The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, September 9, 2020 — 5
Multiple residence halls confirm cases of COVID-19
Multiple residents across three
University of Michigan residence
halls tested positive for COVID-
19 less than a week into the fall
semester.
One resident of South Quad
Residence Hall, two residents
of Bursley Residence Hall and
one
resident
of
North
Quad
Residence Hall tested positive
for the virus over the weekend,
according to notices from Danielle
Sheen, executive director of the
Environment, Health & Safety
Department, obtained by The
Michigan Daily.
All four students were relocated
from their respective residence
halls after receiving their results,
and spaces where they were present
have been disinfected.
University spokesperson Rick
Fitzgerald confirmed all four cases
in an email to The Daily. He said the
notifications to residents and staff
of affected dorms are part of the
University’s efforts to be proactive
in
informing
the
community
about the presence of the virus on
campus.
“Public
health
community
notification
is
designed
to
proactively
make
the
U-M
community aware of positive cases
on campus,” Fitzgerald wrote. “We
are following our normal protocol
for sharing publicly about potential
exposures to infectious diseases,
like COVID-19, mumps, norovirus.”
Also according to protocol,
Fitzgerald said residents and staff
“identified as close contacts” of the
four residents who tested positive
were contacted separately by the
Environment, Health & Safety
Department and that those who
did not receive a follow-up are
considered at low risk of having
been exposed.
Fitzgerald
did
not
confirm
whether
these
four
residents
have been relocated to University
Quarantine & Isolation Housing,
which the University’s COVID-
19 dashboard shows to be at 5.8%
occupancy currently with nine
positive COVID-19 cases and 26
who were either exposed or await
test results.
The list of positive cases in
University Housing continues to
grow with these four, after two
cases were reported in West Quad
Residence Hall during move-in
week. The COVID-19 dashboard
reflects an even greater total of
26 positive cases among students
within the past 14 days.
These additional cases are being
reported less than two weeks after
the majority of incoming residents
moved into University residence
halls. While University Housing
made
modifications
to
their
move-in procedures to minimize
exposure and crowding, several
students told The Daily these
precautions — such as limiting
students to one guest to help them
move and requiring masks in
common areas — went unenforced.
Residential staff voiced concerns
prior to move-in and demanded
increased protections for both
themselves and their residents,
such as an increase in testing, more
personal protective equipment and
bathroom sanitation to occur three
times a day. Regarding the latter,
Fitzgerald wrote that bathrooms in
residence halls are “sanitized twice
a day using EPA-regulated agents.”
The University is also a week into
its hybrid semester, with 31 percent
of undergraduate classes featuring
in-person or hybrid instructions.
The partially in-person mode of
instruction has drawn criticism
as well from faculty in particular.
The Faculty Senate will meet next
Wednesday to consider a vote of
no confidence in the University
administration regarding its fall
reopening.
Any member of the campus
community with symptoms should
contact University Health Service
at 734-764-8320 for a free COVID-
19 test and isolate themselves.
Those with mild symptoms can
also use the University’s Online
Assessment system to begin the
testing process.
JULIANNA MORANO
Daily Staff Reporter
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
When Nick Gaspar saw an article
about the Chinese government’s
rush to build a new Wuhan, China
hospital in February, the University
of Michigan-Flint distance learning
director started silently working on
a new website in February.
Gaspar, an adjunct lecturer
in nursing, didn’t think the page
would ever be used, but in case
the University suddenly moved to
remote learning, he wanted faculty
members to have a resource guide
on what to do. He built what is now
the Academic Continuity page on
the U-M Flint website.
The first item on the Academic
Continuity page is a video Gaspar
didn’t think anyone would see.
A month later, Gaspar stood in
a faculty meeting as everyone
watched it.
“Hello,
I’m
Nick
Gaspar,
director of the Office of Extended
Learning,” he says in the video. “If
you are watching this, then there is
likely an emergency preventing you
from teaching on campus.”
Gaspar described the week
of March 9 as exciting rather
than troublesome. Because the
University’s Flint and Dearborn
campuses have regularly offered
online courses each semester, many
faculty members have previous
experience teaching online. Both
campuses also had centralized
departments responsible for online
instruction
assistance
before
remote teaching became universal,
which faculty said helped ease the
transition.
Jill Darling, a lecturer at the
College of Arts, Sciences and
Letters on the Dearborn campus,
has been teaching online for nearly
four years. Usually, she teaches one
online section and three in-person
sections of a writing course.
“I was pretty comfortable with
it, but also teaching online is so
different than teaching in person,”
Darling said. “It’s like you have to
continually learn and improve the
class every time.”
This year, Darling gained access
to Zoom to connect with students
in
her
asynchronous
classes.
Rather
than
technical
issues
or online experience, Darling’s
primary concern during the remote
transition in the winter semester
was her students’ well-being.
Similarly,
for
Stevens
Wandmacher,
a
philosophy
lecturer on the Flint campus, the
only difference this semester is
teaching
synchronously
with
Zoom. Wandmacher had been
teaching at least one online course
each semester before COVID-19.
He once had a former student take
another course with him online
because it fit the student’s schedule
better.
“We had all that, a well-
established staff dedicated to those
sorts of things for when COVID
started, and people who had never
taught online had to switch,”
Wandmacher said. “We had people
that were prepared to help them
with experience and whatnot, and
I think that helped us a lot in Flint.”
This pivot felt more rigid for
instructors on the Ann Arbor
campus,
according
to
Kirsten
Herold, a lecturer at the School of
Public Health who serves as the
Lecturers’ Employee Organization
vice president.
Herold, whose union represents
lecturers on all three campuses,
said
transitioning
to
online
instruction has been particularly
difficult for Ann Arbor faculty
members, who have less experience
with online teaching than faculty
on the other campuses.
“I think the main difference
really was that Ann Arbor until
this point had not really embraced
online education,” Herold said.
Looking back at the winter
term, when faculty had five days to
convert classes to online formats,
Cindee Giffen, a Biology lecturer on
the Ann Arbor campus, views that
time as crisis management.
When preparing to teach this
semester, Giffen didn’t anticipate
certain challenges — for example,
the large time commitment needed
to build an accessible online course.
She spent nine weeks converting
her Biology 171 course to a digital
format over the summer.
“I would say that what we were
doing in March was emergency
online teaching, it was not really
possible for us to use good online
pedagogy at that point,” Giffen said.
“And so it was anxiety-inducing, it
was difficult. It was learning a ton
of new things all at once.”
Giffen and her co-instructor
recorded lectures, rewrote exams,
edited old recordings, modified
course content and added COVID-
related material, split videos into
smaller clips and wrote guiding
questions to keep students focused
during videos in preparation for
fall semester, which she didn’t have
time to do in March.
The
Michigan
Daily
anonymously
surveyed
nearly
1,800 incoming University of
Michigan freshmen to gauge
their
feelings
on
everything
from schoolwork to social life as
they begin college amid a global
pandemic and period of social
unrest.
The unprecedented nature of
2020 is not the only thing that
sets the incoming class apart.
The University aimed to enroll
approximately 7,200 students for
the freshman class this fall, a 20
percent increase from the target
class size six years ago.
Out
of
the
65,899
total
applicants
for
fall
2020,
17,054
were
admitted
and
7,188 matriculated as of July
26, according to the Office of
Undergraduate
Admissions
student profile. The University
admitted 25.88 percent of its
applicants, compared to the 23
percent acceptance rate for the
fall 2018 applicants reported by
U.S. News & World Report.
The fall 2020 incoming class
earned a median high school GPA
of 3.90, with a middle 50 percent
range of 1380 to 1550 for the SAT
and 32 to 35 for the ACT.
University
spokesman
Rick
Fitzgerald wrote in an email
to The Daily that as of Aug. 19,
69 percent of undergraduate
classes will be taught remotely,
and 31 percent will be taught in
an in-person or hybrid format,
not including independent study
courses.
The
following
data
was
collected from a survey sent to
6,685 freshmen on Aug. 10, which
received a total of 1,785 responses
over three weeks. Approximately
58 percent of those surveyed
identified
as
female
and
approximately
41
percent
identified as male, with 1 percent
identifying as other. Fifty-three
percent of respondents are from
Michigan, while 44 percent hail
from other states and 2 percent
are international.
CAMPUS LIFE
Where will freshmen be in
the fall?
Despite close to 70 percent
of undergraduate courses being
taught remotely, 66 percent of
incoming freshmen surveyed said
they plan to be on campus in the
fall, taking at least one in-person
class. Another 18 percent of
respondents said they will be
living on campus and taking all
online classes, and the other
six percent reported they will
live off-campus and take classes
either online or in-person. Only
10 percent of those surveyed,
on the other hand, will be
completing coursework at home.
How
comfortable
are
incoming
freshmen
with
attending house parties in
light of COVID-19?
Results show 68.4 percent of
respondents are either very or
somewhat uncomfortable with
attending house parties amid the
pandemic. The other 31.7 percent
are either somewhat or very
comfortable.
Of the freshmen who said
they were somewhat or very
comfortable
with
attending
house parties, the majority of
students were interested or very
interested
in
Fraternity
and
Sorority Life.
Concerns
about
students
partying during the pandemic
have been central to criticism
of the University’s plan for
reopening campus. Engineering
freshman Catherine Jiang is an
in-state student who is living in
the dorms this semester. She said
those going to parties during this
time are neglecting to protect
themselves and those around
them.
“If it was a normal college
semester, going to parties is like
whatever, that’s their prerogative
— you can do whatever you
want,” Jiang said. “But right now,
if you’re going out to parties,
you’re endangering people living
around you, and you don’t know
what situations they have at
home. So it’s like endangering a
much larger population. And I
just don’t agree with people who
are willing to take that risk at this
current state of the world.”
How interested are incoming
freshmen in Fraternity and
Sorority Life?
The University is home to
more than 60 sororities and
fraternities, and 17 percent of
the undergraduate population
is involved in Fraternity and
Sorority Life. In recent months,
certain FSL chapters have been
the subject of increasing scrutiny
from college communities for
enacting exclusionary practices.
LSA freshman Eliana Kraut
said she is hoping to rush a
sorority at some point in her
college experience. She explained
how the campus social life was
one of the reasons why she
decided to attend the University,
but she said she would rather hold
off until it is safe before going out.
“That’s part of the reason I
came to Michigan, among the
really strong academics, really
strong art side, the environment,
football games — parties were
part of it,” Kraut said. “So now,
not having that kind of sucks, but
at the same time, I’d rather it not
happen until it’s safe, because
otherwise we just risk being shut
down and that would be so much
worse.”
Meet the Class of 2024: Freshmen
embark on unprecedented year
A survey from The Daily showcases first year students’ feelings, attitudes on
topics ranging from social life, academics to responses to the global pandemic
Graphic courtesy of Web Team
Student responses to the question ‘where will freshmen be in the fall?’
Flint, Dearborn
campuses talk
familiarity with
online teaching
Both U-M locations offer centralized
departments for virtual instruction
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
KRISTINA ZHENG
Daily Staff Reporter
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
South Quad, North Quad, Bursley relocate students with positive coronavirus tests following first week of classes
DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily
Cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed at North Quad, South Quad and Bursley Monday afternoon.
AYSE ELDES
Daily Staff Reporter