now more important than 

ever because these (elected 

representatives) are going 

to be leading the University 

through such a tumultuous 

time in confronting the 

effects 
of 
COVID-19 

now and throughout the 

following 
year,” 
Kaplan 

said.

LSA 
junior 
Mary 

McKillop, CSG’s elections 

director and LSA Student 

Government vice president, 

said the elections team 

was working hard to reach 

out to students through 

online 
resources, 
such 

as Canvas and Facebook, 

to keep voter turnout up. 

McKillop 
also 
said 
the 

team 
planned 
on 
using 

the 
previously 
allocated 

$500 for campaigning on 

targeted 
advertising 
on 

CSG’s Facebook account.

Students can vote online 

March 25 to 26 at vote.

umich.edu.

Daily 
Staff 
Reporter 

Navya Gupta can be reached 

at itznavya@umich.edu.

ELECTIONS
From Page 1

“On the one hand, I 

would really appreciate 

getting a bit of a break 

because 
it 
has 
been 

stressful having to leave 

suddenly 
and 
in 
the 

middle of classes,” Tuckel 

said. “But I’m thinking 

about applying to Ford 

and grad school and I’m 

very worried … that if I 

come into that with a ‘P’ 

and I’m applying against 

someone 
that 
has 
an 

‘A’ that I’m going to be 

looked down upon for 

that.”

LSA 
freshman 

Dominic 
Coletti 
was 

also concerned about the 

impact of Pass/Fail on his 

future plans. According 

to 
the 
LSA 
Newnan 

Advising Center, courses 

for majors and minors 

cannot be taken Pass/

Fail. Currently, Coletti 

said he was taking a lot 

of 
major 
prerequisite 

classes and is concerned 

Pass/Fail would not be 

beneficial in his case. 

“If majors don’t change 

their policies on that, 

this semester is kind of 

a (loss) for me because 

I have to take all these 

classes again on a graded 

basis,” Coletti said. “If the 

University can negotiate 

a way for these courses to 

still count under a Pass/

Fail system, I think Pass/

Fail would be a really 

good option that would 

help me, as well as other 

people, to alleviate a lot 

of the stresses that come 

with this really uncertain 

time.”

Coletti 
noted 
the 

Pass/Fail option would 

be beneficial not only 

because students do not 

have access to the same 

resources they normally 

have, but also because the 

option would help level 

the disparities between 

the way professors are 

adjusting their classes.

“While some professors 

are making changes to 

their 
grading 
system, 

some 
really 
haven’t 

changed 
their 
classes 

all 
that 
much 
from 

when we were meeting 

in-person,” Coletti said. 

“They 
haven’t 
really 

accommodated students, 

and so for the University 

to change the grading 

basis would really help 

students who are feeling 

pressure 
from 
those 

classes to feel better and 

learn the best they can 

while not being punished 

for not having access to 

resources.”

Regarding 
students 

still on campus, Coletti 

believes making classes 

Pass/Fail 
could 
help 

alleviate 
the 
stress 

as 
a 
result 
of 
the 

developments of COVID-

19. On Tuesday morning, 

an email to dining hall 

staff confirmed that a 

cook at East Quad tested 

positive for the virus.

“I 
still 
live 
in 

on-campus housing and 

one of the things with 

that is that it’s a situation 

that changes every single 

day,” Coletti said. “I don’t 

think I’ve gone a full day 

of just being able to focus 

on class because I (get) a 

new email from housing, 

or a new email from 

dining explaining really 

broad, sweeping changes 

to my living situation.”

LSA 
sophomore 

Alexandra Windle, who 

signed the petition to 

move classes to a Pass/

Fail grading system, said 

she hoped the University 

would move to a Pass/

Fail system in order to 

accommodate 
students 

who are still adapting to 

the rigor of University 

classes. 
Windle 
said 

that 
because 
this 
is 

her 
first 
semester 
at 

the University, she has 

had to adapt to both an 

unfamiliar campus and 

now a new teaching style.

“My perspective as a 

nontraditional 
student 

is something that the 

University doesn’t really 

take 
into 
account,” 

Windle said. “For me 

personally, 
it’s 
been 

spending so much time 

getting to the University 

through my community 

college and making sure 

that I’m a good applicant 

for transferring. And now 

I feel like the University 

has kind of abandoned 

us.”

Windle 
said 
as 
a 

nontraditional 
student 

who 
transferred 
from 

a 
smaller 
community 

college 
this 
semester, 

moving 
to 
Pass/Fail 

would allow her to better 

acclimate to University 

classes while taking them 

online. 

“It seemed like every 

week 
I 
was 
learning 

something new, I was 

switching 
something 

up in my schedule. I 

was never on a routine 

because I’m trying to 

catch up with everyone 

that’s been here since 

they’ve been a freshman,” 

Windle said. “I feel like 

I was kind of hit with a 

curveball trying to learn 

this material and trying 

to be a student just in 

general. So I was starting 

to get the hang of things 

and now I feel like I’ve 

been knocked down a peg 

and I’m being switched to 

this style of learning that 

I’ve never done before.”

Engineering 
senior 

Howard Zhang said he 

understood why a Pass/

Fail system would be a 

good option for many 

students, but said that 

for others trying to raise 

their GPA, it could be 

harmful. Zhang said he 

needs a certain GPA to 

accept a job offer for next 

year and is very close to 

reaching it. However, he 

noted he may not be able 

to accept the offer if he is 

forced to make all of his 

classes Pass/Fail.

“If 
the 
University 

makes pass/fail not an 

option, 
but 
rather 
it 

forces this pass/fail onto 

everybody, then I’m not 

going to be able to take 

this job anymore because 

I wouldn’t be able to boost 

my GPA,” Zhang said. “I 

don’t think I’m the only 

one in this situation, in 

fact I’ve talked to other 

students who had rough 

times in the past couple 

of years … a lot of students 

try their best to work 

harder, try their best to 

turn their GPA around. 

… This just makes it so 

that students don’t have 

the option to do that this 

semester.”

Daily 
Staff 
Reporter 

Hannah 
Mackay 

contributed reporting.

Daily 
News 
Editor 

Alex Harring and Liat 

Weinstein can be reached 

at 
harring@umich.edu 

and 
weinsl@umich.edu. 

Daily 
Staff 
Reporter 

Francesca 
Duong 
can 

be reached at fduong@

umich.edu.

GRADING
From Page 2

