electric, and improving energy
efficiency in homes, businesses,
schools, places of worship, recreational
sites and government facilities.
Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher
Taylor said the plan will be disruptive,
but will create a community that
better incorporates its values of
sustainability and equity.
“Ann
Arbor
2030
will
be
materially different than Ann Arbor
2020,” Taylor said. “It’ll be a denser
community,
a
more
electrified
community,
a
community
that
emphasizes renewable energy.”
The plan will dedicate $900 million
to reduce miles traveled in vehicles
by at least 50 percent, which will
eliminate 8 percent of community-
wide emissions.
Missy
Stults,
Ann
Arbor’s
sustainability
and
innovations
manager, said some of the costs can be
offset by outside sources of funding,
but A2Zero’s billion-dollar price tag is
necessary.
“It is expensive, but inaction is
far more expensive, as we’re coming
to find out,” Stults said. “Whether
or not we do this, the climate is still
changing. This is just an imperative
to help mitigate the impacts of what’s
coming.”
Though
City
Council
passed
Resolution 19-2103: “A Resolution in
Support of Creating a Plan to Achieve
Ann Arbor Community-Wide Climate
Neutrality by 2030” long before
COVID-19’s
disruption,
leaders
designed A2Zero as a “living plan”
prepared to adjust to obstacles.
Taylor said the COVID-19 crisis
will hurt and hinder the community’s
ability to achieve carbon neutrality,
but the scope of the crisis can be
viewed as an opportunity.
“All lines of work, all manners
of
doing
things,
are
open
to
interrogation,” Taylor said. “The old
way of running an economy, the old
way of doing business, the old way
of operating civil society is subject
to change, subject to reexamination,
subject to improvement. As we figure
out where we go next, reconstituting
as a functioning society with the goal
of carbon neutrality will be a part of
our recovery.”
Stults said the current COVID-19
pandemic is an opportunity to double
down on the plan’s resilience efforts
intended to strengthen community
responses to a changing climate.
She said while most of our lives have
paused because of the pandemic,
natural and manmade disasters will
continue.
“From a resilience standpoint, I’m
terrified thinking about what’s going
to happen during a pandemic when
we’re socially isolated and the storm
takes power out,” Stults said. “What
do we do then? What does it look
like when our food supply chain gets
disrupted? The pandemic isn’t related
to climate change, but the pandemic is
laying bare the vulnerabilities that we
have regardless.”
Stults said the community needs to
accept a degree of failure as part of the
process to achieve the ultimate goal of
carbon neutrality.
“This idea of being okay with failure,
or failure positive as we call it, is a total
paradigm shift in most situations, but
so is climate change,” Stults said. “So,
we have to be comfortable with trying
something and being okay coming
back and saying, ‘You know, that was
not as successful as we thought it was
going to be.’ The ultimate objective is
a safe climate, it’s a high quality of life.
Basically, a bunch of things can fail for
different reasons, and we have to be
okay with that.”
Rackham
student
Matthew
Sehrsweeney,
an
organizer
in
Michigan’s Climate Action Movement,
said
environmental
activists
on
campus have been grappling with
how to continue their work amid
social distancing measures. He said
activists have worked to understand
how to maintain low-carbon lifestyles
after social distancing measures
are lifted, demonstrate solidarity
with movements fighting for racial,
economic and carceral justice and
highlight
the
danger
posed
by
environmental injustices such as poor
air quality.
Sehrsweeney pointed to ways the
University could reduce its carbon
emissions.
“Universities are always flying
people in and hosting big conferences
where people are flying across the
country,” said Sehrsweeney. “Now
we’re demonstrating all these online
tools that we can use to bring people
in virtually and you don’t have to be
flying them across the country.”
Sehrsweeney
said
there
are
significant
barriers
to
achieving
carbon neutrality, pointing to state
laws and COVID-19, but that the
community’s plan is essential.
“It’s
absolutely
necessary,”
Sehrsweeney said. “Especially for a
city like Ann Arbor that has pretty
concentrated wealth. If Ann Arbor
can’t do it, then how are any poor
cities going to do it?”
Taylor said the community will
accomplish carbon neutrality by
2030.
“The bottom line is, we have a
carbon neutrality goal,” Taylor
said. “That is a commitment from
the city government, and we’re
going to do everything we can to
achieve that goal.”
Daily Staff Reporter Julia Rubin
can be reached at julrubin@umich.
edu.
Durham said the University
sent the mass email cautioning
students receiving financial aid
about the risk of dropping below
full time prior to President
Trump signing the Coronavirus
Aid,
Relief
and
Economic
Security (CARES) Act into law
on March 27. The act outlines a
monetary relief package which
in part provides the University
with funds to support students
reliant on financial aid.
“We did intentionally send
that email to help students plan
in case federal relief was not
made available to colleges and
universities,”
Durham
said.
“Thankfully, since that email,
the CARES Act has provided
flexibility for those students
impacted by Covid 19.”
During any particular school
year, students receiving need
and merit based scholarships
are required to meet federal as
well as University set guidelines
specific to their scholarship,
known as Satisfactory Academic
Requirements. These guidelines
can include volunteer hours,
academic grade point average
and minimum credit hours.
The CARES Act now ensures
that throughout the COVID-19
pandemic, students receiving
financial
aid
will
not
be
penalized for not fulfilling these
requirements.
In Section 3509, the act states
that in determining whether a
student maintains satisfactory
academic
progress,
“an
institution of higher education
may, as a result of a qualifying
emergency, exclude from the
quantitative
component
of
the calculation any attempted
credits that were not completed
by
such
student
without
requiring an appeal by such
student.”
Angela
Morabito,
U.S.
Department
of
Education
press secretary, reiterated the
purpose of this act in an email to
The Daily.
“We know that this national
public health emergency has
created challenges for students
and we are continually working
to
provide
institutions
and
students with the flexibility they
need as they make the transition
to distance education,” Morabito
wrote.
Students who assumed they
could not drop below full-time
credit status due to the initial
email sent on March 24 can still
withdraw from a class due to
the University-wide add/drop
policy extension.
Macleod said the University’s
lack
of
clarity
regarding
required credit hours is placing
a further burden on students
with financial aid.
“I
think
it’s
incredibly
misleading,”
Macleod
said.
“I think they are concealing
some opportunities for people,
that they don’t have to stay full
time necessarily to keep their
scholarships. But by sending a
mass email to everyone saying
that you have to stay full time,
that just kind of closes some
doors for people.”
LSA junior Amytess Girgis
is
another
student
who
misinterpreted the email by the
University. Girgis is a recipient
of the Penelope W. and E. Roe
Stamps Scholarship merit-based
scholarship.
Under
federal
guidelines
during
a
typical
school year, students receiving
this scholarship are required to
maintain full-time status.
Girgis felt this message was
particularly damaging due to
the uncertainty many students
with financial aid feel due to
job losses, moving and a quick
transition to online classes.
“The impression to me was just
that a lot of students, including
myself, who are thrown into this
confusing COVID situation, who
are suddenly spending a lot more
time than they normally would
taking care of family members,
taking
care
of
themselves,
moving, working, are scared
because they read this email and
think that there is absolutely no
way they can cut back on their
course load,” Girgis said.
Girgis
attributed
the
misunderstanding
to
poor
communication
by
the
University.
“This is a communications
issue,” Girgis said. “I wish that
the University had been smarter
about how they relate these
messages and had done it with
a bit more caution in how they
word their emails.”
Reporter Callie Teitelbaum can
be reached at cteitelb@umich.
edu. Reporter Jenna Siteman can
be reached at jsiteman@umich.
edu.
Martin said he should not have
to pay full tuition with the loss of
on-campus resources and facilities.
“I’m not able to utilize things like
the buildings for my classes,” Martin
said. “I’m not sure exactly how much
building maintenance and upkeep
costs each student, but whatever
it is I’d like to keep my portion of
that since I literally cannot use the
buildings… Obviously the (University)
could not have foreseen this and they
can’t just not clean buildings, but they
can reduce the services they apply to
buildings.”
For Martin, tuition is not just
about credits, but the opportunities
available on campus.
“I’m not just paying for the
credits,” Martin said. “I’m paying
for the ability to network with
other
students,
have
research
opportunities, engage in the student
clubs and experience college life in
Ann Arbor. The actual exchange of
goods from the University to me is,
yes, a degree, but that’s not the only
reason I and many others attend
college. Some things simply can’t be
replaced online.”
Though Martin is in favor of tuition
reduction, he recognizes that faculty
and staff must be paid to continue
teaching classes and provide some
services remotely. Martin said this
only further complicates the issue of
tuition costs and financial resources
available to the University.
A FAQ page from the Office of
the Registrar addresses winter term
tuition and fees and this approach
also will apply to spring/summer
term as well, according to Fitzgerald.
The page explains that tuition will
continue to pay faculty and staff as
well as additional expenses.
“Tuition and fees will continue
to pay for our faculty teaching
courses as well as all the associated
costs of delivering our educational
experience in this COVID-related
remote
environment,”
the
page
reads. “Instructors will be available
and delivering content, albeit in an
alternative format, and students
will be completing their classes,
receiving credit and grades, and
continuing to work toward their
degree requirements at a world-class
institution.”
Unlike
Martin,
Engineering
freshman Kashaf Usman said she has
canceled her previous plans to take
summer courses. With a difficult
transition to remote learning, Usman
said in an email to The Daily that
being charged full tuition for online
classes was not ideal for her.
“I had planned on taking a few
courses before everything started
bandwagoning, but staying home
and taking classes via Zoom has
hindered
my
learning
greatly,”
Usman wrote. “I have always had
trouble focusing in general, and this
situation isn’t helping. Since this was
my first semester at Michigan and
I experienced this semester with
such hardship, I decided not to take
courses over the summer.”
Usman also noted the types of
classes taken online might affect how
they occur online.
“Many people don’t have the
option to take summer off and paying
full tuition for online classes is a little
absurd,” Usman wrote. “People who
have interactive labs are at a greater
disadvantage than students like me
that are mostly taking EECS courses,
which are I guess doable online.”
Biology lecturer Cindee Giffen
teaches Biology 173 lab over the
spring/summer term and said though
students may feel they are getting less
out of interactive labs, courses like
these are needed in order for students
to graduate on time.
“Nobody that’s teaching in spring
and summer is doing it because we
get a lot of money or because we’re
enjoying this,” Giffen said. “The
reason why I’m doing it in spring and
summer is because I teach a course
that’s a prerequisite for a lot of other
courses and if we didn’t offer it this
spring then a lot of students would
be behind in their education. From
a lecturer’s perspective, we’re just
trying to offer the courses so that
students can progress in their degree
requirements. Our concern primarily
is to make sure that students can
actually finish.”
She said if tuition were to be
lowered, as a lecturer she would make
even less money during the spring/
summer term.
“For lecturers, the vast majority
of our appointments are dedicated to
teaching,” Giffen said. “The people
that are doing a lot of the teaching and
in spring and summer are lecturers.
When you look at the faculty salaries
for people who are teaching in spring
and summer, we’re not the people
who make the big money. If I don’t
teach in spring and summer, I make
no money — zero dollars — for four
months. For my spring class that I’m
teaching, by the time benefits and
everything are covered, I’ll probably
make around $7,500 for the whole
summer.”
Giffen said the faculty and staff
would be most affected by tuition
lowering compared to administrators,
who make significantly more money.
“Not that I would tell students who
they should be complaining to, but I
don’t think that it’s the faculty that
have the really deep pockets here,
especially given that most of us are
lecturers and do make less money,”
Giffen said. “I think the place where
there is extra money would be among
our administrators.”
Daily Staff Reporter Angelina Brede
can be reached at angbrede@umich.
edu.
Friday, April 10, 2020 — 3
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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