The 
Daily 
sat 
down 
with 

University of Michigan President 
Mark Schlissel to discuss the 
University’s plans for the fall 
semester 
during 
the 
COVID-

19 pandemic and the release of 
WilmerHale’s report on allegations 
of 
sexual 
misconduct 
against 

former Provost Martin Philbert.

This interview has been edited 

and condensed for clarity.

Mark Schlissel: I wanted to 

start out if it’s OK with you by 
reiterating an apology that I’ve 
offered to a number of individuals, 
and then to a group as a whole 
that wrote me a letter — I want 
to get their name correct — the 
Queer Advocacy Coalition … I was 
making comments in one of the 
town halls around the logic behind 
our surveillance testing and the 
pluses and minuses of testing 
asymptomatic students in an 
effort to diminish transmission of 
the disease. And one of the things 
I said is a fear that if a student 
learns they’re negative, that might 
diminish their incentive to follow 
masking and distancing and the 
like. And I made what turned out 
to be a very bad and insensitive 
analogy with HIV disease — AIDS, 
and it was really hurtful to a lot of 
people. It was incorrect with the 
history. I feel very badly about it. So 
I just wanted another opportunity 
to say sorry, to promise to be more 
careful and to express my empathy 
with that group for any pain or 
discomfort that I caused with 
some remarks that just shouldn’t 
have been offered.

The 
Michigan 
Daily: 

Universities 
that 
originally 

planned 
for 
some 
forms 
of 

in-person classes, like University 
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 
reversed their decisions and went 
entirely online after only about 
a week of classes. Meanwhile, 
Michigan State announced an 
all online semester and Eastern 
Michigan delayed move-in. So 
why is the University of Michigan 
any different?

MS: Well, we may prove not 

to be, but I think that we are 
different. We’ve planned and 
worked very hard on getting 
things as optimal as we can. I have 
confidence in our students. But 
in reality, if you think about what 
the difference is between a remote 
semester and what we’re talking 
about now, as of now 77 percent of 
our student credit hours are being 
offered remotely. 

… Every young person I talked 

to, well, they’re always being 
honest. They say that they’d rather 
be with their friends. They’d 
rather not live at home some more. 
So, going fully remote is a pretty 
incremental 
difference 
from 

where we are right now. And 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 … I’ve been in 
pretty close contact with other 
campuses around the country, 
including UNC and including 
Notre Dame and including many 
of my colleagues in the Big Ten, 
asking them what’s worked for 
them, what hasn’t worked, what’s 
the most surprising. And so far, 
the campuses that have run into 
difficulty trace it to off-campus 
student life … So it could turn out 
that we prove to be like everybody 
else. I always try to be better.

TMD: On that note, Chief 

Health Officer Preeti Malani told 
The Daily that one big party could 
shut the whole semester down. So 
then, if that’s the case and we’re 
seeing students at other schools 
and the University of Michigan 
already starting to party, why 
bring everyone back to then 
potentially send them home?

MS: I don’t bring everyone back 

and I don’t send everybody home. 
Many of the students who are 
living here in Ann Arbor are gonna 
continue living in Ann Arbor in 
their private residences under 
their leases — not everybody of 
course, but many. I also think 
Dr. Malani was exercising a bit 

of hyperbole by saying one big 
party is all it’s gonna take. I hope 
we don’t have one big party with 
a super-spreader event, but there 
will be spreading events. There 
were spreading events when you 
all were living at home … so there 
will be spread of the disease. It’s 
not the students’ fault. It’s not 
the University’s fault. It’s the 
pandemic’s fault. So it’s up to us 
to protect ourselves as best we 
can and to protect one another. 
Although there is a chance that 
there’ll be too many episodes 
where folks let their guard down, 
and too many people become 
infected and there’s too much 
spread for us to keep up with 
with testing, contact tracing and 
quarantine, then we would have 
to go fully remote. But recognize 
that doesn’t mean people are 
going home … The students in 
the dormitories, we can certainly 
encourage them to leave. There 
are a fraction of students in our 
dorms that don’t have other safe 
places to live, so I wouldn’t want 
to throw them (out) … it’s not as 
simple as saying “let’s go remote,” 
and then there’s no more risk. 

TMD: In a similar vein, schools 

like Tulane, for example, have 
banned gatherings of more than 15 
people and threatened expulsion 
for students who did not follow 
the mandate. Will the University 
of Michigan consider similar 
academic 
repercussions 
for 

violating social distancing rules?

MS: Well, I think as a very last 

resort, the Student Statement 
of Rights and Responsibilities 
does give the University the 
opportunity to do things of the 
type that you’re mentioning. Those 
aren’t first resorts. They’re last 
resorts. But I think people do have 
to recognize — particularly on 
our campus in our classrooms, in 
our dormitories, but also with one 
another in town — that they have 
to live up to the Student Statement 
of Rights and Responsibilities and 
then be subject to the downstream 
consequences of behavior that 
doesn’t live up to our aspirations.

TMD: 
Some 
community 

members have called for more 
transparency 
with 
opening 

plans, models used and analysis 
done, 
and 
just 
more 
details 

about containment plans as we 
approach the beginning of the 
semester. Why has the University 
not provided such details to the 
members of the community who 
have to make important decisions 
about their safety and the safety of 
those around them, based on these 
plans?

MS: With respect to those 

raising 
the 
question 
or 
the 

criticism, it’s always possible to 
provide more information. But if 
you look back on the number of 
communications that have come 
from me and other campus leaders 
in the last several months, it’s 
actually been an overwhelming 
number in very long and great 
detail — multiple town halls 
with different groups, dedicated 
and regularly updated Maize 
and Blueprint website, data on 
COVID-19 
on 
campus 
that’s 

now up there and live. So there’s 
been a lot of communication. In 
particular, when we talk about 
what we would have to see in order 
to change our plans, everyone’s 
looking for a magic formula that 
if you have a certain number 
— like Dr. Malani said “one big 
party,” — we’d all go home. That’s 
not a complete statement. We’re 
tracking things like the rate of 
infection on campus, how many 
new cases per day. We’re looking 
at the distribution of where those 
cases are. Are they in clusters of 
events? Can we contact trace and 
quarantine downstream of those 
or does it exceed our capacity? 
… The difficulty for most folks is 
understanding that there’s not 
a magic formula. What there 
is is judgment in looking at the 
numbers and trends of a bunch of 
markers and taking advantage of 
our public health experts that are 
doing the same thing on behalf of 
the governor of the state.

TMD: 
Students 
and 

administrators across the country 
have publicly battled over who’s 
responsible 
for 
COVID-19 

outbreaks on campus. For example, 
a Syracuse official called students 
attending large gatherings “selfish 
and reckless.” On the other hand, 

an editorial from UNC’s student 
newspaper argued “it was the 
University’s 
responsibility 
to 

disincentivize such gatherings by 
reconsidering its plans to operate 
in-person earlier on.” So who 
takes responsibility if there are 
large outbreaks on campus at the 
University of Michigan this fall?

MS: 
I 
put 
responsibility 

squarely on the virus. So this 
is a pandemic. The virus isn’t 
prejudiced. It infects people when 
they’re susceptible and available 
for infection. I don’t think any 
of us wants to get sick. I don’t 
think anybody, no matter what 
their behavior is, wants to get 
sick. My job as a campus leader, 
working with our Student Life 
people and our academic leaders 
and our safety people, is to try to 
create an environment that allows 
students to be educated about the 
virus, to take responsibility for 
themselves, to make their own 
decisions as adults — as young 
adults, but adults — in how to 
keep themselves, their friends and 
their families safe. And my job is 
to provide the education and the 
environment, and then the backup 
and support for you to be able to do 
this, all the while making sure that 
this pandemic doesn’t trash your 
ability to have college … I don’t 
hold students responsible, I don’t 
hold Student Life responsible, I 
don’t hold myself — in that sense 
— responsible. It’s the virus. We’re 
all humans. We’re all capable 
of outstanding behavior. We’re 
all very obviously capable of 
momentary lapses in behavior… 

TMD: So then you feel like 

the University is as prepared as it 
possibly could be?

MS: I think every day we 

become better at what we do. 
So I would of course not say 
that we’re optimally prepared, 
because none of us have ever been 
through this before … We’re all 
trying to make our way through 
a complicated and completely 
novel set of circumstances. For 
example, there’s been a lot of 
attention focused on this issue of 
testing. And there’s a notion that 
if we could simply test everybody 
all the time, nobody would get 
sick. And that’s an exaggerated 
statement, so I don’t want to get in 
trouble making more exaggerated 
statements, but testing detects 
if you’re already sick. It doesn’t 
prevent you from being sick. The 
whole state of Michigan right now 
is averaging around 25,000 tests a 
day — the whole state … If we were 
to test everybody twice a week, 
we would dramatically exceed 
the testing done in our 10 million 
person state. What we are doing is 
we’re recognizing that surveillance 
testing is an important part of 
keeping the community safe. … The 
way you work on these problems is 
you do as much sort of theoretical 
thinking in advance as you can, 
and then you have the flexibility to 
modify and change as you actually 
implement and try to make things 
better every day. So I don’t feel 
optimally prepared. I argue that 
nobody in the country probably 
feels globally prepared. Our nation 
was not optimally prepared and it’s 
struggling to get to that level, but 
we’ll get better at this every day.

TMD: Tuition from students is a 

substantial part of the University’s 
revenue, and according to a survey 
conducted by Central Student 
Government over the summer, 
a majority of students surveyed 
said they would consider changing 
their plans and not enrolling full 
time if courses were fully online. 
If more funding were available 
from the state of Michigan and the 
federal government, would you 
have been more comfortable with a 
fully remote semester?

MS: More funding is always 

welcome … But I think what we 
would have endeavored to do, 
regardless of resources, is provide 
the courses in person that students 
can only take in person, that they 
need for their programs, they 
need for licensure, they need to 
progress to graduation, which is, 
you know, pretty much, pretty 
similar to what we’re doing now. 
But the additional funding would 
have allowed us to do this, passing 
less of the burden onto students 
and their families.

With less than one week 

until the first day of classes, 
some students, faculty and staff 
have raised concerns about 
how the University of Michigan 
will contain possible COVID-
19 
outbreaks. 
Among 
these 

concerns is how students will 
quarantine or isolate themselves 
to prevent spreading the virus, 
particularly those living in off-
campus housing. 

The University says there are 

600 rooms available for students 
who need to quarantine, but 
it remains unclear how and 
to whom these rooms will 
be 
provided. 
According 
to 

the 
University’s 
Maize 
and 

Blueprint website, the hub of 
information related to various 
COVID-19 policies, there will be 
spaces identified for “any U-M 
student who needs quarantine/
isolation.” 

The page also specifies that 

the Washtenaw County Health 
Department, 
in 
coordination 

with 
the 
University, 
will 

determine whether a student’s 
off-campus living situation is 
adequate to quarantine or isolate 
them effectively. 

In an email to The Daily, 

University spokeswoman Kim 
Broekhuizen 
confirmed 
off-

campus students could use the 
quarantine housing, assuming 
their situation meets certain 
qualifications. 

“The 
university 
isolation 

and 
quarantine 
plan 
does 

allow for off-campus students 
to be placed in the designated 
isolation or quarantine space,” 
Broekhuizen wrote. “(This is) if 
the current living arrangement 
is determined to be unsuitable 
and the student is unable to go to 
a permanent home.” 

The Health Department will 

evaluate each off-campus living 
arrangement on a case-by-case 
basis as people living there test 
positive for COVID-19. If too 
many off-campus students need 
space to quarantine, however, 
the Health Department may not 
be able to quickly manage all of 
those evaluations. 

Susan 
Ringler-Cerniglia, 

public 
information 
officer 

for 
the 
Washtenaw 
County 

Health Department, said the 
department’s resources could 
quickly 
be 
overwhelmed 
if 

cases spread due to students 
congregating.

“All 
these 
factors 
could 

combine to mean that cases 
spread 
very, 
very 
quickly,” 

Ringler-Cerniglia 
said. 
“So 

we as a health department, of 
course, have a limited capacity 
and limited number of folks 
that are able to follow up and 
do that case investigation and 
contact tracing. So if there’s all 
of a sudden a very large number 
of cases related to the reopening, 
then yes, our resources could be 
quickly overwhelmed.” 

LSA junior Samuel Burnstein 

said he believes the University’s 
communication has been unclear 
about how students living off-
campus should proceed if they 
or someone they live with tests 
positive for COVID-19 and needs 
to quarantine. 

“There’s been a barrage of 

emails in the last two to three 
months 
about 
changes 
to 

policies and updates to policies 
and 
revisions 
to 
policies,” 

Burnstein said. “And it’s so hard 
to discern what the current 
(policy is), where to even find 
that policy. It’s not something 
that is easily Google-able. So if 
I were to get sick on the third 
day of school being open, I don’t 
know immediately how to go 
about finding testing and I’m 
sure I’m not alone in that. And 
that’s what is kind of very utterly 
frustrating.” 

Testing 
for 
symptomatic 

students is offered through 
University Health Services. In 
addition to the standard advice 
of limiting in-person contact, 
cleaning surfaces often and 
monitoring for symptoms of 
COVID-19, there are certain 
steps to take if someone in a 
communal living arrangement 
contracts the virus. 

Students who test positive 

after visiting a non-University 
affiliated testing site are asked 
to report their case here. For 
non-symptomatic students who 
want a test, the University has a 
list of outside vendors.

According 
to 
guidance 

from Michigan Medicine, it 
is important to pick a “sick” 
bedroom and bathroom the 
infected person alone can use. 
Their laundry should also be 
kept 
separate. 
Roommates 

can help them track changes 
and ease their symptoms by 
helping them to eat and hydrate 
regularly. Visitors should be 
limited and those who live there 
should stay home.

After 
the 
person 
has 

recovered, they should remain 
quarantined 
until 
they 
are 

fever-free without medication 
for three days, their respiratory 
symptoms have improved and 
10 days have passed since their 
symptoms first appeared. Those 
exposed should also stay home 
for 14 days after they were 
exposed. More information from 
the University on quarnatining 
can be found here.

LSA sophomore Saad Shami 

said he expects the virus to 
spread on campus, in part due to 
the lack of testing for students 
living in off-campus housing. 

“With all the people living 

off campus, none of them were 
tested before they arrived on 
campus,” Shami said. “So I think 
it’s pretty likely that someone 
off campus, maybe even in my 
apartment complex, has COVID 
at the moment. So yeah, I’m 
definitely concerned about that 
for sure.”

Ringler-Cerniglia 
also 

stressed 
concerns 
about 

large, 
off-campus 
housing 

arrangements, such as Fraternity 
and Sorority Life housing, and 
said those living there need to 
take extra precautions. 

“Certainly those situations 

where there’s a large number 
of people in direct contact 
do present that possibility of 
quickly 
spreading,” 
Ringler-

Cerniglia said. “It’s all the 
more important for them to be 
very conscious of additional 
socializing. 
Certainly, 
that 

would fall under the concerns we 
have about congregate housing 
and partying or socializing and 
spreading cases even further.” 

Parties at off-campus houses 

were 
seen 
around 
campus 

Sunday through Tuesday by 
multiple Daily reporters.

Even 
if 
the 
Health 

Department can sustain case-
by-case 
investigations, 
many 

community 
members 
are 

worried 600 rooms will not be 
enough for everyone who tests 
positive for COVID-19 or who 
has ‘sustained personal contact’ 
with someone who tests positive 
for the virus. As of fall 2019, 
the University’s Ann Arbor 
campus had a total enrollment of 
approximately 48,000 students, 
with approximately two-thirds 
of undergraduates living off-
campus. 

When asked about concerns 

that 600 beds would not be 
enough, Broekhuizen explained 
how that number was generated. 

“The 
600 
bed 
capacity 

was determined based upon 
benchmark comparison with 
similar-sized peer institutions,” 
Broekhuizen said. 

After one week of in-person 

classes at the University of 
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 
there were only four rooms left 
available in the dorm used to 
quarantine students who were 
close contacts of people who 
tested positive for COVID-19. 

Burnstein, who will be living 

in a co-op this year, expressed 
concern over how the virus will 
spread through co-ops, similar 
to how many have been worried 
about the safety of FSL housing. 

He said students in co-ops 

have to do chores, and one of the 
additional chores at his co-op is 
sanitizing doorknobs. But “that’s 
the extent of the changes that 
are being made to the lifestyle of 
those who are in the co-ops.”

“I really think that a lot 

of attention will be paid to 
Greek 
life 
but 
not 
nearly 

enough attention will be paid 
to co-ops,” Burnstein said. “In 
my experience, at least in the 
last couple of weeks, they’ve 
signaled that they’ve done very, 
very little to prepare the houses 
and the students for you know, 
COVID in the fall.” 

Rackham student Paul Rizik 

disagreed. He moved into a 
co-op last week and lived in 
Inter-Cooperative 
Council 

housing prior to the COVID-19 
pandemic. He said there have 
been 
numerous 
changes 
to 

procedures to protect students 
from contracting the virus. 

“We no longer have communal 

meals (and) we have assigned 
bathrooms to minimize people’s 
exposure,” Rizik wrote in an 
email to The Daily. “We have 
a house policy dictating that 
everyone has to wear masks 
in public spaces until 2 weeks 
into the semester, and every 
cleaning chore I’ve done has 
taken nearly twice the amount 
of time it did before I left, since 
people’s standards are so much 
higher.” 

According to Sarah Kathleen 

Garcia, ICC’s vice president for 
finance, the ICC has assembled 
a COVID-19 task force to 
meet weekly and discuss how 
members can best be kept 
safe. She added that houses 
have taken various actions to 
limit the spread of the virus, 
including 
quarantining 
new 

members and requiring masks 
in common areas. Currently, 
Garcia said, the ICC dictates 
each house must discuss their 
guest policy at a general meeting 
as soon as possible and no guests 
are allowed during the move-in 
period.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
 4 — Wednesday, September 2, 2020 

Quarantining could be 
difficult with roommates

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Some students living in off-campus housing are unsure of how to keep their roommates safe if they have to quarantine at home.

EMMA RUBERG
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Schlissel: U-M could ‘prove 
to be like everybody else’

EMMA STEIN & 
CALDER LEWIS
Daily News Editor & 
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Health procedures pose challenges for those living off-campus 

University president discusses plans for hybrid fall semester

