2 — Tuesday, March 24, 2020
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The University of Michigan faculty
were not informed of the March 17
email sent to University on-campus
residents titled “URGENT: Petition
to Remain in Housing,” according
to an email LSA Dean Anne Curzan
and Timothy McKay, associate dean
for undergraduate education of LSA,
sent to LSA faculty Tuesday night
obtained by The Daily.
“We only learned of this message
after it was forwarded to us,”
Curzan and McKay wrote. “We
cannot imagine what a distressing
and disruptive message this was to
receive for students still living in the
dorms. We have been advocating for
the students during the afternoon
and are doing what we can to
help in the wake of this sudden
announcement.”
The email to on-campus residents
directed students to return home,
citing new developments in the
COVID-19
pandemic.
It
said
students needed to have a request
approved to remain in University
Housing and that students should
expect dining and residence halls to
consolidate. The “request to remain
in housing” form, which asked
students to explain why they must
remain on-campus, was due less
than twenty-four hours later.
“This information is needed by
8am on Wednesday, March 18th,”
University Housing wrote. “If you
do not respond we will assume
you have left campus and will
discontinue building access.”
Kambiz Khalili, associate vice
president of student life, followed
up with an email to on-campus
residents the next day to address
and clarify messaging from the
initial March 17 email.
“I am writing first to apologize for
the anxiety, concerns and confusion
created by the message you received
yesterday regarding Housing move-
out
and
consolidation,”
Khalili
wrote. “I also wish to clarify that
you were not required to have moved
out by 8:00 am this morning.”
Physics professor Yuri Popov
told The Daily that on Tuesday
night he started receiving emails
from students requesting alternate
exam times for the Physics 140
midterm scheduled for Thursday
because they would be moving out
of residence halls that day. When
Popov asked the students why they
couldn’t move out a different day,
he was forwarded the University
Housing email.
Popov said he immediately wrote
an email to Physics Departments
Chair David Gerdes and McKay
expressing his frustrations with
the
lack
of
communication
to
faculty regarding student housing
situations.
“Why is no one communicating to
us about this?” Popov wrote in his
email to the department. “Why … are
we the last to know that thousands
of our students are in a state of crisis
the day before they are supposed
to take our exams, which were
canceled last week in a similarly
chaotic and poorly organized way?
We need our leadership now. We
need communication and guidance.
AWOL is unacceptable and outright
harmful in this situation. We don’t
need motivational messages. We
need someone to lead and inform us
on logistics and actions.”
Popov stressed the need for a
more holistic approach to student
well-being that allows professors to
take into account both academic and
personal needs.
“It shouldn’t be that attitude that,
‘You guys just keep on teaching,
and we’ll take care of students,’”
Popov said. “That’s the completely
wrong attitude because we need
to know what’s going on with the
students. … Look (at) how it looked
from the student’s perspective. If
instructors are kept in the dark,
what happens here is from the
student’s perspective they’ve been
kicked out of the dorms and at the
same time the physics professor
sends them an email that says ‘hey
guys, I’ll see you tomorrow at 9am in
my online class.’”
University
spokesman
Rick
Fitzgerald noted that Housing has
apologized for Tuesday’s message,
and wrote that the University is
focused on the important work
moving forward.
“Messaging since that time has
been well coordinated across the
campus
community,”
Fitzgerald
wrote. “That’s the most important
factor.”
Nick Seewald, Rackham student
and graduate student instructor,
made adjustments to due dates for
his Statistics 250 sections after he
received the email from Curzan and
McKay.
“My responsibility as a GSI is to
make sure students can learn and
learn well, and oftentimes that is
hindered by people having to take
care of basic needs and worrying
about things like ‘where am I going
to live tomorrow?’” Seewald said.
Seewald
said
better
communication, or “at least a heads
up,” that some students might be
leaving campus abruptly would have
made it easier to facilitate classes.
“It would have made the situation
seem like it was more unified, like
there was at least some conversation
about this across different areas of
the University,” Seewald said. “As
it was, I sort of found out at 10 p.m.
and realized that that was less than
12 hours before the stated deadline
for students to apply to stay in the
dorms. It made things difficult to
respond appropriately without a lot
of lean time.”
Seewald noted that the COVID-19
pandemic created an unprecedented
situation for the University and
didn’t ascribe any ill intent to the
lack of communication.
“Everybody’s
under
a
lot
of
pressure right now, and there’s a
lot of pressure to act fast,” Seewald
said. “So, I can empathize with the
decision to act fast, but it definitely
caused a scramble.”
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DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily
Daily staff photographer set out to capture scenes of an empty Ann Arbor amidst the COVID-19 precautions.
Faculty, students upset by gaps
in ‘U’ housing communication
While administration made decisions regarding residence halls,
University apartments, professors, staff largely remain in the dark
See HOUSING, Page 3