As the first day of fall
semester
approaches
and
students move into on-campus
residence
halls,
freshmen
have
had
to
modify
their
expectations
for
what
the
semester will now look like.
LSA
freshman
Elizabeth
Wolfe, who lives in East Quad
Residence Hall, said she has
tried to make her first several
days as normal as possible
despite the semester’s clear
differences.
“Interactions
have
been
limited but I’ve kind of found
ways to just sit with people
in the courtyard, be able to
eat food with people socially
distanced,” Wolfe said. “I guess
the way I look at it is it’s not
gonna be what freshman year
would normally be but it just
makes it into a new experience
and I’m just trying to make the
most of that.”
With reports of many move-
in policies going unchecked or
abandoned, many freshmen are
fearful of a COVID-19 outbreak
impacting students and classes
shortly after the start of the
semester. The first two cases
of COVID-19 in residence halls
were seen in West Quad this
week.
Wolfe said the idea of an
outbreak on campus is even
more worrying to her due to
her preexisting condition.
“I’m really concerned,” Wolfe
said. “For me personally, I have
asthma so I’ve been trying to
take a lot of precautions.”
Additionally,
Wolfe
said
starting school almost entirely
online adds extra difficulty to
the first year experience.
“I’m a little anxious about
starting with online classes
just because it was really
difficult to do that at the end of
senior year (of high school) on
such short notice,” Wolfe said.
“But I trust the teachers here to
do what’s right. I have a lot of
confidence in them right now.”
Kinesiology
freshman
Lauren Nemeh added that the
difficulty with transitioning to
online instruction and learning
at the end of last year makes
her more concerned for the
upcoming school year.
“With the second half of
my senior year online, in some
of my classes it was definitely
tough because teachers were
really unsure about what was
happening too,” Nemeh said.
“And it was hard because
some of my teachers were
super lenient with deadlines
and were just like ‘get this in
when you can,’ but others were
trying to make it as close to the
actual in-person (experience)
as possible.”
According
to
Wolfe,
the
biggest
change
between
student
activity
during
a
normal semester and now has
been in their social lives rather
than in academics.
“In terms of just day-to-day
stuff, I think things have been
pretty normal, just getting into
a college routine and getting
ready for classes to start next
week,” Wolfe said. “So I think
besides the social aspect, so far
academically, things have been
pretty normal.”
Wolfe said she understands
the urge for students to make
the semester as normal as
possible,
but
worries
that
it might interfere with the
following of guidelines.
“For the freshman class, we
missed out on a lot,” she said.
“We missed the end of our
senior year (of high school),
we missed graduation and our
proms and I think that can
kind of be taken two separate
ways. I think for some people
that was more of a motivator
to be really responsible during
this time and to try to not
miss out on anything else. But
I think people can also take
that experience and want to
compensate for that lost time,
and they are going to go out and
party.”
However, Wolfe, like many
other students, did not consider
taking a year off before starting
school, explaining that the
uncertainty of the pandemic
made this a difficult choice to
make.
“My family asked me about
maybe taking a gap year but I
really didn’t want to,” Wolfe
said. “I just wanted to get
right into freshman year. I
didn’t want to take a break
because I didn’t think it would
be productive. It wouldn’t be
likely that I could even get a
job. I didn’t want to be sitting
around for a year just waiting
for things to get back (to
normal).”
According
to
Nemeh,
students living in the dorms
have found ways to meet each
other in safe ways by interacting
outside and wearing masks.
“There’s
definitely
a
lot
more people walking around
than I imagined,” Nemeh said.
“I saw a bunch of people out
there
(Hill
Neighborhood)
playing basketball and tennis.
So it looks like people are kind
of hanging out that way and
trying to meet new people.”
Nemeh said residence hall
GroupMe
chats
have
been
helpful for students to meet
one another.
“In
GroupMes
for
East
Quad where I live and my
floor,
people
are
always
texting, ‘Hey, anyone wanna
go to the basketball courts or
something?’’ Nemeh said.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Freshmen make the best of an
unprecedented fall semester
Arriving on campus for the start of courses, new students try to
adjust to college life in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic
BEN ROSENFELD
Daily News Editor
Faculty members are preparing
for a fall semester at the University
of Michigan like no other.
For the majority of faculty
members,
this
semester
will
require teaching over Zoom or
preparing materials to upload to
Canvas if their courses are taught
entirely asynchronously. But others
will teach face-to-face in socially
distanced classrooms.
Instructors
across
the
University’s different schools and
departments are still set to teach
in person, despite some faculty
pushback against the University’s
reopening
plans.
Professor
Kentaro
Toyama
organized
a
protest outside of the Fleming
Administrative Building after an
open letter requesting greater
transparency from the University
went unanswered.
“I think, as instructors, what
we would really like to see is the
administration recognizing that
we’re doing the hard work on the
front lines and listening to our
concerns,” Toyama said.
Toyama is teaching a 500-level
course in the School of Information
in the fall, which will have the
option of in-person discussions
and office hours for students who
wish to meet face to face. Despite
electing to make his course hybrid,
Toyama said he does not believe the
University will make it through the
semester without having to go fully
online.
“I don’t believe we should be
having an in-person, in-residence
semester,” Toyama said. “But if
we’re going to do it, I think we
need to do it as safely as possible.
We probably need to test more
often, we need to make sure that
everyone’s wearing masks and
socially distancing and so forth.”
In June, University President
Mark Schlissel announced the
in-residence
semester,
with
on-campus housing opening and
a mix of in-person, hybrid and
remote classes being offered. This
plan is still in place, with residents
moving in this week and classes
starting Monday.
Around
31
percent
of
undergraduate classes are set to
be taught in an in-person or hybrid
format. The School of Public
Health and LSA are among those
with the lowest percentages of
in-person instruction, while the
School of Nursing has some of the
highest rates.
In an interview with The Daily
on Wednesday, Schlissel said going
fully online would not make much
of a difference, given the large
percentage of classes already taught
remotely, but he is hopeful the few
classes that require students to be
on campus remain in person.
“Going fully remote is a pretty
incremental difference from where
we are right now,” Schlissel said. “It
wouldn’t have left people at home.
We’d still have lots of students in
Ann Arbor, and we’d still have the
challenge of working with students
to help everybody understand
what it takes to be safe from being
infected and from transmitting the
disease.”
The
Graduate
Employees’
Organization,
the
union
representing
graduate
student
instructors on campus, has started
impact bargaining ahead of the fall
semester, calling for a guarantee
of their members’ right to a safe
workplace amid the pandemic.
IULIA DOBRIN
Daily Staff Reporter
Face-to-face learning presents challenges for faculty
Instructors prepare to
teach courses in person
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
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INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 127
©2020 The Michigan Daily
N E W S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
M I C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
O P I N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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