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

GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail 
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.

INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 127
©2020 The Michigan Daily

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S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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